It’s no secret that I love my boys. We all love our ponies, right? And our dogs, and cats, and donkeys, and goats, and whatever else may be in a horse person’s menagerie. I’ve noticed that we tend to collect animals. We also tend to collect art of our favorite animals. Everything from the more typical paintings and drawings, to the more “creative” like, um… crochet ponies or glassware or socks or jewelry or belts. Yes, I think those things totally count as art too.
Throughout the years I have accumulated all of those things, related to one horse or another (and, somehow, lots of stuff featuring the corgi). If you can put my horse or my horse’s name on it, I probably want it. In my world there is no such thing as too many ponies. Henry and Presto wallpaper? Let’s do it, the whole house. The SO might disagree on that one though. Party pooper.
Currently I’ve really got most of my horse-related art on the walls in the guest room. Most of my paintings from Michelle are in there, with some of Henry’s ribbons. Another bedroom (that we currently use as storage) has a charcoal drawing of one of my old horses, and my favorite photo of Sadie hangs in the hallway between the entryway and our bedroom.
I’ve also got a couple of glasses that Michelle painted, featuring Presto and Henry. Having a friend that likes to paint for fun (and is super good at it!!!) is a huge perk. If I lived alone I would probably ask her to paint a life-size canvas of both boys for every room in the house and just call it a day. I’m kidding. Probably. (no I’m not)
There are also the Hamer & Clay ornaments, of which I have a decent collection going.
The one thing I don’t have is tattoos of my horses, mostly because a) if I started putting all my horses on my body I would run out of space, b) I haven’t come across an artist that I trust enough to really capture them accurately. I do have a tattoo of A horse, but it’s Fledge, the first flying horse of Narnia. Because if the rest of this post hasn’t convinced you that I am a nerd, the quarter sleeve devoted to literature (actually all but one of my tattoos are devoted to some kind of literature…) will surely do it.
Do socks count as art? I say yes. My Henry XC-face socks (officially my “cross country day” socks for 2018) remain, in my opinion, one of the best things I’ve ever bought. Yes, put my pony’s picture on items of apparel, please and thank you. The best part of these bad boys is the reaction people have when they first notice them.
Last month Because Pony had a sale on her digital drawings, and once I saw how cute Hillary‘s turned out, I had to commission two of my own. I mean… who wouldn’t want little cartoon interpretations of their horses? Okay fine, maybe I’m a child. But when you have horses as, um, expressive as my two nerds, it’s kind of fitting. And I have to say, she absolutely nailed both of them.
There’s screaming Presto:
And derping Henry:
Now I’m trying to decide what to do with the files. I could have them printed and framed, I just don’t know where exactly I’d put them. I did already order a nice vinyl sticker of each of them, to put on my Stanley trunk. They definitely make great stickers. These are so cute though, I feel like they need more physical representation than that. So…what to do, what to do?
What kind of art do you guys have of your ponies? Any fun new “outside the box” stuff out there that I definitely NEED?
I love this post! I do a lot of watercolor, mostly of mountains/plants/landscapes, but I’m thinking of adding ponies and kitties and puppies to the list, because I have many animals and need to see their beautiful (derp) faces all the time on my walls. 😜Is a house a home if the walls aren’t covered in your animal’s most shining moments? I think not.
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DO IT! I love watercolor.
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Can you have them made into window stickers for your car? That would be a cute way of representing them while letting the masses adore them.
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A friend of mine from my hometown paints ornaments so I know have an ornament for pretty much every dog, horse, and pony from the last 2 years. One of my good friends also paints and she gifted me a really awesome watercolor painting of a fox hunt that I have in my office. And the first Dog-A-Day that Lesli DeVito painted this year is of our late foxhound, Peaches. https://www.instagram.com/leslidevitopaintings/
I LOVE ART OF MY PETS! 🙂
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I think the answer is pretty clear… you should put them on socks! And a cell phone cover. Definitely stickers.
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Sadly I have to keep my phone locked away inside the strongest Otterbox known to man, because I am extremely destructive. Like, how many times can your phone end up under a horse’s foot before it’s clearly your fault?
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I have a paw print tattoo for my dog, Tucker. I think that’ll be the extent of my animal related body art though cuz like you said, it’s hard to make them realistic/accurate.
My sister is an art major and has painted both Tucker and Siggy for me… those are my faves 🙂 At some point I really want to get a professional portrait painted of Siggy though! I would love to put something gorgeous of him above a future fireplace, etc.
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You want horsey art collections? Have I got horsey art collections for you! The biggest is my model horses. I got into the model horse hobby back in ’02 when I saw cute little Breyer plastic model foals advertised in a magazine, and thought it would be fun to paint them to look like my horses as they would have looked as babies. They turned out very cute, but little did I know they were (oh oh!) gateway models; you take a few puffs of Breyer or Stone plastics and before you know it, you’re mainlining artists’ resins! I now have well over a thousand model horses, of every size (less than one inch tall to a foot tall), breed (Akhal-teke to zebra), and material (plastic, resin, china, Fimo, brass, spelter, lead, etc.), plus tons of tack, props, rider dolls, dioramas – you name it. They’ve taken over the whole basement, and have seeped up the stairs into the kitchen, dining room and living room. So far the second storey is horseless… At least a dozen of them are customized to look like my long-gone heart horse, Patches, and some are of more recent mounts too. Have also stitched my horses into several needlework projects over the years. And of course, the millions of photos. When I shuffle off this mortal coil, someone is going to have a helluva time figuring out what to do with ALL. THIS. STUFF.
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I still have that crochet Isabel from the blogger secret Santa a few years ago and just luvs it. She goes everywhere with us in the truck!
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