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!

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. 

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.

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.

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.