moments with wild horses #116
ACRYLIC • 48x60" • $7,000
STATUS: AVAILABLE
I love that with still wet gloss on my canvas I can smoothly sweep my large palette knife across the canvas with the colors. In my painting of Spring Creek Basin stallion Steeldust, the colors are Alizarin Crimson, soft Cobalt Teal, and Pyrrole Orange. This stallion was so dynamic. He was amazing to watch. It was August 2011. He had bites all over his skin from all his battles. I loved painting him, showing his stand and determination. There was a younger stallion named Mouse, for his color, who kept running off Steeldust from his mares and foals. Steeldust just would not quit!! We watched them for a very long time and knew from the sun that if we were going to find more mustang herds, we had to move on. The dust was still swirling all around the two big mustangs when we left. Leslie Frenz of Artsy Forager of Painted Ponies wrote September 17, 2012 “…...In her paintings artist Karen Keene Day perfectly captures the untamed beauty and spirit of American wild horses..…Through her use of simple painted line drawing, juxtaposed with slashes of vibrant color, Day translates into her work the innate wildness of the animals and unique personality each one displays.” I thank Leslie for these insightful comments, in particular for her appreciation of my simply painted lines…”juxtaposed with slashes of vibrant color.” Early on, I painted simply straight forward lines with the kind of palette & brush movements you see in MWWH#116 of Steeldust, and my MWWH #s 229,136 and Red Stallion Sand Wash Basin, and others in my About Page and more. For a while I did not have the confidence to paint this way, yet it was what was coming out of me from my heart. It’s who and what I am. I had pored through other artists’ works of art, comparing. After months I realized that if I was going to be me I really had to be brave. Happiness was then what I felt. I read a powerful quote from Rita Mae Brown: “The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you but yourself.”