Friday, April 29, 2011

Sales and the painting continues!

So, first up, the gal who was going to buy Johann earlier had to take her kitty (very cute thing) to the vet for eyelid surgery so the sale fell through. He's back up for offers again so if you thought you'd missed out you have another shot at him. Lots more photos and information as well as bidding info on my sales page of the website: http://equine.aspenleafstudiosllc.com/sales.html


I have also been a painting fool lately. Now that the resin backlog is just about gone (only have a few stragglers left!!!!!!! Yes I am excited about this. ) I am focusing my efforts on the painted commission backlog. I did a rough count of how many commissions I currently have, not all of which are in studio at the moment, and I just about face planted. More motivation to knock that number (which shall remain my dirty little secret) down. Bring out the boxing gloves.

Plan of attack? KO the oldest pieces first of course. I spent most of this week prepping anything within reach so that when the painting began it could just flow to the next horse and to the next one, etc without being interrupted. I grabbed two Gawyn's, which are still needing that little finishing work on the prepping still - I'll take them on again next week, a Darling, a Legacy, a Justin Tyme, a Lorenz, one of the Copra Mares (head down one - I struggle with their names), three Reiners, an Ikran, Ahzam, Pixie, and a Darcy. Oh yeah. Momma was busy! Most of those last ones had paint work already started and I'm working on finishing them.

Of course, my airbrushes, which I use for basecoating, decided not to cooperate with me. My favorite for basecoating decided he'd like to get a big fat clog and would rather take a nice relaxing soak in Restorer than work. Lazy. My Micron, which I usually only use for finishing work, decided to be fragile and when I took the head off for cleaning him as well, it broke off instead and left a piece in the threading of the brush. Fabulous. Luckily, there is a gal at Meinenger's Art Supply who says she fixes these things all the time and it's easy and cheap. Bad news is that the part itself is like $50. Ouch.

I did manage to get a few things basecoated though before Lazy decided he was done.

Justin Tyme - he's going to get painted dark bay with 25% white tobiano sporting cat tracks.

Rose Reiner4 - finished color will be a bit darker than this, but those yellow oils are so transparent they really need to have more highlights as a base. He'll be a rich golden brown liver when he's done.

Not only did I manage to get this Legacy basecoated, but I applied a layer of oils on him last night too. The oils are still wet so he's a bit shiny. He's also on my "scrap base" which has a hole that was drilled crooked. It's perfect to hold him up while painting because I don't have to worry about dings and what not. He's in his unpretty stage right now, but he'll be gorgeous finished in a light golden bay.

Darcy will be a dark dappled buckskin. I had to darken her flank an chest area and now need to reapply the darker shading, which adds the dapples at the same time.

Pixie here is just adorable in a bay tobiano baby roan!

And this is probably my favorite foal sculpture to date - Ikran by Brigitte Eberl. I had such a fun time painting the Breyer foal "baby gray" that I'm doing the same thing here. Only instead of a bay base, I'm going with a chestnut base.

Check out that extreme hairing close up. Still not finished yet either!

I'll also be posting soon about a live show I'm holding in July. In it there's some scrumptious plaques I painted that were sculpted and donated by Kitty Cantrell. Members of my mailing list saw a peek at one. There will be lots more of my painting needed for all sorts of amazing prizes for the show. I'll just end the post here on that little teaser.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Legacy in Action!

So, I got the most awsome e-mail from a customer the other day! I had shipped out the last batch of the Legacy's last week and Kelli Konecny of Steel Horse Designs e-mailed me to let me know she had received him...and put him straight to work! What a great model to use as advertisement with her jumps. Kelli was accomodating enough to send me these photos! Thank you so much Kelli!




Like the jump? View more of Kelli's work on her website:

Monday, April 18, 2011

Misc. Monday

Just a hodge podge of stuff today. So, in no particular order:


We have another peek of the Johann. I just love this little resin. Morgen's stuff is just so nice! And, this small traditional scale is just *wonderful* to paint. I should take a photo of the neighbor's horse, who is my inspiration, and post it here. Maybe next time. Johann will be up for sale by the end of this week!


If you're a member of my mailing list, then you've just seen the post of these shots. I have a client that needed a sculpture example of mine for a job I'm hoping to get. Of course I can just send a stark white unpainted piece so I quickly painted this Llanura resin up with the airbrush I use for my basecoats. She actually looks pretty nice in my opinion for a quickie paint job!


More Llanura.


And some more. If you want to see the whole spectrum, you'll have to go the mailing list's group album.


I just love this shot. I think it shows off how spectacular her tail is. :D


And let's finish off on a great note! Vicky Norris took her newly-completed Reiner commission to the Mini Balls & Tejas live show. She tells me he won a first in workmanship and a second in breed. She also tells me that he won his two performance classes she entered in. Photo is complimentary Vicky - thank you and CONGRATULATIONS!

If you have photos of *your* Aspen Leaf winners, I would *love* to post them here!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Progress Peek - Johann


So, I *try* to leave myself time between commissions and resin casting to get out a sales piece now and then. I usually only end up with about 3-4 a year that actually make it to MH$P or an auction site. For sales piece number two for 2011, I am leaning towards Morgen Kilbourn's FABULOUS little small traditional resin "Johann". I wasn't all that wooed by the unpainted piece's photos, but I know Morgen wouldn't put out anything that wasn't spectacular so I asked her about getting one of these guys. I'm so glad I did! He is absolutely delightful in person! Morgen is a master at subtle detailing. I'm here to tell you if you have been on the fence about this guy, you need to jump off and just buy him before it's too late. You won't regret it. There is a joke among artists that we "Can't afford to keep our own work." The phrase can apply here as he'd probably be one I'd like to keep but I just can't afford to not sell him.

So, when you are looking at the photo please keep in mind that while he looks complete, he's still a work in progress. In fact, the Testors Dullcote hasn't even dried, as evidenced by the shiny creases in the face and ear cavities... I also need to map a little around the facial marking and do some more to the eye, etc. Like I said. Work in progress. But when he's done, he'll be an absolutely yummy dappled toasty liver chestnut with a "platinum blond" flaxen mane and tail and four white socks for lots of chrome.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Bootylicious


Now that I'm farther along on him, I'm noticing Quick Draw has quite the caboose on him. We all like a big-butted stock horse, but this guy is a bit extreme! I like where the left side is blocked in at, but that right side...oh my.

So, to help me really see how much better it's going to look when I take away, I've Photoshop'd the first image to this:


His tail only has the right side sculpted so don't let that throw off your center line perspective. I also think it looks like his head is tilting ever so slightly to the left. Super easy fix. I find it's a really good thing to take lots of photos of your work in key points of the process. Looking at your horse via a photo clears your tired eyes and gives you a new perspective. I saw some other things that needed fixing besides just the width of the derrière.