Shirley Isola Mesmerized By Horses - Winter 2007 Issue of Horses in Art Magazine

Shirley Isola : Mesmerized By Horses

by Sarah H. Crampton

Caballeros Andalusian — 20 x 16, Colored Pencil, by Shirley Isola. First place at the 2006 Draft Horse Classic.
While visiting her grandmother as a young girl, Shirley Isola remembers seeing a reproduction of the well-known Pharaoh’s Horses painting by J.F. Herring. She stared at it for hours, mesmerized. In a way it has influenced her artwork ever since.

Isola remarks, “I must confess, I love the snorting and tails-a-flying paintings. I enjoy capturing the powerful, exciting spirit of the horse.”

Always drawn to horses, Isola’s school workbooks were filled with doodles of the animals. She had visions of growing up to be a cowgirl artist. With no art instruction or encouragement in school to progress in her drawing skills, she graduated, got a secretarial job, married and raised a family.

“Owning a horse was quite out of the question — that’s not something one did in my family,” Isola relates. “But to fulfill my lifelong dream, I had to have that horse. So with my very first paycheck, I did. Sam, a half-Arabian, and I spent many years together.”

Years ago, utilizing an extra room for a studio, Isola returned to her love of drawing horses. She is completely self-taught. Encouraged by others to use color, she dabbled with oils but couldn’t get comfortable with a different medium. So back to pencils she went, but using colored pencils on different colors of matt board. Her resulting paintings have the appearance, tactile quality and consistency more often achieved with oil or pastel.

“I can get that detail I want and I’ve had wonderful success with colored pencil, which I believe is gaining in popularity,” explains Isola.

This winter issue’s stunning cover image is Shirley Isola’s portrayal of Travessao, an Andalusian stallion. “He was absolutely full of himself in his stall, and I was immediately taken with him. But then seeing him under saddle, he was truly dynamic. I wanted to capture that intensity in his painting.”

Travessao – 20 x 16, Colored Pencil, our winter cover art by Shirley Isola.

Isola is constantly practicing, learning, and trying new approaches to her artwork. Commenting on her favorite painting titled Shire Showtime, Isola remarks, “I don’t know what possessed me to put a black horse on a black surface, but it made for a certain eye-catching effect. Missie, the Shire mare, was a clear standout in the halter ring, and I think her beauty and presence are in the painting.”

The Pharaoh’s Horses painting that mesmerized her long ago inspired a recent work titled High Spirits. Several people commented that it is as close as Shirley Isola has been to capturing the embodiment of spirit that is the horse.

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