A Different Type of Horse - Spring 2008 Issue of Horses in Art Magazine

A Different Type of Horse

by Marilyn Heed

Liorse – Oil, 18 x 14, by Marilyn Heed.
At the summer 2007 art festivals, people, old and young, were fascinated with the first of my unusual type of horse paintings. I have a love of cats, I own two, and am especially drawn to the big cats. This led me to think — why not combine horses and big cats — horses with the coloring and markings of the big cats? The Tigorse, a horse with a tiger coat, was the first and the series took on its own life from there. When one was done, the idea came for the next. Once people entered my booth, they soon realized that I also paint straight-forward pieces in addition to some in between the two worlds. I like to make my fantasy paintings believable, as if they could actually be real.

Where I grew up in Southern California, the only horses available were the local stable horses. I drew horses all through school, even though teachers kept telling me to quit drawing horses. But I never did.

Tigorse – Oil by Marilyn Heed. This was the first of the big cat combined with the horse paintings.

In the early ’60s, Marilyn Heed took the Art Instruction School’s correspondence course that gave an introduction to a little bit of everything. Later, she earned her degree in art from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. Naturally, she began to specialize in horses early in her career and never looked back.

Heed’s work has been exhibited at the Art at the Classic, at the Draft Horse Classic in Grass Valley, California, for the past two years. She is an Associate Member of Women Artists of the West and a member of the Equine Art Guild.

To view more of her horse, animals, and fantasy paintings, visit her web site at www.pan-art.com.

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