Society of Equestrian Artists Visit!

This week we met twenty three of Great Britain's top equestrian artists, when members of Society of Equestrian Artists visited Holtball Herd 11 and our Exmoor Pony Project to study good conformation and equine body language.

The artists are on Exmoor for their Porlock Residential Week at Porlock Vale House, painting under the guidance of expert tutors.

Braving the most awful windy and pelting wet weather, their afternoon with Exmoor ponies included a demonstration of good Exmoor pony conformation with multi-champion stallion Bear and his brood mares. I then called in the Holtball Herd 11 Exmoor ponies from the pasture and they responded with gusto, cantering into the covered area, which gave the artists the opportunity to observe the ponies in movement. They then studied the equine behaviour, expressions and body language of the herd, at close hand - photographing and sketching the ponies while we chatted about the interactions. The ponies were engaging and friendly and some firm friendships were made!

"It was a fascinating afternoon with a lovely group of people and an amazing level of talent and we hope that the information gleened will be reflected in more paintings of our endangered breed and iconic Exmoor ponies," said Dawn Westcott.

Organiser Jennifer Bell said, "“The Society of Equestrian Artists has been holding a residential Summer School at Porlock Vale for a few years now - a week of painting and studying horses with tutors Malcolm Coward and Colin Allbrook (this year’s was the biggest group so far with quite a few local artists coming to paint with us on day visits.) Artists of all standards are encouraged to come, but all share a common passion.