Progress Update

Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I had to take a full-time job. This is going to cut drastically into the time I will have to paint. When I worked previously, I had an evening shift so I was able to paint in the morning, and of course having a few years of full-time painting after that was a really wonderful luxury.

Now, I have a day shift, so I'm still in the process of figuring out my schedule, when I'll do maintenance things like laundry, shopping, errands, etc., and when I'll be able to fit artwork into the mix. I'm definitely a morning person, and like to spend some time chilling with my husband in the evenings (plus I'm usually pretty tired), so until I get everything sorted out I've relegated painting to the weekends. I may do some minor things like pencilwork, prepping and spraying on weeknights. My blog posts may be a little more sporadic to reflect all of this. I'm feeling really sad that I had to give up so much of my painting time but it was necessary for me to find work.

The good news about all of this is that I really like my job so far, it's slightly creative and the ambience at the company is just the way I like it. The people are friendly and I've got a variety of tasks, so that is a real positive. I also feel good about the company and what they produce, which always helps :)

Okay, enough about that. Here is the Dante commission I'm working on, I'm just whitening up the blanket and have started adding some ticking to him. I'll still have to go back and forth with the spots and blanket. 

Here is the Tiny that I've been working on. He will be a sales piece when he's done.

I don't think I posted a finished picture of the Little Lonestar commission. I made a little mistake originally and made his ermine spots black, but thankfully a kind soul pointed it out to me and I fixed it. Hopefully I'll get his complete pictures on my website in the next couple of weeks.

That's all for now!

Update

Dante is moving along, I've got a few layers of paint on him and have just started to map in some of the white areas on his blanket, as well as hinting at some of the darker spots. I love the attitude on this guy!

I'm pretty positive that I will have final photos of the Little Lonestar by next week, I'm putting final details on him. I'm really happy with his pattern and color and hope his owner will be, too. I got set back a week because I needed to spray him but it was uncharacteristically muggy out here for several days. Now that the weather is nice I'm back in business with him.

That's all I've got to show this week. My production has slowed dramatically because I'm looking for a job, but I am still able to work on at least a couple of horses most days. 

Oh, and I forgot about the bay Oliver that I painted as a commission - he won his championship class at NAN in Trad/CL Stallion/Colt! 

I think it was my first workmanship win at NAN so I was thrilled to hear about that. Congrats to Erin Corbett, his owner!

Progress Update

Just a few progress shots this week. Here's the Little Lonestar with his pattern blocked in. He probably looks like he's close to being done, but I would say he's probably about 50%.

Dante is still in his ugly phase. I don't like looking at primered surfaces so I had to put some color on his legs and mane/tail. He has a lot of deep crevices on his underside and all around his head and mane and tail, so I have to make sure that I get paint into all those areas before I move forward.

And here's a Tiny that I recently started. I thought of doing something really fancy with him, but this was the color that popped into my mind, and I happened to have some good photos of a couple of Gypsy horses that I took at a show a few years ago, so I'm using that for the pattern.

That's all for this week! I've been looking through some of my own photo references, and I found a really cool appaloosa that I'm going to want to try on a traditional size piece. I'm not sure what mold to use, though. The pattern is kind of a semi-leopard, and the horse looks more hunter-like. He has a long, braided tail and braided mane. I thought of Valor or Vixen right away, but if anyone has any suggestions for something like this, I'd love to hear it!

Rose Reiner

I've got this newly completed Rose Reiner up on eBay tonight, if you're interested have a look!

Progress Report

I'm pretty much fussing with details on little Imp. Very close to being done!

Little Lonestar has a couple more layers of paint. I've warmed up his color a little bit.

Here's Dante with his ugly coat. He's going to be an appaloosa.

Update

Just a couple of things to show this week:

 Here is Imp with the markings started. I still have some more to do on them, and I will still need to do some more on his hind legs, also, as well as his face and hooves, etc. So I would say he's about 60% done.

And here's a Little Lonestar which will be a chestnut pinto. He's in his ugly stage with just a couple of thin layers of paint.

Everything else is either in the prep stage or the drying/looks-too-similar-to-last-photo stage.

That's it!

Misc Stuff

Here's the little Imp commission I'm working on. He's going to be a minimal pinto, so I think I'm going to make his front legs white and also  a patch over his shoulder. I wanted to have at least one leg without white to show the soft shading on his legs, but I wasn't positive that was something that happened with tobianos, even minimal ones. I had to search for a while, but I did find a photo reference of a minimal pinto with only two white legs, so I know it's possible. Here's the other side:

And here are a couple more commissions in different stages of prep:

I also bought a bottle of Lascaux White Acrylics:

I think this is the stuff that I had heard Jaime Baker recommend. I have to say: I love it! It's very opaque and covers in just a few layers. So convenient! It brushes out beautifully and has a matte finish. I'm using it on the base layers of Hazel before I lay in a more "natural" white, not one so blindingly bright as this.

I also got a box of Super Sculpey to play around with. I haven't used it before, but I like the feel of it. I'm going to use it just for fun and to practice manes/tails. 

Odds and Ends

Lots of little things to update this week. First off, here are a couple of Myla Pearce's mule medallions that I painted. Good "mealy muzzle" practice!

I was running late this morning so all of these photos are hastily snapped in natural light. I used a little Photoshop in the backgrounds of these medallions just to get rid of some of the distracting thing that they are leaning on.

This little Imp is a commission, he will be a minimal pinto. He's at a really early stage.

This Little Lonestar commission arrived with an eartip MIA so I'm fixing that while I prep him. It still needs a little refining.

The Rose Reiner I've been working on had an unfortunate mishap and his ear broke off, so I've been repairing that, too. I was really mad about this one because I was getting ready to finish him up when it happened. 

I'm not sure if this will show up, I had to darken the exposure on this Sushi to try to show some of the light-colored detail. This poor horse has changed so many times as I tried to get the "look" I wanted on her. She's gone from blue-ish gray to a warmer gray to somewhere in-between, and her mane/tail changed a little bit, too. I originally envisioned her to be moderately fleabit, but for a while she was looking really heavily fleabit, but now she's back to what I was originally thinking for her, with moderate/light fleabites and some darker bites. They're probably not called bites but that's what I call them ;)

Anyway, for a long time I felt that her topline was a little too stark compared to the rest of her body with all the varied bites, but I finally went in and made little hair marks that are slightly darker than the body color, and I think this really made all the difference. This is a terrible photo and I will try to get better ones next week.  This is the only model I've ever painted that I couldn't stop working on. Honestly, I could still keep going but I have to stop at some point. I put a boatload of hours into her, so this is another one of those long, drawn-out learning experiences.  I don't see a ton of fleabit grays out there, and I found it to be a huge challenge and much more difficult than I expected. I don't know if I'll do another one anytime soon.

Okay, that's it for this week!