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Description
The image of a wild horse speaks books to me. Let me tell you a little story about my first encounter with one...

I remember the first time I’ve been to an all american rodeo together with my room-mate from Montana. I had not even the tiniest idea about horses, but found myself fascinated by the wild stallions and their strong will to throw anyone off their back no matter what. Without taking my eyes off a cowboy, who just hit the dusty ground pretty hard, I asked my friend: “Dude (that's what you say in California - at least I'm told so), how comes those horses don’t let anyone ride them? Did no one ever tame them?” His answer blew me away:
“They tried to! Those horses just turned out to have a will that can’t be broken. No one will ever be able to ride them, because they simply chose not to be ridden.”
Wow! Try to see this from the perspective of a horse for a moment: You grow up witnessing how every other horse around you gives up at some point and accepts it’s fate as riding-horse. Still you somehow decide to not let that happen to you. No matter how hard you get beaten, you know at the end of the day you’re stronger – that’s why you keep courageously throwing ‘em off. One after an other, until they finally give up.
I've experienced several times in my own life that evil literally flees from those who boldly resist it.

Life is only fun, if it is approached in a courageous, almost curious exploration of the unknown. In this painting I wanted to express this wild freedom of life we're all called to.

What does it speak to you? I hope it makes you dream about breaking out of the chains of average and stirs up a hunger for going after your dreams.

TECHNICAL ASPECTS:
I painted this work in photoshop CS5 extended, using a bamboo wacom pen&touch tablet. It's all painted by hand using several reference photos for basic horse figure and elements of 1 stock image on parts of the fog. This is actually the first digital painting I've completed, since I'm still very new to this medium. Constructive feedback is welcomed!

Description
The image of a wild horse speaks books to me. Let me tell you a little story about my first encounter with one...

I remember the first time I’ve been to an all american rodeo together with my room-mate from Montana. I had not even the tiniest idea about horses, but found myself fascinated by the wild stallions and their strong will to throw anyone off their back no matter what. Without taking my eyes off a cowboy, who just hit the dusty ground pretty hard, I asked my friend: “Dude (that's what you say in California - at least I'm told so), how comes those horses don’t let anyone ride them? Did no one ever tame them?” His answer blew me away:
“They tried to! Those horses just turned out to have a will that can’t be broken. No one will ever be able to ride them, because they simply chose not to be ridden.”
Wow! Try to see this from the perspective of a horse for a moment: You grow up witnessing how every other horse around you gives up at some point and accepts it’s fate as riding-horse. Still you somehow decide to not let that happen to you. No matter how hard you get beaten, you know at the end of the day you’re stronger – that’s why you keep courageously throwing ‘em off. One after an other, until they finally give up.
I've experienced several times in my own life that evil literally flees from those who boldly resist it.

Life is only fun, if it is approached in a courageous, almost curious exploration of the unknown. In this painting I wanted to express this wild freedom of life we're all called to.

What does it speak to you? I hope it makes you dream about breaking out of the chains of average and stirs up a hunger for going after your dreams.

TECHNICAL ASPECTS:
I painted this work in photoshop CS5 extended, using a bamboo wacom pen&touch tablet. It's all painted by hand using several reference photos for basic horse figure and elements of 1 stock image on parts of the fog. This is actually the first digital painting I've completed, since I'm still very new to this medium. Constructive feedback is welcomed!