Blue Duck

A few summers ago I visited my niece who owns an equestrian center in Stonewall Manitoba (near Winnipeg). She was just getting ready to start working with one of her client’s horses when she had a call. I was left to hold “Blue Duck” until she returned about 10 minutes later. In the meantime I had my phone with me and I decided to take a photo of Mr. Duck. (I really loved his braids.)

Later I found out that Blue Duck was in real life a notorious bandit. The idea came to me to create the image of the horse around his namesake. I decided to do the pastel like an old photograph from the 1800’s, faded and yellowed to convey an image of an outlaw in equine form.

I used to show horses and would braid their manes so they were very meticulously neat and orderly. His disheveled braids have a look of non-conformity and attitude. That’s the feeling I wanted to convey.