Good Hands

I grew up crazy for two things: drawing and horses. Living in a small New England city, one was for dreaming, the other to illustrate the stories of dreams. Part of growing up is getting to live your dreams. I have had that. The drawing developed into painting and training at a small school (Swain in New Bedford) that believed in basics. Most of my adult life has included horses. Of course as a subject, horses are grand. Love painting them. But there are other points where knowledge of horses and horsemanship relates to painting and the skill it requires.

“Good hands” is a term horseman use to recognize when a rider’s sensitivity with a horse is readily apparent.

Always when you get on a horse, you are training it, for better or worse. Pick up a brush and how, what you practice becomes a consideration. I have been working on a large, for me, painting on panel using a medium I like. It is a resin, Venice turp in this case with stand oil and spike, usually a medium sure to make a small work glow. Yet I am using it on a large piece and have been pleased with the results.

Things cycle through fads, what’s the newest and greatest, what’s the recipe used by the masters. And this holds true for painting as riding. And in both fads will hold sway.

In the horse world, often riders are looking for the perfect bit, that piece of metal that goes in a horse’s mouth and gives the rider control...like a medium. Snaffles, pelhams, full bridles, the terms may sound strange to a painter as would, stand oil, damar, spike oil, balsam to a horseman. Venice turp? A painter might mix it with linseed oil, a horseman would paint it on hoofs.

All these things are used to get a required result. And another thing that I think translates to each skill? The hand.

With a horse, you may indeed have a bit a horse likes better and that should be considered seriously. More, though, is the hand holding the reins, some are just better than others. Anyone may be more comfortable with one bit over another. Me? I am better with a snaffle or a pelham over a gag bit or a full bridle. (Annie will get this, lol!) For mediums? Give me a resin - balsam, Venice - with stand and a good turp, I will get results.

There is not doubt that, like a properly bitted horse, the right medium will enhance one’s ability to produce the painting one wants. So, it is good to be facile with different mediums when painting a picture, as with bits when training a horse. Knowledge of tools is good. But....but....it does all come down to the hands....and the brains behind them. The magic of the masters, equine or art, is not so much the tools used but the sensitivity of the hands through the brain.

It is not the mediums used, but the skill given. In riding the snaffle is considered a soft bit to the horse. But it can be as cruel as anything in a ham-fisted rider who has no feel for creature at the other end. As any medium, what happens at the end of brushes determines the beauty of the painting.

It has been said that good hands make the horse, perhaps the painting as well.