E: Ah! I love this! It brings me back exactly to the blissful feeling of galloping on the trail. Do you have riding experience? How did you get this horse so right?

C: Thank you. Being born in Lexington, KY, “where the horses are,” I have been drawing horses as long as I could draw. I had the little girl love of horses, and with them all around me it was easily fed to last a long time. I was able to see horses almost every day. I wanted to ride whenever I could, but it was only something I got to do as a treat. My great aunt had a friend with horses and they would let me ride around the ring when I visited. I was the two-year-old with cowboy boots, feather-adorned cowboy hat, and sparkle unicorn t-shirt a top a humongous Appaloosa. Then once I was old enough, I was able to take some riding lessons and go to horseback camps. Once I was a teen another aunt purchased a few horses and I was able to ride them occasionally as well. I have never galloped freely on a horse and I have always wanted to.

E: How did you come to art? Can you describe your journey as an artist?

C: Art was and is a necessary part of my life. It has been a part of me as long as I can remember. Drawing and painting have always been important. You can flip back through my sketchbooks and see my early attempts at drawing horses. They remained my favorite subject for many years. It wasn’t really a choice that I follow a career into art, it just was the path before me I needed to follow.

E: Who and what inspires you?

C: Animals are the strongest inspiration. I am inspired by people at moments of honesty. When they are themselves unprotected by their social walls. There are so many artists that inspire me I can’t list them all. I am just going to list one, Quentin Blake; even though I draw nothing like him, the life he puts into his characters is something I aspire to.

E: Tell us about when and where you work.

C: I work in the evening hours once my family has wrapped up for the night. I have a studio space in what used to be a dinning room of my house. We use this room as the studio/art room for the family. We have a patio outside of it where we watch the hummingbirds visit our feeder. Art projects range from big sheets of paper loaded with tempera paints and chalk to lego builds that lead to multiple character stories.

E: Do you have a preferred medium?

C: I love the tight control of colored pencils and the loose textures and washes of watercolors. I try to blend these elements together. I have found that pastels with water acheive this nicely.

E: What other projects—both professional and personal—are you involved in?

C: I am currently working on a picture book with a friend that we may push out as a self published book at small press expos. I also have a project called Animals in Alphabet. This has been published in a small press run, as a poster and individual 8×10 prints, and I sell them through etsy, at small press expos, and Fab.com.

E:What advice would you give people who’d like to break into the art world?

C: Don’t be afraid to get yourself and your work out there and have a great time as you meet others in this super fun business. And never stop practicing. 

E: Do you have a web presence?

C: I have a blog (caseyg.com), a tumblr (http://caseygirard.tumblr.com/), a twitter (https://twitter.com/CaseyGirard), a dribbble (http://dribbble.com/CaseyGirard), and a portfolio on behance 90(http://www.behance.net/CaseyGirard).

 E:Do you have a favorite character from SACRED?

C: Lily Adams instantly won me over. I love how wild, fearless, and caring she is. She knows who she is and what she wants and she is intouch with the people around her.

And here once again is Casey’s vision of Scarlett and Delilah: