Once in a lifetime meeting for young artist
Pair bond over shared love of horses
Show Indy O’Neale-Rackham an image of a horse and she’s off. Not in a canter but naming the coat colour and anatomical terms. She is also studying how to capture those features in her artwork.
Indy, who lives in Feilding, likes drawing because it is relaxing.
Her artistic talent was evident to her principal and teachers at Colyton School so they put her name forward for Feilding and District Art Society’s mentoring programme.
She was paired with Halcombe artist Eris Newson and they have met once a week since winter.
When Newson realised Indy, who turns 9 next month, loved drawing horses she showed her the book Hold Your Horses: The Life and Times of Equestrian Artist Jackie Williamson.
Indy was fascinated, so when Newson saw Williamson’s son Dean she seized the opportunity to organise a meeting.
Indy visited Williamson at her Feilding studio and they worked on a portrait of two horses, with the 92-year-old providing pointers.
Aotearoa Artist magazine says Williamson was the only girl among five children. Her father used to take her riding and she found her best friends were horses. She began drawing at 4 and, when she wasn’t riding the horses, she was drawing them.
Indy rates Newson as 1000 out of 1000 and Williamson a million out of a million.
Newson says the mentoring sessions are a two-way street in terms of learning.
Indy is comfortable providing suggestions to her mentor. “Maybe print it in black and white then you can see more details.”
The youngest of four, she is the only one in her family interested in horses and has learned a lot from YouTube.
She wants to be a vet; Newson says Indy’s art complements her interest in veterinary science.
Indy has some advice for budding watercolour artists. As the paint is half made out of water, don’t get your brush too wet.
And with that, she is back talking horses.