My theory is this. Part of being an artist is expression of your inner self. Some artists work thru grief or anger by painting. I try to express joy, but sometimes I do love to do pieces that I would call moody. My goal is however, to express something that when someone looks at it they can imagine themselves in the art and it gives them a sense of calm or joy.
When I started out on this piece I wanted to express the love between a girl and her horse. I think what happened is, I ended up painting the feeling of when I was young and could escape away on my horse into a world where there was no distress. By the time I finished it I looked at the horse and realized I had painted one of my horses I had when I was a kid. His name was Nazan. He was an arabian and was the half brother to my precious Missy. (He didn't have a blue mane tho! That's just my love of making horses different colors!)
Back when I began painting again I avoided painting horses specifically. I think because art has a strong affect on you when you're working on it, that I avoided horses for the reason of when I had to give them up it was a very painful thing to do. I didn't like to be reminded of that pain. When I had horses they were the only thing that I drew. However, I sadly made the mistake of getting rid of those drawings years ago because I didn't want to be reminded of that loss.
Slowly, I began to have the urge to paint horses here and there and over time I've begun to tap into the joy of that time I had with my horses instead of focusing on the pain of loss. It's been an interesting healing process that I'm very grateful for.
At the moment, I have my etsy shop on vacation mode. My kiddo has quite a few medical tests he needs to get thru and we need to concentrate on helping him work thru those. When I reopen my shop I will put this painting up in it. I haven't named it yet. Perhaps some of you would have a suggestion?