HORSE SPIRIT

A horse in mid stride, and none of it drawn continuously. The body is a field of short gold marks laid on a brown ground, none of them touching for long, and the animal only closes when you step back far enough for the eye to do the joining.

That was the test. How little line can carry a body, and how much can the eye be trusted to finish. The horse was chosen because everyone already knows the shape, so nothing has to be explained and every mark can be spent on the question instead.

Photographed four times, warm and flat and raked, because the marks sit proud of the sheet and change completely with the light. In raking light the constellation catches gold and the ground drops away; flat on, it reads as one grey animal.

Part of the run where the drawings leave the white page for good.