Horse Paintings

Shop for horse portraits and horse race action paintings, canvas and art prints direct from artist studio online below or in person at Koehler Art Studio Gallery. Horse paintings include, watercolor, acrylic and oil paintings of horse portraits, spirit horse, the Preakness, Kentucky Derby, wild horses running on the plains, westerns, thoroughbreds, jumpers and horse race paintings by equine artist

HANNE LORE KOEHLER

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Artist comments, prices of original painting and prints are listed below the ENLARGED image.

With art prints, posters, art cards, acrylic prints and canvas prints available in many sizes framed or unframed, you can decorate your home, cottage, sports bar, sports facility, sports injuries clinic or commercial sports center with this unique artwork at a price to suit every budget.

Inquire about the availability of an original painting, a price for ordering a painting of a favorite horse or race action scene in your personal photograph collection or the commission of a horse painting for your fundraising project. From your favorite young colt in the meadow to your Kentucky Derby winner, your painting will be painted personally and with sensitivity by artist Hanne Lore Koehler. Satisfaction guaranteed. We deliver worldwide. International clients welcome!

My love for action and fascination with capturing a flash of movement in this motionless art form should be evident in my horse paintings. I am excited to capture the muscle action of a stallion running wild and free on the western plains with wind swooping down from stormclouds and flashes of light highlighting a flying mane and tail through the darkness. I am thrilled to capture the excitement of triple crown horse racing of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes in that "hold-your-breath" anticipation of the outcome. I am delighted to capture a moment of beauty and tenderness between a mare and her foal in the rising sunshine of a peaceful spring morning hillside overlooking a misty valley. I try to express the emotions I feel in my paintings - freedom, anticipation, hope - with my own style and techniques. This work for me is exhilarating, unrestricted, satisfying.

When composing an action painting or portrait, I usually use a number of different photos as reference, combining elements that I like from each to create the composition that I'm looking for - the action from one photo, the facial expression from another, the lighting effect from a third, etc. Using today's technology makes planning a layout of a composition fun. I try different arrangements and combinations until I reach a desired effect and I catch myself smiling.

To be clear, I only use photographs as reference material for my original paintings, often producing detailed pencil drawings on the canvas before I paint. My horse racing paintings and action equine portraits are hand-painted original paintings done by looking at a photograph of the subject as if the subject were posing frozen in time in my studio. They are NOT painted over top of a mechanically reproduced photograph.

After sketching a detailed drawing in pencil of the subject on my watercolor canvas so that I know what areas of the composition to leave white (since, true to traditional watercolor techniques, I never use white paint), I begin by painting the subject, usually in quite a bit of detail in some areas. To portray movement or speed, I let some of the paint pigment run into a wet background in the opposite direction of the action in a sort of controled abandon. Finally, I paint an impressionistic background by splashing colors and water onto the wet paper canvas to add life and excitement to the piece.