Ode - Full Illustration and Progress Gif (Patreon)

This has been on my bucket-list for a long time.
Properly drawing and painting Ode was one of my first priorities when I started drawing horses again last year, starting to work on a forest background to place her in that in the end turned too detailed and vast while still looking unfinished - I promised myself to return to it, but when I did I found myself not being that invested in the location anymore.

So I started from scratch with a completely new drawing of Ode, based off a photo I took of her in 2020. That was the last time I saw her and I'm glad I got to take so many pictures of her before her passing.

There's a long story behind this mare, so BUCKLE UP if you're not familiar with it yet, I might've told it before a couple of years back:

Ode was the most beautiful, caring, strong, calm and soothing mare I've ever met in my entire life.
Meeting her was enchanting, everyone who met her was instantly enarmoured by her. She was like a spirit of nature. If you felt down, visiting the big white mare was an instant release of stress. She was always SO calm and patient. Petting her felt like instantly grounding yourself, it was soothing.
If somebody would have asked me where to meet Mother nature herself, I would have pointed at this 1 ton heavy Percheron Drafthorse and said "There she is, Gaia incarnated". and I would've been DEAD SERIOUS

Ode belonged to a farmer next door to us and for a long time he kept her grazing on his meadow together with her sister and both their kids, two pitch-black Percheron-mixes. Over time her sister died, her sisters black adult foal got sold and she was left with her only son Blitz.
Then Blitz had also been sold and the farmer left Ode on her own without any company for over a year, the worst thing you can do to a social herd animal. And he NEVER brought her into the stable or gave her some shelter from the elements, resulting in her developing arthrosis in her legs and her hooves needing urgent care.
We tried SO many times to call the society for prevention of animal cruelty on him, but we could NEVER get him because he'd always manage to find a loophole to take advantage of...so we did the only thing we COULD do:
We bought the mare off of him. Which unfortunately also took some time, because that old cuttthroat wanted 1000 bucks for a mare with NO use, who'd never been ridden before or used as a Draft horse, she had LITERALLY only been used for breeding to sell expensive Percheron foals.
So we collected money from all our friends, I pitched in from my savings, my mom took some of the savings she had at the time as well and a neighbor of us who wanted to help managed to beat down the price to 900 bucks, chipped in as well and offered us to drive Ode to a rescue station, where horses in need could be brought in and get to find a new owner.
There was NO WAY we could've kept her, but buying her free to find a new home elsewhere was incredibly rewarding. The Rescue station was very unique, basically a baby hatch for horses, where people could anonymously leave their horse if they were no longer able to take care of it. Usually past owners were not allowed to get in contact with their horses again. The address of the new owners would be kept a secret, but because we brought Ode under different circumstances, we were allowed to get in contact with the family who adopted her right the next day.

Ode lived one last fulfilling year in her new home on a big farm, instantly becoming the new leader of the mixed herd of horses and ponies and adopting the only black horse of the herd that obviously reminded her of her son. The family who bought her even sent us photos, the women of the family proudly telling us she was even able to ride Ode and that she carried humans with such care and so naturally as if she had done it her entire life.

Ode died in the Winter of 2021 when she was no longer able to get up due to the pain caused by her Arthrosis. For a long time she was able to walk, getting medication every day, but one morning she simply refused to get up.  She left a big void in all of our hearts, we were surprised how the family suffered just as much as we did considering that Ode had only been in their care for a year and a half - but they had all seen and felt how special this mare was.
I still curse at the farmer for being responsible for Ode's Arthrosis. He still takes care of all of his animals like farmers did 200 years ago and I wish someone would finally shut his farm down.
But I'm also grateful that we were still able to gift Ode one last year of pure joy, love and care with a new herd and a family who was just as enchanted by her and loved her as much as we loved her. Watching her lighten up at the sight of new horses and beginning to trot after she had stood still on her paddock, depressed, for 10 months, was one of the biggest joys I ever witnessed and will never forget.

I miss her dearly and I grew unexpectedly melancholic while drawing this piece. Wherever she is now, I wouldn't put it past her if she had become a Guardian spirit, roaming the realms freely and bringing you comfort if you call on her for protection.
There was simply something magic about her.
A true goddess of nature like I've never come across before.
I hope you're doing well, wherever you are ❤️

Also yes I have BAWLED my eyes out writing about her GFJDKJGFDGJFKG She just means a lot to me OKAY? I think that comes across through the illustration as well :'D I'm quite proud of it, I wanted to work with some thicker contrasting lineart too so she's well visible on a card print (I STILL want to print my own Bella Sara cards one day...)
I noticed all of my best horse illustrations have been of horses I personally knew or have taken photos of myself. I guess the more personal your connection, the stronger the illustrations become and gain more depths than with regular references you find on the internet... there's so much layers to creating art and how powerful it can become based on what you draw and why, it never ends to be fascinating to me...there's always something new to learn and experience

The last photo by the way is from Gigja Einars on Instagram. Her Photograph inspired me to start this illustration, as I wanted to work with this scenery and the lighting. I ended up changing a lot of things tho, as the sky was very tone-in-tone and I really liked the contrasts of the dark stormy rainclouds on Ode's photos. The white flowering plants are Arctic Cotton Grass by the way, a grass you can find in Iceland!

So now Ode is roaming the barren landscapes of Iceland...still fitting, considering it's the land of Fairies, just like Ireland LMAO