PPWS member and Signature Member Tammy Meeske likes to horse around! Painting horses, that is! A Colorado native, she has been painting watercolors for over 20 years!

She started drawing horses while her young children took horseback riding lessons, and as they say, the rest was history!

Tammy uses a limited palette  of:

Brown Madder • Quinacridone Sienna – Daniel Smith • Ultramarine Blue • Alizarin • Green Gold • Indian Yellow – Daniel Smith

Using a limited palette allows her to focus on the essence of the painting. She makes her own “chestnut” color by mixing brown madder and ultramarine, her version of burnt umber. She feels that these colors mixed sparingly and not over mixed allows the colors to play on the palette and gives the effect to her horse subjects that she is looking for.

Tammy learned her mixing technique from Lorraine Danzo, and uses a Stephen Quiller palette, and an Escodo #10 brush. She likes to keep her palette and water clean so her paintings don’t get “muddy”.

Tammy prefers Canson XL bright white mixed media blocks as well as Canson XL watercolor paper,  saying  the bright white and heavy weight help her in capturing sunlight and reflections. She also shared that she enjoys Escoda brushes. Tammy uses her own photos on her iPad for reference, as well at others photos, with permission, of course! Tammy doesn’t get too close and doesn’t get hung up on details.

Tammy likes to paint intuitively and tries not to overthink and overwork her pieces as she progresses. Making bold brush strokes with a fully loaded brush she  captures the muscles of her horses and by changing the direction of her brush, makes the musculature and curves happen. While doing this she saves the white areas to add sparkle and light to her painting as it is coming together. She emphasized that a good drawing is essential.

She told us it is important with her horse paintings to know where to stop and often has several pieces going at the same time in order to allow an area to dry and not overwork things.

Tammy likes to determine what her focal point is and crops her photos to maximize light. She also told us that she likes to paint an entire piece during a session and goes back and forth between a couple pieces to accomplish that, and getting the noses right is really important to her.

Passionate about horses as her subject matter, Tammy also enjoys landscapes with horses, aspens, fox, moose and a variety of subjects.

You can find Tammy at the Blue Pony Artists & Gallery in Old Colorado City where she shares the space with three other artists.  They use the space as a gallery and working studio space. She says they are “living the dream” in their new space! You can visit the gallery at 2591 W. Colorado Avenue #9 Old Town Plaza Colorado Springs.

To see more of Tammy’s work, visit her website!

A big thank you to Jane Sleppy and Nancy Neale Martin for taking such great notes for this blog post!