Thursday, March 12, 2015

Cosmic Horse


Everyone loves a cosmic horse, right? You can spray-paint them on the sides of your van or print them on a black T-shirt. Every fantasy artist has to depict at least one of these celestial steeds, just like a New England artist has to do a lighthouse or a Southwest artist has to depict saguaro cacti and howling coyotes. I am currently working on an illustration project involving fantasy horses, one of which is a classical white unicorn. I left the horn off this starry equine. There is no cactus in the picture either.

This was inspired by the work of Mercedes Lackey, whose "Heralds" series pairs our heroes and heroines with immortal white magical telepathic horses called "Companions," who are the mounts for the chivalric magical order of Heralds. Stay tuned for more unicorn stuff.

"The Cosmic Companion" is airbrushed and paintbrushed acrylic on black illustration board, 11" x 14", fall 1991.

1 comment:

Robby Baby Dark Poet of Amour said...

Gorgeous! I mentioned "halo" and "aura" as descriptors of your use of blue. That is the closest I can come to encapsulating it. Cosmic comes to mind, too. You use it a lot as an indistinct outline with rich shades of blue that I love so much. I'm glad to have read that more of these horses are coming up :)