Using abstract techniques, Katie distorts or highlights equine features to bring to our attention the enormous size of a horse. Her complex understanding of the musculature and bone structure of horses allows her to emphasize, embellish, and exaggerate equine characteristics, while maintaining a sense of reality. She keeps the horse massive, alive, and natural with this skill.

Katie says she uses "an old-fashioned draftsman style drawing" as her foundation. Using her abstract and cubist background with strong draftsman lines and complex shadings, she enables us to see different angles and dimensions in one view, capturing a 3-D effect.

With a simplistic style that eliminates clutter, Katie allows our eyes to focus on the characteristics of the horse she is trying to emphasize in each painting. By leaving her canvas free of any distractions such as foreground, and displaying only solid backgrounds, the horse becomes alive and dynamic, as if it will walk off the canvas at any moment. By combining all these techniques, she focuses on the character of the horse, masterfully capturing the personality within the horse and creating a whimsical and playful feeling.

Katie's art allows us to enter the quirky domain of the horse. There we instantly connect with the personality or characteristic she is revealing. Those of us who know horses readily recognize these features. "My greatest time is just sitting, watching their behavior, and I try to capture what I see," Katie says, referring to that individual side of the horse.

Something about Katie's art brings out the childlike side of horses and maybe that is why young people also love her art so much. "I like to make people happy. Horses make me happy." This explains the large amount of fan club mail she receives from young girls. "That is the highest praise, when children light up at my work," exclaims Katie.

Having graduated from the UC Santa Barbara with a Masters of Fine Art degree in 1985, Katie says her current style has evolved and even matured over time. She has allowed herself to move away from conventional styles and develop a uniqueness that is truly what she sees in the horse, even removing herself and her feelings from the picture. "Originally in school I was continually told to move away from horses and develop other skills, but my sketch book was always full of horses." Having spent her whole life riding and caring for them, it was hard to eliminate horses from her art. And at the birth of her first daughter, Amy, she couldn't hold it back any longer. "Something happened and the horses just started pouring into my work."

When I asked her who influenced her the most over the years she said, "It was a turning point in my life when I first saw a Robert Motherwell exhibit with his big, black, huge 20 foot canvases. I said, 'I want to paint like that.'" Today her biggest influence is her best friend, her husband Steve Benner, who is also an artist. Katie says he is a master of colors. "I have really learned from him so much and I trust him, so I talk to him more than any other about my art."

Katie brings to life on canvas sides of the horse that make us smile and brings up happy thoughts. For that we name Katie Upton as Equestrian Network Magazine's Artist of the Month.

If you have enjoyed Katie Upton's art as much as we have check out her website at: www.katieupton.com