I met Ned Jacob when he was teaching through Scottsdale Artists School. Over the course of several years, every Fall was marked by his workshops on sketching the human figure and painting the horse from life. I brought a horse skull for reference and helped with the horse models. Those workshops were immersive experiences. I learned as much during the breaks as during the sessions. Ned would share his lifetime of travel, sketching and painting during those times.

Here are just a few of those precious quotes and concepts from Ned.

“I don’t believe an artist can stay in the studio and say anything about life.”

To create big art, you must have big adventures. Seek adventure and exploration, and put that into your painting.

Confront all the things you tell yourself that you can’t do. Go out and practice.

Spend time finding the end of the brush. If your painting isn’t working out, take something out of it rather than add more. Feel free to wipe it off and start over.

Ned has passion, integrity, and love for art that inspires. His spirit reminds me of the spirit of a Wild Horse. Although the domestic and wild horses are both beautiful. It is the unhaltered, unbridled, unfenced free and adventurous spirit of the wild horse that resides in Ned.

There isn’t any significant amount of time that passes that I don’t think about things I have learned from Ned. I pass those on when I give workshops and know they are carried into other people’s lives.  Regretfully, I will miss the Memorial Service,  because I'm teaching a workshop in the Backcountry of Assateague Island, on painting Wild Horses from Life.