Preliminary Christmas Card Designs for 2016

At this stage of the game, all ponies are fair game, even with ones without holiday adornment

On Understanding the Works of Other Artists

A Thelwell cartoon I chose to study

My freehand copy, made with an eye towards understanding Thelwell's line work.

One of the most challenging things about drawing or painting in another artist's style, is finding the correct rhythm of the artwork. For example, I am very well-versed in pen & ink. However, every masterful artist does a pen & ink drawing a little bit differently. In order to study the work of another artist, one must try to understand how they placed their lines and other marks on the page. It's an interesting challenge, and greatly expanding of your skill set. By expanding your artistic viewpoint you can also enhance your artistic voice, making it more educated and facile. At least, that's the way it works for me. ;-)

A new flying pony incident has been recorded!

Friends of Flying Pony Studios know that I am an amateur naturalist collecting incidents of flying pony sightings around the world. In my growing incident files are stories and photographs I've collected documenting the appearance of flying ponies in various places throughout time. Today, I posted a new incident file on my website, the first in quite a while. This one was reported in Yellowstone in 1934 and shows a very charming spotted foal.

Click here to see the new incident file on my website. 

www.flyingponystudios.com/incident_file_3.htm

Horse Life 21

I recently happened upon a very old copy of The Ladies Home Journal in a used bookstore I know. It seems that in 1913 there was still a rather heated debate going on about whether or not it was healthful and proper for women to ride astride in “men’s” saddles.

This debate made me consider the changes in riding apparel over the subsequent years – from side-saddle “habits” to the baggy-thighed breeches of the 1920’s, all the way up to the modern paraphernalia we’ve developed for riders today.

It’s to this long progression of equestrienne fashions that I dedicate Horse Life 21– we’ve come a long way baby!

Click here to see Horse Life 21 on my website.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Editing Break

I’m currently working on edits for the third draft of Book 1 of my new Sci-Fi/ Romance series. This afternoon I found that my brain was getting kind of mushy and I decided to do some drawing to give myself a break.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am also contemplating the book’s cover art right now. When contemplating a book cover there are many questions you need to ask yourself. Of course, you want the cover to be germane to the book (although this isn’t always followed) and you also want it to be appealing to prospective readers. But that’s just where you start. A lot of consideration goes into book cover design and many times it takes a while before you get the right idea lodged in the right part of your brain. I’m at the stage now where I’m taking a look at some of my favorite contemporary illustrators for inspiration.

Charles Vess is a prolific fantasy and comic book artist who’s been around for quite a while. He’s also a particular favorite of mine. Today, I decided to copy one of his pieces in order to better understand both the construction of his people (or centaurs in this case) and his use of color.

Here’s the result next to the original image.

I suspect that I'll be continuing to look at Vess' work for some time to come. I can tell that he has much to teach me. :-)

After finishing the copy of Vess’ centaur, I decided to have a bit of fun and do it again in a more Thelwell-like style. The result is below. I like her, what she lacks in elegance she certainly makes up for in "go-to-itness."

"Centaur pony girl" - pen & ink and colored pencil

As unbelivable as this sounds...

I've just posted a Horse Life comic for the first time in MONTHS!! Horse Life 19 is now live on my website.

I had no idea that this was going to happen today, at all! I had put together my first gouache palette to experiment with and decided to do a pony drawing and there, well, there we are...Horse Life 19!

You can go to the new page here: HORSE LIFE 19
or just find it at www.flyingponystudios.com.

Happy (early) Holidays to all!

Winnie

"Winnie," Tombow and Pitt Pens in a Moleskin Journal

This is Winnie, a lovely Quarter Pony owned by Eva Jacroux. Winnie is one of those super-star ponies who has seen and done everything. As all old horsepeople know, these are the kinds of ponies that are worth their weight in gold. :-)

Which are my favorite sketching tools right now?

Hands on hips, this was the question I asked myself the other day as I took stock of the many types of pencils, paints, markers, etc. that I saw lined up before me. For outdoor sketching adventures, I’ve created several small kits that I rotate through depending on what I’m feeling like that day. My three favorite sketch kits are 1. a small pen & ink and watercolor kit, 2. a small fast-sketch kit with various stumps and graphite pencils, and 3. a watercolor pencil/Neocolor II kit (my most recent favorite.)

I thought I might further refine my sketch kits further based on what tools I’m having fun using right now. But how best to check on the fun level for each tool? I decided to create a test of sorts for myself. I started by drawing a new coloring book page that I would then color with different tools. That would show me which tools would best fit my current needs. This also would also help me organize a new palette of colors for the kinds of outdoor places where I tend to sketch (horse farms, local NW scenes.)

It was a fun exercise.

Here is the line drawing I used. I photocopied the image several times onto heavy, white cover stock pages for my test.

A new pen & ink image to color.

Coloring page #1 - Tombow Dual Brush Pens and Pitt Design Pens (magic markers). I liked the look of this colored image. I thought it was very cute. I think that markers might give my sketching scenes something of an illustrative quality.

This image was colored with Tombow Dual Brush Pens and Pitt Design Pens.

Coloring page #2 - Neocolor II watersoluble crayons. I liked the look of this page too but there’s a problem with using crayons in the Summer…they melt in hot cars! Frequently, my sketch kit sits in the trunk of the car for hours until I get a moment to sketch.

This image was colored with Neocolor II crayons.

Coloring page #3 - Inktense watersoluble pencils. Inktense pencils are really cool for several reasons. The first is that their pencil leads are made of watersoluble ink. After the ink has been wet once it will never be watersoluble again. So you can build up your image without moving or changing the underlying layers. I find that the transparency of the Inktense colors also works especially well with pen & ink drawings. As another fun feature, the colors are extra bright.

This image was colored with Inktense watersoluble pencils.

Coloring page #4 - watercolor pencils (Cretacolor and Supracolor). These are the pencils that I have been using in one of current sketch kits. They are very user friendly, travel well, and lay down good color either dry or when wet with a waterbrush. Although the look isn’t as bright as with the Inktense pencils they are more versatile for many subjects.

This image was colored with Cretacolor and Supracolor watercolor pencils.

So which ones where the most FUN to use?

The results were an essential tie! I have to give the nod to both the Tombow/Pitt markers and the Cretacolor/Supracolor watercolor pencils. I think both will serve my needs very well and are very fun to use.

Evening update!

I have since created two new sketch kits – one with the markers and one with the colored pencils and I’ve bundled them together into the same little carry bag. Now I feel ready for all sorts of new adventures! Tally ho!

Horse Life 18

Horse Life 18 is here! Finally. Yay!

This cartoon is part of an on-going series I’m calling “Rules of the Road,”  the full title of which is “Rules of the Road: A Standard Guide to Riding.”  I’m having a lot of fun with these. The text is all traditional, straight out of riding manuals from the 1970’s and before. The advice given is all good and proper BUT making it work for you as a rider is another thing entirely. It all looks good on paper but when you’re out there with your pony or horse, all bets are usually off! After more than 40 years as a rider, I know what I’m talking about. Believe me! All the same, the fun is in the joke of it. We all want to be Velvet Brown from “National Velvet” and we all end up being characters from Thelwell cartoons instead. Although it wasn’t always true, at this point I’ve learned to see the humor in it and appreciate the not-so-subtle joke. ;-)

Click HERE to see Horse Life 18 on my website.

A Report From The Field

I spent some quality time sketching horses this afternoon at Brenda Jacroux's farm in Carnation, WA. The weather was perfect for sketching and the bugs not bad.

Below are, in order, Percy, Sweet Pea, and Winnie. Along with a few clover flowers. All were done with pen and brush, some with watercolor, and all in my Moleskin journal.

Learning to Draw Cartoons

Although I have been a cartoonist since I was a little girl, I have always been a “shy” cartoonist, keeping most of my cartoons to myself. That is until recently when I decided to risk showing off my cartooning skills in an arena that I knew pretty darn well – horses and ponies. Thus “Horse Life” was born.

Today, I thought I’d give you a backstage look at the development of some of my “Horse Life” characters. My sketchbooks are full of drawings like these, although many are less finished. Some characters seem quite chatty as sketches and always have something to say to me (usually in the margins!) When I was drawing “Privateer Princess” I had dialogs with my characters all the time, with various chatty characters frequently complaining about how I was drawing their hair, or about their lack of stage time, etc.. 

I think a lot of illustrators do this. It’s a great way of developing your ideas while staying in your characters' heads. It’s also pretty darn fun! 

The following sketches are from my most current sketchbook.

Horse and rider sizes and shapes.
Image copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2012

Horse and rider sizes and shapes.
Image copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2012.

Bucking sketches.
Image copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2012

Artists never stop drawing. Our fingers get too itchy if we try. It's a great thing when you can draw something near and dear to your heart, which is how I feel about drawing horses and riders. Perhaps one day I'll be famous for my cartoons, one never knows...but in the meantime, I can happily report that I improve with every sketch and am totally thrilled with the journey!

Horse Life 16

Horse Life 16 is now up on my website!

This one was fun. Who knows what horses dream about after a long day at the horse show. Do they wonder what might have been? Do they relive their classes and/or their previous successes?

I guess only they know…

Click here to go to the comic on my website.