Stormwatch

Here's a picture of the Stormwatch that I recently finished. I'm really happy with the way he turned out. I'm glad I just gave him the sock and the star. I think it makes him look more realistic. I just loved painting him! Thanks to Sarah M-B for sculpting him, I can't thank the sculpting artists enough. If I had to sculpt/customize AND paint, you would probably see something from me every eight years lol!

At any rate, he will be on eBay starting the evening of Dec. 27th (3-day auction). Here is a link to the auction (won't be live until 7:00PM Pacific time), and here's a link to my website with more pictures of him. I hope you all like him! His reserve is very reasonable for this sculpture and color.

 I might not post anything more until after the new year, if so have a great New Year's Eve and I wish everyone a happy and healthy new year, filled with art and horses!

Some New Stuff

Here's a Rose Reiner that I don't think I've shown to you yet. He's almost done, I need to do some more details and some touchups though so he won't be ready until some time after Christmas.

Here's my first attempt at a champagne color on one of Sarah Mink's medallions. 

And on to a couple other progress pieces:

Hazel has another layer of oils. I'm trying out a different painting medium with this one, it dries slightly slower than the other mediums that I've been using, but the "open" time is longer so I'm able to paint a slightly thicker layer and blend more. I usually paint so thinly and transparently that it takes ages and ages to build up color, so we'll see how this new technique goes.

Stormwatch is close to final detailing now. You can click on the photo for a much larger shot. I still think he'd look good with a sock, debating on whether to do it or not. He has a very small star.

And that's it for now! I hope everyone is having a great holiday season and has a great time as the new year approaches.

Grays and Whites

I'm having a problem with my whites. I don't have a consistent white formula that I use while painting, instead I mix a new batch every time I sit down, and most of the time I use a very haphazard method of using a little of this, a mess of that, whatever looks good, etc. I'm looking for a color that is off-white, but not too yellow or blue. It's really hard to find that perfect color.

So I've been experimenting a bit with the whites and grays that I use when I paint in oils. The above are two of my favorite whites. I think I have mentioned Archival Fast-Drying White before, I really like it and use it for almost all of my mixing. For a gray horse, though, I'm trying out Archival's Tinting White. I bought this a while ago and didn't use it because I thought it would take too long to dry. But guess what? It's not too bad! It's slightly off-white, with a pearly sheen, and the consistency is really soft and buttery, which I like. Here's a little comparison of them, with a buff titanium I've been using to show how different that color can be:

I've been adding just a touch of the Buff Titan to the Tinting White, and then a smidgen of a gray mix to use for my grays. 

Now on to the grays. I also have a problem with my grays getting a little too blue for my taste. I used to use Burnt Umber and Mars Black, with a touch of a yellow ochre, but lately I've been mixing equal parts of Raw Umber and Van Dyke Brown plus a touch of Mars Black. Today I made this little chart of different mixes to see what worked best. I was surprised to see that I liked the mix with the two browns and Ivory Black. I usually equate Ivory Black with blue, but it looks pretty good to me. Mars Black is a stronger tinting color than Ivory Black, so maybe that's why.

You can click on the grays for a larger photo.

So, what do you think? Do you have a favorite "recipe"? I would love to hear what other artists use for their whites and grays when they paint in oils.

I Hate Waiting...

for paint to dry! Most of the things I'm working on need a little breather right now, so I'm taking the opportunity to do a little cleanup and work on boring things like bases:

Maybe some people like working on bases but it's usually the last thing I touch.

In the meantime, here are a couple of things from an auto swap meet that I went to a few weeks ago. First, there was a guy there with a pet possum:

It was very friendly and the man let me hold her. He showed me her little marsupial pouch. One of his relatives works at a wildlife rehab and this possum was raised from a baby. I think she's still pretty young because she's not that big. Very cute! He said she was litter-box trained and everything. Her tail was very strong! Don't worry, I'm not setting traps in the yard to capture one ;-)

Also, here's a page from my childhood:

And look what I found!

I was really happy to re-capture a little piece of my childhood. 

I also saw a PAM and a CAS, both were played-with body quality and both were $10 each. I thought of buying them and probably should have. I don't have the time to do any customizing on them but thought someone in the hobby might want them, but I wasn't sure if that was a good price or not so I didn't bite. 

Update

Stormwatch is about halfway done now. I had thought at one point that I would give him some sabino markings but I think I will leave him as a plain roan.

Here is a Smytten that I'm painting as a personal piece. I want to give her a little more contrast around the barrel area.

This is the Hazel that I started with alkyd paints and she now has one layer of oils on her. Still very streaky looking. I'm not sure how I feel about the alkyds. They have a weird feeling out of the tube and need a stiffer brush to paint with. I get a smoother outcome when I do an airbrushed base coat, so I'll probably continue with airbrushing for the most part. I get really lazy about using the airbrush, I don't like fiddling with it and my compressor is extremely loud, but the results are better.

I'm also doing something a little different on Hazel by going back and forth between body color and white markings. I'm not sure how I like doing that, either.

That's all for this week!

New Finished Piece

I finished the Little Lonestar yesterday. I'm hoping to get him onto eBay for tomorrow, ending some time on Sunday. I'll be uploading more pictures to my website etc. today. This is probably the last of the mini resins that will be for sale from me for a while, as I plan to do a few mini commissions next (not yet though!)

Here's a Hazel that has been sitting in my cabinet for years, I've finally gotten around to her! I usually airbrush my base coats, but I bought some pure alkyd paints and decided to experiment with them for the base coat. I will give a little report on the paints and how I like them (or not) in an upcoming post.

Last weekend I tagged along with my hubby who was helping a friend with a hot rod project. This friend has a couple of horses and boards several more, so I went along and did some sketching. There were some really gorgeous quarter horses there, as well as a couple of minis. Most of them were lively and actively grazing/running about, so I didn't get many good drawings, but this little mini stood mesmerized for several minutes: 

Hubby's friend also owns a gorgeous (and friendly) brindle whippet: 

He got a little excited and chased the horses around, then lay in the sun so I got to sketch him, also:

That's all for this week! Hopefully I'll have a new picture of Sushi and/or Stormwatch in the next couple of weeks.

A Different Kind of Horse

My husband is a car fanatic, to put it mildly, and this Labor Day weekend I got a chance to ride in one of the cars that he built. This is a '57 Ford station wagon owned by Bob Crabtree. My husband built it as a street car and drove it around for a while before selling it to Bob, who continued modifying it into the monster it is today. Bob is a kidney transplant recipient and runs an organization that speaks to other kidney patients and educates them about the disease, that's what the logo is about on the car.

I rode in this car at a drag race several years ago when my hubby still owned it. I remember it being fun, but now? I really wasn't prepared for the speed and power of this thing. It truly is a monster! Drag racing is broken up into brackets based on speed, and this car is almost at the top. It's consistently breaking into the top bracket but would need nitrous to be competitive at that level.

Anyway, I knew it was going to be fast going down the runway, but I really didn't know it would be THAT fast -- I screamed the whole way down the track. It was like a roller coaster ride! I had a huge grin on my fast the rest of the day. What a cool car! Here's a another shot of it racing a different car. See how the front wheels pop up? So exciting!

So that was my little foray into the world of automotive horsepower. Now it's back to the miniature world of plastic horses ;)

Here's a little heads up that I'll be selling this Mindy on my Yahoo group very soon:

I'm still not quite ready to start commissions yet, thanks for your patience on that! I almost always offer straight sales pieces to the Yahoo group first, so if you want to get in on that here is the link

I'm making great progress on the Little Lonestar and Sushi, so maybe in the next couple of weeks I'll have some pictures of them.

That's all for now!

Update

Here's where I'm at with the little Lonestar right now. I can't believe how quickly he's going. I probably shouldn't say that because I'm sure I'll find something wrong or get stuck on itty-bitty details and then it will be another 3 months.

I was able to get a cord for the video recorder and tried taping the way that I do dapples, but I haven't had time to even look at the footage. I'm not sure any of it will be useful because I kept lifting my hand up so that the horse was off the screen. Plus I have the door open and a couple of planes flew by, so the sound is probably terrible. I'm not sure what interest there is in something like this, so I will probably just put a minute or so up on this blog with a little explanation. I don't think anyone would want to paint like me since it takes ages, but I always like to see how others paint, to see if I can pick up a technique that might work for me. I might do several tiny video installments.

That's it for this week!

Technical Troubles

Well, my cheap old tripod finally bit the dust, so here are a couple of hand-held shots of the Little Lonestar I'm working on. I'm thrilled that he's coming along so quickly, especially for an appy that usually takes ages for me to paint. He still has a ways to go but the pattern and roaning is really progressing smoothly.

I've got a new tripod on order so hopefully I'll get it in the next week or so. I thought the head was removable on my old one, so I ordered just the legs, but then I found out that the head wouldn't come off the old one, so had to order a head today. I'm worried that the quick release mechanism on the new head will not be compatible with the old plates that I've got. It's very hard to figure out what is what, especially because all the plates I've got don't have a model number on them. I guess I'll find out when it arrives...

Also, I was going to make a little video showing how I paint dapples, using the Smytten as a model, but I ran into more technical trouble. My ancient DV recorder didn't have a cord that will plug into my laptop. It's been that long since I've used the recorder. So I had to order a new cord for that. I'll wait until I can't use the dv recorder anymore before I get another one of those ;-) I know my camera can record some video, too, so I guess I should read the manual pretty soon.

Update

Here's the Lil Lonestar with another layer of paint. I'm at the point where I'm not sure what to do with him next. All of my appaloosas are mixed media so I will probably let him dry some more and then start doing some roaning.

Here's Smytten (or is that Smittyn?) with another layer of oils. She will have dapples eventually. She will also be lighter in color, I think. I'm warming her up quite a bit now. I'm still trying to come up with a good "gray" color. I used to use burnt umber and mars black along with white, but burnt umber has a coolness to it that I don't always like, so lately I've been using equal parts raw umber and van dyke brown along with the mars black. I like to go back and forth between warmer and cooler colors as well.

I've been working a lot on Sushi. I glazed some of the fleabite color over her, then went back in with my white mix for details, but I still need to do a lot more with it. She's looking a little pink in places, and I also am warming up her whites some more, they're still way too cool for my taste.

Here's a detail of Sushi. I think you can click on the photo for a larger view. There are several layers of bite marks and glazing.

This Nevada will be for sale pretty soon.

And here are photos from NAN of Champ and Reserve Champ winners that I painted. Thank you to the sculptors for the superb "canvas" that I get to paint on, and thanks also to NAMHSA for putting on this show and providing photos (and the web cam). All photos courtesy of NAMHSA.

Happy Fourth!

I've just got a couple of little things to show this week, both are in the very early stages with an acrylics basecoat and one layer of oils so far. Nevada and the Mindy are close enough to being finished that I don't want to show them anymore. I will probably wait until after Breyerfest to put them up for sale.

I hope everyone has a great and safe 4th of July! Keep your pets safe too -- I know mine will be cowering in the basement :-/

Update

Here's a Mindy that I haven't shown in a while. The dapples look terrible, but this is close to the color that I'm looking for.

I've been able to work a bit on Stormwatch, too. I usually save him for last because the roaning causes eyestrain and tends to put me to sleep a little bit.

Well! I just spent the last hour writing a rambling, whiny meltdown but I decided not to post it here. I don't think people in the model horse community respond well to hearing negative things. It was only negative towards myself, but I'm sure those of you who read this will be better off not hearing about it. I do wish that I could speak more openly and honestly about things that bother me, but oh well. That's what private diaries are for, right?

Update

All I've got worth showing today is this Nevada, I've just started adding some markings.

In other news, my "Ornaments" painting is going to be on display at the Edmonds Arts Festival this weekend (June 15-17). It's a nice festival with indoor art galleries, booths outside with lots of art and craft vendors, and food. Here is the link if you're interested. I'm looking forward to seeing the painting from a distance, it's so large that I haven't been able to back up far enough in my own house to get a good look at it from afar.

'Til next week...

Update

I've been working a lot on Sushi. At this point I've gone over most of the flea bites with the white mixture I'm using. Lots of back and forth on her. Here are a couple of detail shots to show you the depth of the bites:

Next is the Nevada who will be getting worked on a lot pretty soon. At this point I'm going to start adding white markings. I keep forgetting that her face is going to be bald :-/

Somebody wanted to pop in and say hi ;-)

And finally, I pretty much spammed everyone with this already, but this Taboo that I recently finished is on eBay right now: