Featured Artist Margaret Dent

Enjoy the stunning portfolio of artist Margaret Dent and visit her website to see more of her work.

 

 

Up til now I was primarily a graphite artist focusing on equine art. In the recent years I have expanded into watercolor and colored pencil media and other subjects and currently I am learning acrylics and pastels. I have also realized my dream of designing jewelry. My favorite jewelry components are opals, natural gemstones, silver (including PMC) and copper though I enjoy creating with just about anything.

 

 

Learning is very important to me and is one of the reasons I love being an artist. There is always something to be learned – a new technique, different medium, new color combination. There is nothing better to get your creative juices going than a new challenge.

 

 

I grew up in Lodz, Poland, an industrial city far away from nature. My mom, who is afraid of horses, knew I had a special connection with them when she found me underneath a huge draft at a farmer’s market, stroking his leg. I was 2. Soon after I started collecting any pictures and postcards of horses I could find. As my collection grew, I felt the urge to draw some of them and pencil, being the only available media at the time, was the perfect choice. Many years later, as an adult, it never occurred to me that I was a real “artist”. To me my drawings were something that just happened, almost by magic, and I did not believe I could draw anything else.

 

 

That changed when I joined a couple of online art communities. Virtually surrounded by other artists and through their support I learned that I could draw/paint anything. It was a life-changing moment for me as an artist.

 

 

My greatest achievement to date is when my drawing “Racing the Sun” was first accepted into and then won the Sam Savitt Award at the Fall 2005 American Academy of Equine Art Show in Lexington, Kentucky.

What are your goals? My ultimate goal is to some day, hopefully not too far in the future, be able to support myself fully through my art. But in the meantime I want my art to inspire people to stop in their daily rush and examine the simple beauty of creation that is all around us.

 

 

What inspires you?  First and foremost, horses! I find no end of inspiration in their form, beauty, movement, their spirit and their special connection with humans. For my other art and jewelry the main inspiration is usually nature. Even as a little girl I possessed the talent to notice things many people missed. I’d zero in on a rare insect, point out a unique color combination or see a face in a seemingly random pattern. My mom never knew what I would find on the next outing.

I also found my first medium, graphite, inspiring. The ability to render almost life-like images with just a combination of hard and light strokes, using only a pencil, is still magic to me after over 40 years of drawing.

 

 

What are you working on now?  There are very few ideas (3 at the moment) that have literally come to me in my dreams. I have picked one out and am currently in the process of deciding whether to do it in my favorite medium (graphite) or to venture into the unknown and do it in acrylics. I may just do both. The piece will be called “The Protector”. My second project is learning acrylics. I have been bitten by the colour bug and am enjoying learning the new medium.