Update

 

Maybe I will leave this one a solid color and not make him into a pinto like I had first thought. I've got too many pintos anyway! On my website, each color gallery has space for six photos, and the pinto gallery is full, while the others still need some more photos. So I need to work on other colors once in a while. I do love pintos, though. 

 

I worked some more on the legs, face, and mane/tail on this one. 

 

I still need to work more on the overall color on this guy, especially the mane/tail, but I wanted to start adding the markings. I usually use a gesso/acrylic combination to cover the color when I start the markings, then switch to oils at the end. Not always, but that's what I usually do. 

 

I've started the roaning on this one. I did a layer of airbrush, then I'm going in with pencil, and will probably add layers of hand-painting/pencil until I get it the way I want.

That's all for this week!

Studio Visit

I had the pleasure last week of visiting Becky Turner of Soltice Art Studio in Stanwood, WA. Some of you may know I'm extremely shy, so I was a little bit nervous about meeting her, but she's really friendly, talkative, and made me feel at ease right away.

Becky lives on a gorgeous Morgan horse farm (with gorgeous horses too, I'm so jealous!) with a gigantic oak (?) tree in the front yard. She's got a really nice little studio set up in her home, with a comfortable space for sculpting and a nice area to cast. I loved the Alphonse Mucha prints she had hanging in her living room.

It was really fun to see all of her projects in various stages, she's really creative and multi-talented, from little tiny ink drawings, larger watercolors and oils, up to resin cast models and medallions, and bronzes. She showed me a large bronze bust of a horse that was really beautiful! She has a nice collection of resins also. She showed me the cutest rat sculpture she's working on, it's mouth and teeth are incredible! She has a lot of interests and is really a fascinating person with lots of stories to tell.

Becky was really helpful and showed me how she casts her resins and medallions. She's very knowledgeable about the whole process, and really broke it down for me so I could understand it, and showed me all the products that she uses. She also gave me some tips on sculpting (and some sculpting tools!), including a great tip on how to make a smooth eye, and how to heat my tools and sculpt into the clay with the heated tool, I had not known about that! So now I'm thinking that I might continue to work on my medallion.

It was a really great trip and I'm so glad I went to meet Becky. I left with lots of fresh hand-picked blueberries and apples. I meant to bring my camera in and take some candid shots, but I forgot, so all I got was this picture of her (sorry Becky, I made it small!)

  Here is a link to her website, also, to see more of her work.

More updates next week!

Weekly Update

 

I am lightening up the legs on this guy, and have started to add some of the primitive markings. I also warmed up his color slightly.

 

I spent a lot of time on this guy last week. Some of the dapples behind the elbows were really bugging me so I had to work on them, as well as the underside. I never thought this model would even near completion, it felt really daunting to paint all those dapples on, and finessing them takes even longer.

 

I worked on the legs on this one, and have started adding the leg barring. I was planning on making him a pinto, but now I'm starting to waffle a little bit.

 

I changed the pattern a little bit on this guy's neck. I'm working on the white markings now, they won't be so starkly white at the end. 

Update

 

I still have a lot of work to do on the dapples on this one. I've been working on the feathers and mane and tail, and added a little color to the hooves because they were bugging me. 

 

I'm still refining the color here. I've started adding a dorsal stripe but you can't see it in this photo. I'll be working on his legs and head next.

 

This model has required endless blending and layers to get the shading right on the legs. It's still not exactly right, but I think I'm getting close now.

 

This Apple Techie is a repaint of a repaint. Here is the old one:

 

I was never really happy with the paint job on this piece. It was one of my earlier works, done in airbrush and acrylics. I wanted her to be a buttermilk buckskin, but I didn't get the color quite right on her. She looks a little too lemon-colored to me. This is the model that I was too embarrassed to put on the table in a color class, when I saw all the other beautiful buckskins. Somebody told me that this model doesn't compete well as a straight Akhal Teke when it's up against the other resins like Khan, so I thought for this go-round I would make her a Nez Perce. I'm planning on her being a darker buckskin blanket appaloosa.

 

Here's another one that's going to be an appy, probably a semi-leopard.

 

A couple of fun SM foals. They will both be pintos.

Everything else is waiting to dry.