12/ DECEMBER 2018 THE RIDER Jack Sorenson’s Cowboy Christmas Eve


By Western Horseman Magazine www.westernhorseman.com


Christmas has been artist


Jack Sorenson’s favorite time of year since he was a little boy. Raised on a small ranch in Palo Duro Canyon, near Amarillo, Texas, Sorenson says the canyon had cedar trees that grew as tall and straight as pine trees. “My mom would ask my


brother or me to go help Dad cut the tree,” he recalls. “I always volunteered because I liked Christmas so much. My dad would never let me cut down a little tree, though; I had to climb a big tree and cut off the top part.”


It was while looking at a


painting by George Phippen ti- tled Boss Has a Young’un, with two cowboys depicted in a bunkhouse putting the finishing touches on a rocking horse, that Sorenson was first inspired to create a painting conveying the spirit of Christmas from a cow- boy point of view. Then, during a workshop taught by Western painter and illustrator Howard Terpning 20 years ago, Sorenson came up with the idea for his first cowboy Santa painting. Terpning mentioned that he


had apprenticed with Haddon Sundblom, who painted the Coca-Cola Santas of the 1930s, giving Sorenson the idea for a cowboy Santa character similar


iconic Christmas paintings have graced over 80 magazine covers including 15 for Western Horse- man Magazine. On the Decem- ber 2002 cover, Sorenson


to the Coca-Cola character. By the end of the workshop, Soren- son had a pretty good idea of how his Santa would look. Since then, Jack has


painted more than thirty Santas. H i s


depicted a cowboy Santa riding down a hill on horseback. On the 2011 cover, his painting titled “A Cowboy Christmas Eve”, fea- tured the same guy, wearing the same


black


Santa and riding in to surprise the kids in the warmly lit house below. “I always want my paint-


ings to have an emotional con- nection [with the viewers],” Sorenson explains. “You see classic paintings of Santa flying in his sleigh, pulled by reindeer, and looking down on the houses. That was my idea here, except Santa is horseback on a hill over- looking his next stop.” Sorenson believes that one


of the keys to a successful paint- ing is having a story line in mind. He’s amazed how many people come up to him and describe their favorite of his paintings not by the colors or technique, but rather the story line. Using


broad bristle


brushes, Sorenson paints in an impressionistic style. When his paintings are reduced in size for a magazine cover or Christmas card, however,


they appear boots with cream tops, riding


the same bay horse with bells on the bridle. The artist leaves it up to the viewer to decide if the rider is the real Santa, or perhaps a dad or grandfather dressed up as


“tighter,” or more detailed. A master at painting realistic snow, Sorenson spent many hours painting outside—with frozen feet. Painting what he sees in na- ture, not necessarily what’s in his mind, Sorenson combines cool blues with shades of yellow and orange to create snow you can virtually feel on your fingertips or hear crunching beneath your feet.


“I love painting outside,”


he says. “You can learn more from painting a horse or a land- scape outside than you can ever learn in a classroom. There are details you see from life that you will never see in a photograph.” Sorenson used a palette


knife, rather than a brush, to cre- ate the shrub in the lower left- hand corner of the painting. To create the stars, he used a stiff brush to flick white paint onto his canvas. Then, he dabbed a few of the stars with a large brush to cre- ate the appearance of twinkling in the night sky. Inspired by master night-


scene painter Frank Tenney John- son, Sorenson enjoys conveying the cool, still feeling of night by using deep, opaque shades of


mid-night blue topped with trans- parent glazes. His current mentor, Texas painter and sculptor Bruce Greene, introduced Sorenson to a shade of purple he has blended into the horizon of this painting to create a colorful, realistic sky that ties into the horse’s coat color.


He chose to paint the horse


at a three-quarter rear view not only because the storyline lent it- self to that composition, but also because he says horses look the best at that angle. Sorenson begins his Christ-


mas paintings in September, his stepfather or son sometimes pos- ing as Santa, using a toy bag sewn by his wife, Jeanne. “A Cowboy Christmas Eve”, how- ever, came entirely from the artist’s imagination. “To put me in the mood,


my wife turns the air condition- ing on high in my studio and dec- orates


it for Christmas,”


Sorenson says. When he was making the


transition from working cowboy and colt starter to full-time artist, Sorenson had two goals in mind: to have paintings appear on West- ern Horseman covers and Leanin’ Tree greeting cards. Ironically, his first rejection


letter came from Leanin’ Tree in the 1980s. Then, in the early ’90s, the company purchased the rights to use one of his Old West paintings on a card. Since then, they have sold millions of cards with Sorenson’s work on the front, and he’s been one of their top-selling artists for 16 years. Christmas continues to be a


big event at the Sorenson house- hold, just as when Jack was a young man. The artist puts lights on his house in early November so he can “soak in the season.” His five children and nine grand- children all come home for the holidays, and Jean prepares a large meal for the family. But Sorenson says he’s yet to dress up as Santa. ——————


The Christmas Spirit is alive and well with Jack Sorenson graciously giv- ing The Rider permission to use “A Cowboy Christ- mas Eve” for Circle R Saddlery’s


Christmas


Greeting. As well, the ac- companying Sorenson ar- ticle was contributed by the good people at West- ern Horseman magazine. Both are received with gratitude. Please visit www.jacksorensonfin- eart.com and www.west- ernhorseman.com to see more.


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