Setting up the lights in my large studio across the back side of our Lake House to paint at night was a challenge....the lake literally sparked with starlight.
©Laurie Pace Graphics One Design 2026
Click photo above to see the painting.
Oil on Canvas SOLD by Laurie Pace
When the Stars Were Out, I was still painting.
Today an unexpected sale of an older horse painting sent me searching through old photographs.
I found one that stopped me.
There was Starlight Run on my easel in my studio at the lake. It was late at night. The stars were out, and I was still painting.
I wasn't hesitant to paint there.
I painted some of the largest paintings of my life in that studio. I knew how to begin. I drew my horses, mapped them across the canvas and established the structure before allowing color, line and movement to take me somewhere beyond what I had planned.
Looking through the process photographs today helped me understand something I had forgotten.
I wasn't searching for the horse. I was painting from him.
The discovery came after the knowing.
I knew the horse well enough that I could stop thinking only about anatomy and begin seeing shapes, negative spaces, rhythm, warm against cool, and those wonderful marks that sometimes appeared and simply needed to remain.
I knew enough that I could afford to let go.
Somewhere along the way, painting has become harder for me. I hesitate more. I question more. And recently I have even wondered whether perhaps I am finished painting.
But maybe that isn't the question I need to answer today.
Maybe an old horse simply came back to remind me what it feels like when I am in the painting.
I don't know exactly what I'll paint next.
But once upon a time, the stars came out—
and I was still painting.
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Laurie Pace, Elle Pace, Starlight Run, Threads of Grace, horse painting, equine art, expressive horse painting, contemporary equine art, palette knife painting, artist process, painting process, creative journey, artist studio, lake studio, large horse painting, color and movement, faith and art, Texas artist
Laurie is an international artist, her paintings are collected in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, DuBai, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, St Thomas, Romania, Greece, Croatia, and Ecuador.
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