Page 63 - August 2017

Still Waters
Shipping Day As The Moon Rises
Hands Of Time
Long Days
Tied Hard And Fast
Mikel paints and draws things he can relate to,
real people and real places, not models. He knows all the cowboys’ names and their horses’ names. “It’s very important to me to be honest about who they are,” he says.
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connection to it historically, but it’s important to me to be able to paint and draw things that I can
relate to — real people and real places, not models. I know all the working ranch cowboys that I paint and where they’re at and their horses’ names. It’s very important to me to be honest about who they are. I’m not trying to be historical about it and document the vanishing cowboy; I just like the idea of being honest and real. The same thing with the horses. When I get a commission, if the horse or the person is living, I want to go spend time with them and just sit and watch them and get to know their personality because it carries into what I do. Each subject is a unique individual.”
Former AQHA President Johnny Trotter says, “Mikel has done quite a few pictures for me. He did One Famous Eagle (Champion 3-Year-Old Colt), and his dam, One Famous Lady, and others.
“Steve Purcella and I are real good friends,” Johnny continues. “He’s an 18-time NFR
qualifier, and I had Mikel do a picture of his little girl, Allee Reigh. Before Mikel would do it, he came out here and spent an afternoon with them. He followed her around and talked to her and just got to know his subject and really dove into her personality.
“Steve had the Horse Of The Year one year and a couple years later that horse died,” Johnny adds. “There was a snapshot of him heading a steer on this horse at the NFR where he’s roped the steer and is turning it. I sent it to Mikel and got him to paint it as a Christmas present. It’s unbelievable. You can almost feel the motion of it and see the dirt. It’s just like he’s going to ride right out of the picture!”
To obtain that stunning realism, Mikel works both from sketches and from photos. And while he’s riding with the cowboys he paints, he also creates small studies and color swatches for reference. “I might use four, five or six different images to create a horse,” he says. “I’ve used background images of photos I took years ago in
a painting I did last year. They’re different settings and different times but everything is relevant; I’m not taking a cowboy in Texas and putting him in Montana. And I can see things in those photos several years later that I didn’t see at the time,
and use the pieces and parts. Creating a strong composition is what holds the painting together.”
Lazy E Ranch manager Butch Wise agrees. “Composition is his strong suit. He has the ability to combine all the elements that really makes you stop and want to examine his work more in detail and as you do that, you become even more enthralled with it.
“He has a real affinity for being able to portray his subjects anatomically correct, historically correct, and he wants to place it in the proper context,” Butch adds. “When you go to the Prix de West and some of those other exhibitions, he’ll be the one you’ll stop at most times. I’ve got two paintings here that he’s done for us: Corona Cartel and Valiant Hero, so I get to admire his work every day.”
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SPEEDHORSE, August 2017 61