Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Texas longhorns







I thought the state fair would be a great opportunity to try some gesture drawings of animals, something I don't have a lot of experience with. Look what I happened upon, the Texas longhorn competition! It opened with seven cowboys riding enormous longhorns, and dressed entirely in red, white, and blue. The second picture is of them as they waited outside the arena. After entry, they lined up in front of us (us being twenty cowboys and myself sitting on the cold bleachers) and one of them broke into song. He sang "The star spangled banner", "America, the beautiful", and led us in the pledge of alliegence and a fully denominational prayer. It would have been an amazing drawing opportunity, being face to face with those cowboys and longhorns, but I stood, wide eyed, with my hand over my heart.

Longhorns do not stand still! Especially calves. While I couldn't get a good drawing of a calf, I think the fifth picture captures their jittery energy. Kids don't stand still either. I sat next to one wiggly young cowboy waiting his turn whose mother barked, "Are you here to play? Or are you here to show!"

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