Portraits, Still Lifes and Horses in their World

COMMISSIONED PORTRAITS:

Terri Miller's commissioned oil portraits are rich with color and nuance, and her graphite pieces, full of detail and movement, are more than mere drawings; they have been described as "pencil paintings". In both media, the soul of the horse shines through in the art. One satisfied owner commented that having a Terri Miller painting of her horse hanging on the wall was "like having the horse in the room with me."

Terri works on her commissioned portraits in three stages:

First, she will travel to meet her subject, not only for a photo session for visual reference, but to also get to know the personality of the horse she will be painting. "When I paint a horse," Terri explains, "I capture more than what the horse simply looks like. During the time I spend taking the photos, I get to know something about him. I get a feeling for what his personality is like, how he moves, what catches his attention. I also learn about how, you, his human partner, feels about your horse and how you relate to each other. I find that this meeting is crucial to the integrity of the portrait, so I choose to only work from my own photographs."

Second, together with the client, Terri will choose the pose from the photos that she's taken, often merging pieces of many separate photographs. If Terri is working on a Montage portrait, she will create 1-3 Photoshop layouts for composition. You'll get to view these and approve one prior to the beginning of the actual artwork.
Third, it's into the studio! Please be patient from this point on: Terri honors delivery deadlines whenever possible, but due to the popularity of her artwork, her waiting list usually runs from 6 months to over a year. Once work on your painting has commenced, you can request to receive emailed progress photos of your portrait. Graphite pieces can be delivered upon completion, however, oil paintings must cure completely for 3-6 months prior to varnishing and delivery.

Contact Terri Miller to commission your masterpiece. Do it now. Your horse deserves the honor of one of these magical paintings.

Portrait Prices

STILL LIFE, LANDSCAPES and HORSES in their WORLD

Terri's still life paintings are colorful and joyous. Her “Ribbons and Rosettes” series looks at the nature of rewards. While they are physical renditions of horse show award ribbons and trophies, there is a deeper side to them as well: is the competition about the result, the silk ribbon, or is there more? Healing and spiritual symbols appear in some paintings; in others, she relies on the human response to the actual colors of the silk. Her “Stripes and Patterns” series is often filled with humorous juxtapositions of fabric, fruit and other objects.

Terri paints on location near her home in San Diego, taking advantage of Southern California's fabulous weather, which lends itself to painting outdoors. The beautiful local scenery is often her subject, but she regularly sets up her easel at horse shows, too, in order to capture horses in paint – a whole different sensibility than photographing them! "Mountains and trees usually hold still for a morning's painting session", Terri says, "but painting a horse in motion is a exercise in concentration and learning to take mental snapshots." During these plein air sessions, Terri gets a greater understanding of light, atmosphere and gesture. While these impressionist field studies are for sale, their main purpose is to bring visual information back to the studio as reference for her larger works.

Many of those larger works can be found in the gallery Horse Paintings: In Their World. These paintings are of scenes that Terri has observed at shows and around the barn. While they are sometimes of a specific horse, more often they are painted as vignettes of equine work and play. These are of everything from a gallop across a field to “landscapes with horses” to the award ceremonies after a competition.

In all these galleries, you'll find paintings that are available for sale. Enjoy!