Tag Archives: Ali Bannister

Small World Story Part 2!






Last week I wrote about the movie WAR HORSE (linked here).

A few days later, I wrote about the incredible small world story that evolved out of that post (linked here).  To refresh, the drawing that was featured in one of the stills that I pulled from the movie trailer happened to be seen by the artist who created it who lives in the UK!

The artist, Ali Bannister, wrote to me to tell me that she had seen the blog and was surprised and pleased that HORSE AND MAN had featured her.

Wow!  What a great small world story!

But, it gets better…

The still from the original blogpost that featured this drawing.

RUSSIAN NESTING DOLL

You know those Russian Nesting Dolls where you open it up and there is another inside?  And then another and another…

This reminds me of that.

HEY, I KNOW THAT HORSE!

So one of you readers, while reading the post about Ali Bannister the artist, decided to go to her website.  As soon as Ali’s website opened, she saw a portrait of a horse she knew!

Just to clarify, one of you American readers went onto a UK website of an ‘unknown to her’ artist and saw her friend’s American horse!

This reader wrote to me:

It is most definitely a small world as your blog pointed out – please read on, it gets better.  I went on the artist’s site to view her portfolio. Lo and behold – right there in the horse section of pastels are two portraits of my friend’s gorgeous and truly beloved horse, Jaguar Hope, who she lost in a horrific accident. Jag truly took your breath away, he was that magnificent, Ali Bannister truly captured that.   It was such a pleasure to see that and it definitely made me smile.

This is one of the portraits this reader saw of her friend's horse, Jaguar Hope.

But wait, it gets better…

THAT’S MY HORSE!

What the above reader didn’t realize was that Jaguar Hope was actually one of the horses featured in the still that I had pulled and inserted into the original blogpost about WAR HORSE!

Yup, one of the horse drawing images in the movie which were created by artist Ali Bannister was actually one of the images of Jaguar Hope (the horse) mentioned above.  In fact, it became the logo for the take-away gifts for the members of the crew.
Jaguar Hope’s owner saw my previous blog post and wrote to me:

Yes, I hired Ali to do a pastel of Jag soon after he passed.  It hangs in my office now with a War Horse cap that has Jag’s image on it as well.  The caps were made for the cast and crew of the movie.  Ali asked them to send me one along since it’s Jag’s image on the cap….

Ali mentioned that it was one of Jag’s portraits (she did 2) that caught the eye of Team Spielberg.  I’m sure there were other portraits that they loved too but I loved to hear that Jag was one of them.  This is the portrait I had her make and which hangs in my office:  http://www.alibannister.com/cart/jaguar-hope-p-62.php

I think Jag embodies “Thorntop”  to a certain degree.  That’s just my take…

Ali is an incredibly talented and sweet young woman.

This is the image that hangs in her office...

 

In case you cannot read the subscript to the image above, the owner of Jaguar Hope is a very talented photographer named Wendy Wooley whose website is linked here.


SMALL WORLD…

I love this kind of stuff!  It is the Kevin Bacon rule of 6 degrees of separation from any one human to another.

And, it this case, the degree was only One or Two… so amazing!

I love how the Internet unites strangers – you, me, the owner, the owner’s friend, Spielberg, and the entire crew…  in exalting the image and essence of a beautiful horse.

Russian Nesting Dolls

HORSE AND MAN is a blog in growth… if you like this, please pass it around!

JULY BUCKET FUND

ITSUKO, ADMIRALTY and BHFER

Please help rehab Itsuko, a great granddaughter of Native Dancer who had 99 starts, won 100K, had several foals and then was … forgotten and starved.  And, Admiralty who was winched to a trailer.  Click here to learn more.

Click here to learn more about the Bucket Fund!

 

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.




HORSE AND MAN is a blog in growth... if you like this, please pass it around!



A Small World Story… Ali Bannister, artist.






This kind of stuff just makes me smile…

Last week I wrote about the movie, WAR HORSE.  (Blogpost linked here)

In that story, I posted a still I grabbed from the trailer.  (Me being the art lover, of course I chose a shot with artwork…)

Anyway, that still is the center of the ‘small world’ story.

Here is the image that I grabbed:

The artist saw her work on my blog!

 

COMMENT

As you all know, anyone can comment at the end of any of my blogposts.

On the day of my WAR HORSE blogpost I received a comment from Ali Bannister.  It said,

“Those are my drawings in the skecthbook! Thank you for choosing to feature them here. That has made my day. It was a great film to work on. I can’t wait to see the end result.”

Click to go to her website

HOW FUN IS THAT?!

OK, well!… let the games begin!  This woman was the artist for the movie?!

I had to write to her.

So, I did.

She wrote back and told me that not only was she the one who drew the drawing featured in the movie, she also was hired on as Make-up and Hair for the horses.

OMG.  It is getting better!

An original of Pride.

So, of course I emailed her back and asked too many questions as I can be very excitable for sure!  <smile>

I wanted to know all about the different horses used as the one principle horse.  I wanted to know how the horses differed in personality and talent.  I wanted to know how they maintained continuity with all the different colored horses used as the same horse- the horses were all dyed and all were given the same kite shaped star.

I wanted to know what it was like to be the on-set hairdresser to horses!  Such pressure!

Anyway, I am sure she will respond when she gets a minute.

In the meantime, I went to her website.

Wow.

Ali's art...

ALI BANNISTER’S ART.

She works in pastel, pencil and charcoal.

My favs.

And, she will do commissions from photographs.  I looked at her prices and even with the exchange rate (she lives in the UK), her prices were very reasonable.

Animals, kids and wildlife.  Nice.

EXAMPLES IN PASTEL

 

Lily

Love this!

 

Such personality!

 

PENCIL AND CHARCOAL

 

Attention to detail...

GREAT FACE!

SAM

 

IN CONCLUSION

I will tell you more whenever I hear from Ali about her very exciting and entertaining work on WAR HORSE.

For now, check out her website and maybe send her a photo of your loved one…

What a great find, eh?  And, what a small world this Internet has created.

Love it!

HORSE AND MAN is a blog in growth… if you like this, please pass it around!

JULY BUCKET FUND

ITSUKO, ADMIRALTY and BHFER

Please help rehab Itsuko, a great granddaughter of Native Dancer who had 99 starts, won 100K, had several foals and then was … forgotten and starved.  And, Admiralty who was winched to a trailer.  Click here to learn more.

Itsuko. Click here to help her.

 

 

 

Copyright

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.




HORSE AND MAN is a blog in growth... if you like this, please pass it around!