Sketch for Cowboys in the Badlands

Enthusiasm for one's goal lessens the disagreeableness of working toward it - Thomas Eakins

For awhile Eakins thought to pursue paintings of the western cowboy, spending time in the Dakota Territories. At some time he realized his was a more introspective style, not the same as say Remington's. Back east he literally drew from his collection of photographs which documented the cowboy more at rest. He even brought home two cow horses feeling that the wrong kind of horse would be a glaring error depicting the cowboy life. Outside of sketches and Cowboys of the Badlands, Eakins did not continue this genre. Although one of the horses, gray Billy, figured in many of Eakins photos, sketches, etc.