A small sign on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia marked the end of Stella’s 107 mile hike northbound through the Shenandoah National Park. She wanted to continue hiking north to my Prius for my sake to give me a greater idea of what it was like to hike in the wilderness for many days. Her hiking trail runner shoes had no treads making them treacherous to wear over rocky and slippery terrain. She asked me to pick up an old pair of hiking shoes from her Florida home which I did. She switched to wearing her old hiking boots for the final 13 miles. Her feet must have grown since the last time she hiked in those old boots. Her toes kept pressing against the front of the boots making her feet ache. She actually developed a bruise on her big toenail. On top of that the souls of the shoes started flapping open like flip flops. We had to tape the heal to the boot using duct tape. The patch worked, but it would not last long. We both decided to stop the hike and explore the park by driving to locations that she had seen earlier on her hike that would make good painting subjects. I was happy that we would have more time to paint together.
Stella and I went to the stables at Skyland Resort at an elevation of 3697 feet. It started raining as we arrived. The horses were in a central corral between the stables which formed a U shape. A stable worker opened a gate and let all the horses out into a much larger open field with a feeding area filled with hay.
One horse was not allowed to go out with the others. His hoof was injured and he had to stay behind. This was lucky for us since it gave us a subject to potentially paint. The injured horse stayed at the gate wanting to join his friends. He grew more agitated. This made painting the horse a challenge. In painting his head, I had to decide which direction he would look the most. I decided he would look out at his friends the most. He never stood still. He kept hitting the gate with his front hooves. He desperately wanted to get out.
The stable hand had left which left us to paint uninterrupted. That left the injured horse unsupervised. At one point he almost had the gate kicked open to get out to the field to join his friends. Stella felt our presence might be escalating the situation. When the gate came loose, she took the initiative to make sure it stayed closed. When documenting with a sketch, I try and stay separated from the situation and just record with line and mass. Stella looked deeper into the situation and stepped in to help. I was clueless just focusing on covering the page with paint no matter what happened.
Thankfully we were under an awning which kept us from getting wet. Though I had an art stool, I could not use it since the fence would block my view. I stood and sometimes followed the injured horse to try and get the painting finished. Ultimately, Stella and I both decided the painting situation was fruitless. We both gave up without refining our initial impressions.
I have drawn horses hundreds of times with some of my online students, but in this case, I was painting rather than defining the shapes with line. Even painting, I could not resist trying to define a share with a bold line. This was a good exercise which forced me outside my comfort zone. Rain, an uncomfortable drawing angle and a very twitchy horse created the perfect storm of a difficult painting situation.