The Logan County Fair may be over but Sterling Creatives is celebrating rodeo all month long.
For her latest stint as feature artist Sara Bledsoe has created a series of gesture drawings depicting images from the rodeo. Gesture drawings are drawings that are done in seconds as opposed to minutes or hours.
“You have to be very quick and what you end up with is something that shows direction – left, right, up and down, it shows movement, it shows effort,” she said.
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Typically these drawings are done in less than 10 seconds and when you’re drawing at a rodeo or a sports event that’s a great skill to have because as Bledsoe points out no one is going to sit there and pose for you. When she goes to a rodeo, she will create between 30 and 60 gesture drawings and then later she’ll go back and edit them, figure out which ones she likes. She said it’s important to do a lot of drawings for this method in order to give yourself time to warm up, though that usually happens pretty quickly.
Bledsoe was impressed with the rodeo at this year’s fair, “I have to say the rodeo was really good, it was really tough livestock,” and was able to draw a variety of images.
Among the work you’ll see in Bledsoe’s latest display are drawings depicting a cowboy who fell off his horse and then went and got back on, a cowboy getting ready to rope, a hazer and a steer wrestler who has just gotten off of his horse, two bucking horses and someone running like crazy. One of her more unique drawings can be seen as two different images, at first glance, you’ll see a cowboy riding a horse with a long tail but take another look and you can also see two horses with a cowboy riding one of them
“It just happened, I didn’t plan it,” Bledsoe said.
Her exhibit will also include her saddle and some of her more finished drawings as well, which usually have stories behind them. For example, one of the drawings is based on a photograph she liked that shows some confident young riders on horses and ponies.
Bledsoe started creating gesture drawings in college, it was the first thing her art instructor taught the class. She says it’s a “God-given gift” that she’s able to do them because not all artists can be that loose and credits it to the fact that she has pretty fast reflexes.
Often gesture drawings are used to warm up for a finished drawing or as the basis for that drawing, but “they also have a beauty in and of themselves,” she said. “There’s an abstract quality to it, you’re not going to be putting in the eyelashes and the hairs on the muzzle and all of those little details, you’re just drawing to get the essence. “
Bledsoe, who has her own brand, a quarter circle lazy S connect, says her love for horses and a lot of her inspiration for drawing horses and western scenes comes from the family ranch she grew up on in Cheyenne County. Growing up she spent much of her time riding horses, some a bit more ornery than others.
She points out that while people may think a ranch and a farm are the same thing, they’re really not. Most farms are plowed, they have plots and use tractors but ranches are now plowed and generally, their value is not as high as that of farmland because farmland is on even ground while ranch land is often rougher and more suitable to cows with their poor stomachs. Plus, farms, whether it be a wheat farm, dairy farm, pig farm, etc. are all very intensive whereas when you raise cattle on a ranch you’re trusting them to go out and look for their food on pastures that aren’t plowed that have grasses and weeds.
While Bledsoe is no longer part of her family’s ranch anymore, she certainly still enjoys going to rodeos, which grew out of activities that people did on ranches such as roping, and creating drawings depicting ranch life.
“I have a great respect for ranchers and farmers,” she said.
You can see Bledsoe’s work, meet the artist and enjoy ice cream at Sterling Creatives’ First Friday Open House on Aug. 9, from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. It was pushed back a week due to the fair. Bledsoe will also be sharing ranch stories on the hour and everybody who is interested in art and rodeo is invited to come.
“I have some cool ranch stories from my own experience and books that have been written, very interesting stories. Ranching is so much about saving cattle’s lives, in a snowstorm, in a flood, in a drought just keeping those cattle alive,” she said.
For those who can’t make it Friday, the show will remain up for the rest of the month. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 129 N. Third Street.
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