Weekly Update

Johann has his first layer of oils. He's a little too red-caramel colored right now, I intend for him to have more brownish points and a cooler gold base color.

Ollie also has one coat of oils now. I'm doing something a little different with his white markings, I usually start with a white coat that has a tint to it, but this time I'm using straight titanium for more covering power.

Elsie's basecoat airbrushed in. This is about as worked up as it ever gets in airbrush for me, I'm so inept with it. When I paint I tend to get over-excited and start doing things fast, and with airbrush I've found that it really helps to go slowly and with a more measured pace. That's hard for me to do!

Here's a detail shot of Equus Max. He's got about 3 or 4 layers on him at this point. Roans are one of the things that I am able to move slowly with (sometimes too slowly). I actually practice breathing slowly and looking up a lot while I'm doing them. I find if you go too fast with a roan, you make the marks too long and it ends up looking streaky and unnatural.

Here's a Nevada sales piece that I'm trying to sneak in when I can. He will be a dun overo.

That's all for this week!

Here's the Rose Reiner, finally finished! This was my first Traditional sized full roan, and he was really a challenge. I still feel like I'm learning when I do these, and with this guy I really made a mistake by starting with too dark of a base, so it took a long time to build up the color. I used pencils, dry pigment, and acrylics in various areas for the roaning. I tried keeping track of the time that I worked on him, and he clocked in at 212 hours (including prepwork). That's just way too long. So for the Equus Maximus that is also a roan, I'm adding some glazes/scumbles of a lighter color in paint to try to shorten that painting time a bit. I hope it works! 

Here's a little Ollie that I've just started. He's going to be a pinto. I just love this guy's face, he is so adorable.

Here's that classy Johann, I've given him a warm basecoat.

Jezebel is just taking so long because I haven't had a chance to work on her. I'm adding her markings and still tweaking her color a little bit.

That's all for this week!

Who Created Me?

I've had this little model for years and years, and I have no idea who sculpted and painted it. I bought her at the first model horse show I ever went to, which was a Midwest Congress in Illinois. I think I was 12 or 13 years old, so that would make it 1979-80? I had to beg my mom to take me to this show, which was at a Holiday Inn in a distant Chicago suburb. I remember being overwhelmed by the amount of models there, it was jam packed. Kathleen Maestas was there, and I think Julie Froelich, but now I'm not sure. I remember being awed by the smooth hair job on the works that I thought were Froelich's, but now when I see vintage pics of Julie's work, it looks like she worked exclusively in mohair. The ones I saw used the smooth hair like Faye Cohen, so I'm not sure if it was Faye or someone else now.

At any rate, there was a woman at the show who had a whole slew of these little ceramic (?) horses, all sculpted and painted by herself. I don't remember her name, but the last picture here shows her signature mark. Does anyone know who it could be? I never saw any of these pieces again in the hobby, and always wondered who she was and what happened to her.

As I was wandering the aisles at the show, my mom helpfully offered to keep this gal in her purse for "safekeeping," and when I pulled her out of the purse later, her leg was broken off. So much for purse safety! I've lost the leg over the years but have kept her around in the hopes that I can identify her someday.

Update

Here is the Hank commission that I recently finished. He was really difficult to photograph, just getting a shot of his head was a challenge. I'll try to get the rest of his photos on my website and Facebook this week.
I'm still busy with roaning the reiner and Equus Max, but hopefully I'll have a couple more photos by next week.

Weekly Update

Poor Jezebel has been neglected for a while while I work on commissions, but I got a chance to do a little detailing on her yesterday. She's going to have white stockings and a thin white blaze. Sorry for the blurry hind end!

Here are a couple of closer shots of Hank. I still want to do a little more to his head and various minor things. He's got markings that are kind of crisp in some areas and then roaned out a little in other areas.

I'm starting to refine the dapples a bit on Turko, and I blocked in the colors in his mouth.

That's all for this week!

Weekly Update

I've been working on the Rose Reiner mostly, here's where he's at right now:

This is the part where I tend to get stuck. I'm never sure how to proceed from here. Do I want to keep adding hair detail? Do I use dry pigment to soften it up a little and then add more hair detail? I think it needs a little more work but it's so hard to know what to do. I've put so many hours into it that I dread screwing it up by going too far, and then having to backtrack for several more hours.
I have some time before I determine how to proceed as I work on the other side. I'm starting to procrastinate because I don't know what to do.

Weekly Update

I have been really busy working on these roans, here are a few shots of the Reiner, who is finally starting to look acceptable to me:

I start to feel really overwhelmed when working on roans because they take so much time. I feel like I'll never finish! I'm experimenting with a test horse to see if I can come up with faster technique, but I really like the effect that I get with the way that I do it now. I really don't know if it's worth my while to do these. I'm keeping track of how many hours I spend on this one, and it's already way, way up there. It will be interesting to see the total hours in the end.
I'm still waiting for approval on Sushi, but I consider her done at this point, here are a couple of shots of her:

I gave her a big belly spot:

I've been trying to touch every commission piece each day, as well as one sales piece, but I haven't been able to meet that goal at this point. I've been putting in extra hours each day, I really want to get my sales pieces out the door so I'll be able to buy a fresh horse to work on (Dante....I hope...)
I plan on getting pictures of my newly finished pieces up on my website and Facebook hopefully by next week. And that's all for now!