Cumberland Island Wild Horse Graphite Pencil Drawing
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 9:15AM
Thank you for taking the time to stop by Boyd Greene Fine Art for a browse. Here is my newest piece of art inspired by one of the wild horses of Cumberland Island in South Georgia. It is a barrier island of Georgia where the crumbling ruins of a Carnegie mansion test the fate of time.
Cumberland Island is a protected National Seashore that is the scenic wildlife habitat of armadillos, deer, wild turkeys, marsh rabbits, alligators, bob cats, raccoons, threatened and endangered shore birds such as American Oystercatchers, Least Terns, Wilson’s Plovers, wood storks, piping plovers, gopher tortoises, manatees, sea turtles, lizards, and of course feral horses. Cumberland Island measures about 18 miles long by 3 miles wide and is the largest wilderness island in the United States of America.
I’ve done my best to convey the intense heat this wild horse deals with during the torrid summers on the island. It quickly passed from the shade of small trees bordering a large field over the windswept sand dunes the island is famous for to the cover of more trees and back to grazing.
Cumberland Island’s feral horses roam the island freely subsisting on the island’s natural bounty such as marsh grasses and sea oats (a third of Cumberland is salt marsh).
The wild horses being originally Spanish descent have been bred with mustangs to make them more hardy and tolerant of the harsh conditions that they exist in.
The horses have to make the most of what nature supplies as their diet can be low in nutrition.
I was so fascinated watching these wild horses and cannot wait to go back again.
Cumberland Island definitely should be on everyone’s bucket list! So, here are some interesting links with information about things to see on Cumberland Island:
