Jenn's Blog

More Pure Happiness

2012-01-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

So I forgot to take a picture of the quilt getting sandwiched, but at least I can tell you what I used. See that spray can below? Good stuff. I'll lay out my top piece on a large flat area and then carefully put my batting on top of it. I'll peel back sections and spray this stuff before meshing back together. Repeat for your backing layer.

I don't like pinning. I think it tends to pull fabric around, and well...I'm just uncoordinated with the stupid little things. Plus it's much faster to spray than to try to put five hundred safety pins and all those holes in your fabric. Other nice thing about this stuff is that it lasts a while. I've had this can for years and years and it's not spraying a clumpy mess - still that nice clean (well not really, but you get what I'm trying to say) sticky mist.

So, the other thing that I do vastly different from the normal quilters, is that instead of starting in the middle of your quilt and working outward, I like to start at a corner. The reason for this is that I've found it much more efficient to quilt a little, readjust your fabric so that there are no creases in the sandwich, and quilt a little more, rinse, repeat. Every time I started in the middle, I got a crease in either the top fabric or the backing fabric, no matter how many times I tried to adjust. When you quilt, even in free motion where your machine's feeddogs are down, you're still pulling some of those layers more than others. There is ultimately going to be adjusting...or creases which look awful unless you have a long arm machine or know a secret I don't (which is very possible).

Here's a picture of the machine during free-motion quilting. You can't see them as they're under the quilt sandwich, but the feeddogs are lowered so there is nothing directing the fabric but my hands. I wanted a fun tighter pattern to kind of punch down the neutral fabrics so that the blue bows stood out just a bit more. So I'm doing an echo shell pattern on everything except the blue fabric and borders.

The top has a really pretty variegated thread in brown tones, though I'm keeping things neutral on the back. You can see the quilting pattern more clearly in the photo of the back below.

*Lots* more quilting left to go!

Misc. Creativity

2011-12-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

So I forgot to take a photo of it before I left it over at Mom's house, but the inside of the quilt top is fully pieced together and I'm waiting on fabric to come in for the borders and flower petals that will be put on. I do have my image of the pieces on the design board though so I'll put that up. Borders and flowers will be the same width as the squares and in the cream with dark polka dots fabric.

I also thought it would be fun to post photos of the Christmas cards I did for the families this Holiday. All are done in water colors with some bordering in micron ink pens.

This first one is for Dad. The block of the building on the left there is his current hangar. Dad used to be an architecht and contractor and is planning on doing some remodeling to the building to include office space as well as extend some of the shop space. He gets a big kick out of illustrative renderings so I thought I'd do a quick sketch up for his card.

Mom's is this next one. Mom is slightly obsessed with miniature donkeys. This one is way cuter in person.

Brother Chris has a little Toy Daschund named Sydney who is just a complete Diva. So, she is sprawled on her favorite white leopard fleece blanket with her bling color and her sparkly presents.

Chris is roommate joined us for Christmas as his family is in Missouri. He just bought a boxer puppy this year named Dyson. Chris insisted I should have put the hat in his mouth.

The next round of family cards is for hubby Matt's side. His sister (who's name happens to also be Jennifer Lee, only she spells her middle name Leigh) has a fun black lab who always is eating things. Hence ornament in mouth.

For Mother-in-Law Karen, a cute little snowglobe. Matt used to have a tradition of buying her snowglobes for Christmas before she finally demanded he stop due to her lack of space for any more. So, next best thing was the paper version. Very spacially friendly.

And last but not leat is Jenn's daughter Trinity. That little girl is all about her pink and princesses.

My Other Hobby

2011-12-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

Most people are content with one hobby. I'm not one of them. I'll admit to being guilty of having many. Probably too many, but at least I can't complain of ever being bored. I may actually open up a second blog for this hobby I'm about to share, but until then I'll post here and see if anyone's interested in it.

I tend to be interested in hobbies that I can express myself creatively in. Sewing is one of those. My mom was the one who got me into it as it's her big thing. She used to sew my brothers and I clothes while growing up. While I've not tried any clothes yet (though I'm just about to make the plunge), I've been quilting for several years now. There is just something about a quilt made by you or someone you love that just makes you happy. Definitely one of those "feel good" things. Here's a couple of projects I've made in the past:

A bag for a friend's baby shower in her colors of pink and brown.

A "raggie" quilt for our friends' first baby.

His theme was cars/airplanes/motorcycles in primary colors.

The blue fabric is old jeans cut up into squares and the red plaid is flannel -

nice and soft for baby's skin!

(By the way the quilt is perfectly square. My photography not so much)

This one was made from a Bunny Hill kit for another friends' first baby.

This was my first attempt at applique and I love it!

There are others, but maybe I'll make another post out of those. I mainly wanted a little lead in sampling. You all get the idea. My next project that I'm working on is for my Mother-in-Law's Birthday coming up at the end of January.

One of my favorite designers are actually a local Colorado company consisting of Mom and two daughters - Sweetwater. I like there stuff because it's not so "floraly" like most fabric out there. It's lots of gender neutral prints and geometrics. They have a pattern called Pure Happiness that was designed for fabrics of their "Pure" line. I don't have yardage of the fabrics, only what's called "fat quarters (which is basically a 18" x 24" piece of fabric) so instead of using only three colors, well, I'll be using them all. Aren't they pretty?

So I want to create a gradient effect, going from light in one

corner to dark in the opposite corner. I'll use the blue fabrics

for the bow ties. You can see the guide I made in the

lower left of the photo below.

I've got the top half of the quilt top just about fully pieced together.

Just that one last row, which you can also see in the above photo.

Below is a close in shot.

After I finish the quilt top, I'll sandwich the quilt back, batting, and top together and start the quilting. When that is finished I'll add the flowers and buttons and quilt binding. I think I'll do some blogging on those steps in case anyone was interested in the step-by-step making of a quilt.

Cantering WB - finished the sculpey part!

2011-10-04T12:22:00.003-06:00

So, still no name as of yet, though I do have a few in mind that I'm narrowing it down from. I've finished all the work I want to do with the Sculpey, baked him, and will be making my waste mold of him tomorrow!

There are plenty of little tweaks this guy needs! I won't go into pointing them all out but the big ones will be cleaning up the hoofies - like sanding down a lot from that front left one and building up some more on that back left one - finishing the tail, sanding smooth the sections I worked on him in so that they all blend together fluidly with no bumps/breaks/cracks, fixing the areas where the sculpey cracked, and adding veins/details/shoes.

Once I get the feet sized right and more even with the others I'll sculpt the bottom of the hooves on before sculpting on shoes.

It's much easier to work on a sturdy, cast-as-one-piece resin form for this stuff than risk putting too much pressure on a sculpey piece and having it break off.

Cantering Warmblood progress

2011-09-30T18:34:00.000-06:00

So I believe it was one or two posts back that you saw a peek at the Warmblood I'm working on. I've probably got about 42 hours, give or take one or two, into him at this point. Don't mind the cracking. I tend to seal a freshly completed section with a heat gun before moving on to the next so as to make sure I don't accidentally bump and smudge something I didn't want to. I should take the time to just bake him and then move on to fully get him cooked instead of hardening just the top layer but well, these little tiny cracks are easy to fill on the resin master.

This side of the tail is pretty much done. I'll come back with Apoxie, which is a stronger substance that adheres to hard surfaces much better, to smooth some unworked spots out when I get the resin master copy made.

You'll see that I just have this side of the tail, the chest, and 1.5 front legs to go! Male parts I'll put on the resin master as well. Same with shoes and veins.

<3 his face! The wrinkles will calm down during the master smoothing process.

These wrinkles are better. The blob there is a chest muscle waiting to be worked in. It won't poke out nearly so much later.

You'll also notice I went with the 40 tiny hunter braids. I really debated this as the look is not my particular cup of tea. However in the end they won out because one - he's correctly braided for pretty much every discipline requiring them, and two - they'll be *very* easy to sand off for mane resculpting of the production pieces. I'm also contemplating two versions - loose mane and the braided. I would love to hear people's thoughts on this!

Playing Dr. Frankenstein

2011-09-19T22:33:00.000-06:00

Appropriate considering what holiday is next upon us! Apparently I've been subconsciously inspired to chop something up. And I happened to spy my next plastic victim on the shelf!

Poor Ringo! There is something just morbidly satisfying about slicing a plastic into many parts and scorching it with my heat gun. Considering this was all I did in my early teens when I was first learning to customize, I'm wondering why my parents weren't more concerned.

I am in for a big overhaul with this guy. For starters, those two legs who's position is undergoing some serious changing will need the musculature sanded down near completely and redone to correctly suit the movement. The left shoulder will get the most work. The neck would just be easier to completely resculpt so I trashed that to make room for the wire and apoxie. I'll have to fill the head in too to make sure I don't trap that air where it could implode the piece. Besides the movement changes to the piece, I plan on going back and adding in the detail that was woefully lost when the mold was made. The body I'm going to try to stay more true to Kathi's lovely style, but the mane and tail will be me.

You can see a quick photoshop sketch of where I'm going with this guy. I was inspired by a photo I saw of a real Saddlebred. I believe this new pose/look will make him more versatile in the performance ring...and I do like me a versatile horse. I'm thinking I'll complete the look with a sandy bay tobiano - maybe about 70% white? Not entirely locked in on that sandy bay, but pinto definitely.

Some photogenic studio updates

2011-09-15T11:40:00.001-06:00

I'm due (long over due in fact) for a web update - not just the gallery but the in studio page as well. I don't have the time for that large of a project yet, so I'm taking the quick way out meantime with a little blurb of studio projects.

Remember several years back when I did this guy? Well, his owner and I had the most unfortunate luck of this being a rare case of a leaking resin that doesn't rear its ugly head until well after the paint has been applied. We traded the bad body back to Lynn for another and are having a second attempt at this guy. He's almost finished, just need to add more gold to the highlights and then add the dark to the other side.

Another one of my long time residents. This Lorenz is finally up on the assembly line and looking good in his dapple gray coat! Little fleabites are being added to the flank, shoulder, elbow and neck areas right now. His legs are blocked in but still need work on this side. The other side needs everything. :)

Two Reiners on commission are just about finished! The top needs his m/t and hoofies completed and I'm waiting on a Rio Rondo order of shoes to give him that finishing touch. The bottom just needs to have his feet finished and he's ready to be sealed and sent home!

These next two are sales pieces that I'm squeezing in. Ikran, above, has been getting little hairs drawn on here and there for probably the last year. He's not very high on the priority list as I'm working more on commissions and resin orders. Since you last saw him in an earlier blog post, I've added more hairing work and then a layer of oils over top of that hairing detail to set everything in. I'm extremely pleased with the way he is coming out. I love this little sculpture, which certainly helps. It's probably my favorite foal resin out there today, though Morgen's Little Man Mango is right up there with him.

This guy however, I should have done in the next couple of days. I <3 mini's. Freshly released, he's Sarah's Little Lonestar and I'm trying a new way of painting on him. I had an idea for a "short cut" of sorts but wanted to make sure the look would still be the same and just as nice. So far, on the two horses I've tried it out on it's working out great! This means faster production, which is always a huge benefit! Still need to add the shadows and blanket on the other side and add the white markings on the legs and face. So far he's sailing along though.

And I'm trying to integrate a plastic piece in now and then too. I like the change in medium to kind of spritz things up a little anyway. This gal is more performance oriented with her neck tucked and head on the bit. I've added braids and squared out her tail more. The braids need to be "dechunkified" and some smoothing needs to happen, but after that I think I'm ready for painting. Still no clues on color for her yet. I'm thinking a medium chestnut but I'm not nailed to it. Suggestions are always welcome. :D

Also in the studio is a new sculpture project. I'm almost finished with the little Welsh pony mare, but I had to start this guy before I exploded with pent up creativity. Another warmblood? Fraid so. Why? A few reasons. One, I had a friend comment on how odd it was that while I was an "English type" rider (dressage/eventing) I had a lot of western style resins. I thought it funny when I realized how right she was. So, I'm endeavoring to give Depeche a buddy. Another reason for the second dressage oriented piece is completed business related. When I can afford to and take the time away from work, I ride at a high-end dressage barn. Let's just say I believe there's the potential for some jobs there. I very much want to branch out into bronze work and start focusing on commissioned sculpture. So, I need a portfolio piece that showcases the recent skill level I've reached that would appeal to the buyer I'm trying to attract.

I have been wanting to do this pose for years now actually. It's a bit different from what you normally see in the model world. He is cantering, but he's only got one weight-bearing leg at this time in the gait. There are so many trotting ones I didn't want to go that direction, and I still wanted a versatile horse for other events besides dressage so I didn't want to sculpt a very specific movement like the half-pass or pirouette. And while we have a lot of horses in the canter with three weight-bearing legs like Depeche, there really aren't mane with just one. I believe that's because of the need for either a base or pegs. This guys will most likely have two. One in his right back leg, and then one in the left front.

So, yes the update was a bit long, but in that there were lots of photos to see, I'm sure you'll forgive me. ;) There are still many more horses in progress, but their paint was drying or they were at another otherwise impossible to photograph stage.

Peek-a-Boo Peek

2011-08-26T22:24:00.000-06:00

Remember that cute little cookie of the foal peeking through mamma's tail? Well, I got him molded and cast the other day and prepped for production molding just now! :D I've really been wanting some little item to stock for fun that was affordable to everyone or that I could give to shows as a donation piece that was readily available. Cookies fit the bill. Besides, who doesn't like cookies? Nom nom.

I'll only be selling this when copies are in stock and of course they'll go through my mailing list first. Link to the list should be on the right hand column there. I'll be asking $20 plus postage. I can tell you all right now that one day hubby will wake up to find lots of Peek-a-Boo magnets on the fridge! :D

Dainty Darcy Sales Piece

2011-08-24T19:07:00.000-06:00

So I've been working hard on getting this gal done for my next resin sales piece. I've got two more of her sisters in the works too. This is the "flashiest" paint job of the three - a dark dappled caramel palomino sabino. I love the way she's turning out! Just need to get the eyes/hooves painted and clean up the markings on the right side! $450 + $10 shipping (int'l extra) takes her. I'll have her finished either by tomorrow evening or Friday.

New Sales Piece

2011-08-04T10:04:00.001-06:00

So, I've finally completed the moderately customized Weather Girl! She's now up on AB! Click Here for her Auction. Remember AB links can be finicky so just hit the browser's back button if it doesn't work on first click.

And yes, those shoes are "forged" and not sculpted.

Honestly, it was fun to transform a horse into something that was still a Weather Girl, but at the same time completely different. I don't know if I'll suddenly switch from painting resins to completely customizing plastics, but it was a nice change of beat. I have a Valentine here in studio who I've done some slight customizing to. I want to finish her at some point. Maybe next month. Too many commissions I've got on the table to get completed this month to fit her in. :) There's also a Breyer Classic scale Hanoverian and a Stone Trad. Paloose that I have big plans for. I might even have to push Valentine down the line a little to make room for that Paloose. He's going to be something. :D

That's all you'll get from me for now. Back to painting and casting and cleaning and website updating! Oh my.

Showing up

2011-07-18T10:04:00.001-06:00

So, I'm hosting my first live show on Saturday and as usual have a bunch of little things to do as I come down to the wire. First order of business - firming up table and chair delivery to the hangar. Second, print ribbons, judges sheets, and extra show packets. Third clean/organize room (and the rest of the house!!) for guest judge's arrival so she doesn't run away. Four - finish plaques for trophies and buy raffle tickets for donation items.

I've just come to terms with the fact that nothing "work wise" will have a snowballs chance in hell at getting any attention this week. On the plus note, the painting for the plaques by Kitty Cantrell are painting up really nicely. I've got the three Arabian Stallion plaques done (woots):

And am 2/3 of the way through on the Arabian Mare and Foal plaques. These things are about 7 1/2" tall and are so so nice to paint! I've already told Kitty that they are going to become an annual thing for trophies for my show. They're just too perfect not to use. And frankly I'd rather have one of these than a rosette. Kitty does sell these two if you're not attending my show and still want one. They are $50 PPD I believe - see them on her website: http://www.kittycantrell.com/

Cookies and Customs

2011-07-13T15:06:00.000-06:00

So, I've been wanting to do a medallion forever. I had a first attempt with this guy a few years back:

And I had an idea pop into my head while hubby and I watched a movie for a second one. A little foal hiding behind mamma's bottom and peeking through her tail. A few hours later I had my piece! Meet Peek-a-boo!

Worlds different from the first one, huh? Peek-a-Boo is roughly 2" wide by 4" tall. I'll probably be selling a few of them later, but she's not high on the priority list at all.

Next up is the custom part. I meant for that to be plural too, as the tittle suggests, but I forgot to snap a photo of him finished so I'll just plant in a little teaser description and let you look forward to him later. Here's the Weather Girl custom I'm working on with a much nicer, and much less orange background. ;) She's *almost* ready to paint but still needs some tweaks here and there. I will hope to have her up for auction next week on AB. I abhor bases in all fields - sculpting them, painting them, looking at them - so I went with a thin acrylic rod on the front hoof instead. She's quite sturdy even for being narrow.

Can't wait to be able to put that bay paint job with chrome on her! Yum! And that teaser I promised. I have a stunning Gomez by Deb McDermott that has been in the works for a while. As with most of my own pieces they usually don't get worked on unless I have left over stuff that needs to be used. So, while cleaning resins, any surplus of Apoxie mixed went towards the customizing of Gomez. Nothing in terms of position, but a lot in terms of decoration and hair. His tail is customized and was shortened, which meant an acrylic rod to support him. Then I took off his mane on the one side and added a double french braid to the neck so he's got those gorgeous locks on both sides now. I couldn't stop there. I'd been eyeing all these fancy Spanish parade horses and of course was inspired. So, to that gorgeous thick Spanish hair, I added roses and ribbons. The end result is AMAZING. So much in fact that I'm going to keep him in my own personal collection for a while. That's no small thing. I never hang on to horses any more as I can't afford to keep my own work. If I keep it, that means I'm loosing the money I could have made from a sale. I currently have one horse in my personal collection right now and this boy will make it two.

The Weather looks good!

2011-06-25T14:02:00.000-06:00

So, I'm doing something I have not done since my early teens. I'm customizing a plastic model. There is something about melting plastic and chopping off heads that just oozes nostalgia for me. I'm assuming, but I think *all* painters and sculptors start out doing this. By taking that beat up body and playing Dr. Frankenstein on it. But the end result is amazing. It's almost mind boggling to me that we can take these horses and totally remake them into something else.

I am seeing that the trend in the market right now is for customized plastics. My guess on why that's the case is because it's a wide open market that has not been oversaturated yet. Not with really good pieces. As mentioned, it's more of a novice field still. But, wanting a change, I think a lot of the top artists are going back to their roots. Especially now that we have such wonderful bodies to work on. Also, they are cheap to get a hold of. Cheap compaired to a $200-$500+ resin anyway.

So who's my victim? Breyer's latest plastic - Weather Girl. She'll be what I would term a "moderate custom" when all's said and done; which means that you'll still guess she started life as a Weather Girl, but she's had a *lot* of work done. My inspiration? A photo of an Arabian hunter pleasure horse. Here's where I am so far:

She's sitting on my drafting table and only able to stand right now by leaning on something - in this case a jaringly orange and distracting box of Baking Soda. The right elbow is still bothering me. I think it needs to be moved back towards the body some more. The angle to the shoulder isn't helping so I'm actually going to fix that first and see if that's the whole problem there. Besides being straightened, the left front leg hasn't been touched. The left hind leg works where it was (woots) and there wasn't too much to do on that back right hind. I did straighten the canon as it was really messed up, probably due to a mold flaw. Her tail, when attached will look something like the drawn in one: braided with the extention for some crazy length. I'm hoping it will be enough to support her so I don't have to add pegs or a base. Her mane will be a running braid (french braid) that will enhance the shapely ness of her neck. I love how regal and feminine she's looking already! Despite the fact that I don't like them, you'll never see a top level hunter pleasure Arabian go in the ring without pads and weighted shoes. So, I'll be adding them as well. To finish her off I'll add an absolutely glowing dappled red bay paint job with golden highlights and lots of chrome. That will be the part that's most fun to me. :D

An artist's words - long

2011-06-17T18:58:00.001-06:00

I had originally thought to post some completed and in progress photos here, but as I started writing this I changed my mind. I will save that post for another time. Today I feel compelled by some unknown force to get some things out. I usually do not like to blab out feelings or thoughts publicly as I tend to think that makes me seem whiney or like I'm trying to grab attention, but it seems like one of those rare occasions when I'm being prompted to. Warning, there will be a lot of "I's" in this post. ;)

The thoughts of mine have a lot to do with the hobby's demands vs. the artistic liberty and expression. It also has something to do with the customers vs. the artists. It seems to me that our happy hobby world has turned into one of conflict in recent years. I'm noticing more and more trends of "ganging up" on pieces or people. Customers vs. artists seems quite appropriate. And I do mean that to swing both ways too - artists vs. customers. I think there has been a lot of unreasonabilty (yes I made up my own word) from both parties. Customers feel wronged by artists who take forever to get them pieces - whether it was known they'd have to wait or not, and artists feel bullied by customers who are being overly demanding, rude, and don't seem to care about paying for what they have purchased.

Frankly, I think we need a little more understanding and well CARING between both sides. Artists have to care enough for their customers to not make them wait for years on pieces purchased. I understand that painted pieces can take longer depending on the detail, but I will be the first to admit it is most definitely unreasonable to expect people to wait years for an unpainted resin. If you can fill the order, wait for more casts and then take more customers. I am changing my practices as I can to make sure I can comply with my own words. More on business plans down the post. Customers need to have a little more understanding, need to put themselves in the professional artist's shoes. So many times they are just plane rude and unreasonably demanding and when they aren't absolutely groveled to by the artist they go public and go bashing. Also, they will spend so much money on other things with time payments, but when the artist says it's time to pay the balance of a piece owed the customer, who has been nagging with e-mails to get it done, get it done, suddenly disappears. They don't seem to understand that artists pay their bills with those funds and it's not just "extra money".

These are just stereotypes that I've been noticing and of course does not apply to everyone. It's just something I'm coming across more and more though my own experiences as well as the experiences of many others I've talked to - on both sides of the fence. I do not believe either side to be right. Customers are not evil. They feel genuinely wronged, but I think have taken that to mean that they are going to bite back even harder than necessary to "teach someone a lesson." Instead, it just reinforces in the artists' minds that they are victims. On the other side, the artists have gotten used to making people wait and have grown comfortable with that, which isn't right either. We get scared to say "no" to an order as that means food on our table and money in our pockets to pay bills, but that just means that we create a backlog that becomes a mountain to climb over for us. As usual with an argument, Both sides need to meet in the middle. I'm going to make the effort on my end, and I hope others will start to do the same.

Which brings me on to my next topic of business plans. At least this one will have some pictures to go with it! :D What's a blog post without photos after all? Getting through current orders is obviously the priority. However, new things always need to be happening in order to move forward. An artist needs their own time to creatively express themselves as they see fit otherwise the creativity leaves them and they become more or less machines. This leads to an unhappy artist, which I believe leads to a fall in work in regards to both time frame and quality. I have noticed lately, that I have not been expressing myself completely, most particularly in the sculpture realm. In that ever present worry to keep money coming in for bills, I've tended to try to please the customer base entirely - a hobby as a whole. I've now learned this is impossible for the hobby as a whole is fickle. While there are generalizations, these can change at a moment's notice. What makes one piece more special than the next? I will tell you right now it's not correctness. I've put my mind through a blender trying to decipher the mystery of "how to create popular pieces" and have finally realized something. One, I will never solve this puzzle. Two, I have worried so much about pleasing everyone else and conforming to their opinions - only to have that same piece bashed by the ones who's opinions I was ruled by, that I've lost my own creative expression.

My solution? Instead of creating the performance horse or the show horse, the ideal standard of a breed, I want to pick a piece that completely inspires me. I was surfing the Internet one night find mustang foal photos to use as reference for the foal that will complete the "family" of Llanura and Sencillo since I've been asked to do so. I was reaching the end of the image search when these gems popped onto my screen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mare_and_foal_(Kvetina-Marie).jpg

The breed is unknown, though I suspect Welsh pony. It didn't matter. I felt some creative voice yelling out to me at that moment to do only what I wanted and sculpt these two - without trying to make them the perfect ideal of a set breed, without trying to make them show groomed or performance ready. Sculpt them as is, "faults" and character and all. As of today, I'm almost 50% finished with her. Here's where the photos come in. :) Yes. I know. Finally. Some are with flash, some are without; as I could not get the desired image with either. Both reveal different perspectives.

My full on portrait of this momma mare. Her back is NOT too long, for those of you who can only see hobby portions, which rules that the back must be short in order to look good. She does have that dropped back and tummy, as all broodmares do.

Don't mind the strange gap in her tummy. After I bake her, I'll remove her from the armature and sculpt over the piece in the middle there, giving me a complete, uninterrupted body with no sign of armature.

And here we'll get a close up of her cute little pony legs! I'm just enamored over how the chest and it's wrinklies came out. I'd wanted more of the skin look rather than the hobby's preference towards deep sharp muscle grooves. The area behind the elbow isn't finished btw.

More wrinkles! It's amazing how many of these things those crestier (as well as the more fat variety) will get when turning inside. My cresty-necked Morgan gelding gets some that look very much like these.

Still several things to fix - the big ears being the most notable. And of course there's the fact that she has no other side yet. She also has no teeth. I'm waiting until I get both sides of the head complete before trying to put those in. No particular names for this gal coming to me yet, though I know I want to keep it simple.

Back to the business plan. In hopes of keeping up with orders, I will only be selling her painted. That's right. No unpainted orders will be taken, no pre-orders will be taken, and *maybe* only one or two commissions will be taken. Most of you know, but I am a one shop woman. I do the sculpting, the painting, the molding, the casting, the cleaning, the shipping - I do it *all*. And the amount of labor and time it takes me to cast and clean things is substantial. So, I decided that with this gal I was going to get rid of a lot of that time by doing a lot less casting/cleaning. Instead, I'd use that time to paint, which honestly is so much easier on my hands.

Will she be the first of many that will only be sold painted? I sure do hope so. But don't worry, I won't be ousting unpainted sales completely. Just limiting them more. And my goal with unpainted sales, when they do happen, will be to have pieces available in hand for sales. While the $50 deposit and balance due when ready to ship method has been working I still want to eliminate the wait completely. When it comes to resin sales, I want to get to the point of when you pay I ship. No wait. While I'd like to quit the deposit sales cold turkey, I need to get a little ahead so I can order supplies up front for molding and casting, which means more likely a gradual transition to these sales. It's coming soon though! I've actually been working towards this since the beginning of the year. It's a slow process, but I'm sticking firm to my goals. I think you as the customers will be appreciative of them and where I'll be going in the future.

Misty Monday

2011-05-16T22:04:00.002-06:00

I love misty (or in Colorado's case cloudy) days. The weather obliged me this morning, wrapping our little valley in a blanket of light fog as the clouds rolled through. It was wonderful, even if it didn't last as long as I'd like.

Then it was time to drive to the new Smooth-On distribution center that just opened up in Colorado a few weeks ago for supplies. I am thrilled about this! It's only about an hour's drive and I don't need to spend a stupid amount on shipping. I basically used to pay so much for shipping that I could have bought another product instead. Not only is it a cost saver to have the center local, but it's also a time saver. No more waiting a week for product! That's wonderful when you have a deadline. Bad when they only had one gallon of rubber though when I needed two. ;) Oh well. Can't win them all. The salesman that was there was wonderful to speak with about the products, even if he was the reason that second gallon of rubber wasn't there for me. We both agree on which rubber is best apparently. :D Anyway, it was a good time visiting the location and starting my relationship with a rep who'll be seeing a lot of me.

Besides packing resins for shipping today, I did get a chance to work on a few more painted pieces. There is a live show coming up and I for once want to see some of my own pieces on those tables. The first is a Darling resin in bay tobiano with lots of white, which is a commission for S.P. Her other side will have even less color. So far I think she looks smashing and very much like a groomed paint you'd see on the hunter circuit.

The next was going to be my donation for the NAN raffle this year - a painted Llanura. However with the release of Quick Draw to my mailing list I decided he needed more exposure and asked my NAN rep if I could switch them out. So, I'll be finishing this gal up for the show anyway and also handing a cast QD to Teresa B.

I am debating on leaving her color like this or putting some dry-brushed layers of oils on her and see where she goes. Sometimes chestnuts turn out best when there's no plan in mind and you just let things happen. Either way she'll have a blaze and one little sock.

My problem is I'm being indecisive as I can see her in a few options at this point - rabicano roan, bird spot appy, the see-where-it-goes chestnut or leave her as is. You'll just have to wait and see along with me where this gal ends up!

Another "Quick" Update

2011-05-04T10:42:00.001-06:00

During my "lunch break" I sit in front of the TV, cuddle with my dog on the sofa, eat lunch, and do some sculpting. Yes. I am one of those people who can't just be idle. Anyway. QD is making some progress! Now, you've seen this side a lot:

So I thought I'd take share more so you could get a better idea of him. Like actually seeing what his other side looks like (now that he has one)!

And this next one is just comical to me for some reason. You can really see that his left side is quite a bit behind work-wise to his right side. That inner left leg needs work, from the hoof all the way up to where it would connect to the chest. You can also see how one sided his face is right now too.

And here's the straight down view after the reworking of that booty! Much better don't you think? Getting there anyway.

And did I mention how much I love Super Sculpey? I am cranking out legs with far more detail than before!

That's all the new shots of him for now. We'll see how many more lunch breaks it takes to finish him. ;)

Sales and the painting continues!

2011-04-29T10:37:00.000-06:00

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.

Legacy in Action!

2011-04-22T20:42:00.001-06:00

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:

www.freewebs.com/steelhorsedesigns

Misc. Monday

2011-04-18T20:06:00.001-06:00

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!

Progress Peek - Johann

2011-04-08T00:35:00.000-06:00

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.

Bootylicious

2011-04-02T22:43:00.000-06:00

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.

"Quick" post on WIP and new medium

2011-03-19T08:34:00.000-06:00

So this year I decided I'd try a new medium. I wanted something that could give me non-hardening until I wanted a solid piece, and I remembered Brigitte Eberl using it a few years back (don't know if she still does) so I thought I'd try it. At first I thought I was crazy (and so did my friends), but the more I started using it, the more I LOVED it. Want to know what my new medium of choice is? Wait for it...Super Sculpey! Yes, the pink stuff you find at your local JoAnn Crafts. And I'm completely in love. It's much softer than I'm used to working with, but it moves much differently as well, which makes the softness okay. Also, I can "set" things in place with a heat gun when I'm finished with an area so I don't have to worry about smudging or taking a chunk of an area out with my nails (which I do all too frequently). Meanwhile, I can move legs and necks and tails and whatnot forward, backwards, and sideways to my heart's content and not have to worry about the stuff hardening in an hour. AND...this is the best part...because I can bake this guy to harden him, I can sand and work THIS copy, which saves me a weeks' worth of time and hundreds of dollars in making the waste mold. We can move straight on to one production mold. WOOTS! I will warn all of you aspiring sculptors now though, I consider this a more advanced medium to work with.

Anyway, info about the piece now. Sorry, I'm a shameless promoter of things I find that I fall in love with (like HD Bananas Foster, yum) and I tend to get sidetracked.

Meet "Quick Draw"! This boy is a traditional scale stock galloping stock horse (same size as the Rose Reiner). I think I'm going to make him a gelding unless all you all feel he needs to remain "intact". He's that nice roping horse type, which is good and thick, but not near a halter-breed horse's beefcake-ness. There's no TB influence in this guy! A friend of mine came to me last year at a show and told me she had plenty of ideas for my next "Performance Horse Series" piece. She and another friend had both been wanting a galloping stock horse with the back legs on the ground for probably a decade or more. She proceeded to tell me all the things she could do with a horse like that. Now, this gal is a big name in performance and one of the most fun and creative people I know...she could probably a NAMHSA Perf. Versatility Award cookie on horse that was laying down. But the enthusiasm she showed was catching. Besides I can't say no to her. She has been a long-time supporter of my work - ever since I was a little girl first starting to paint and hair with the rest of the crowd.

Bananas Foster - AKA Heaven in a Spoon

2011-03-13T21:13:00.000-06:00

I have just discovered the most amazingly delicious flavor of ice cream I have ever put on my palette. Period. No joke. No exaggeration. No exceptions. So good in fact, that it warranted a post on my blog. The *only* way you could improve on this would be to fry it.

Of course it's listed as a limited edition. Wtf? Why would they create this miracle of cold goodness only to limit it? I already told hubby that our garage freezer will become a storage locker for as many of these pint-sized babies as I can fit in it. I recommend you do the same.

Bint Soraya

2010-12-31T17:57:00.000-07:00

Just finished this lovely lady and posted her up on eBay! Check her out!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140496033664

Llanura - Sencillo's mate

2010-12-11T11:26:00.000-07:00

So, I've been plugging quietly away at this girl for probably around a year now. With the backlog, I haven't devoted much time to her, but she's finally had enough little work sessions on her to call her complete. I am *thrilled* with the way she came out!

Her name is Llanura (pronounced Ya new' ra - roll that rrrrrrr) and it means "plain". Sencillo means simple so we have "Plain and Simple" for our mustang pair. She's the epitome of a feral mare of spanish mustang decent. Bigger round bones, the spanish tail set/croup/hips, a chunkier head, short straight back, knotted/tangled mane/tail...the list goes on. Now, to make room for some of those babies she's probably had, her back is no longer so straight. Her hair is slightly windblown as she's standing in the same little breeze Sencillo is hunkering down in.

Her full array of photos can be seen on my yahoo groups mailing list in the albums section. If you're not a member and want to be, click here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AspenLeafStudios/join

Dirt, Static, and Real Horses

2010-11-06T18:28:00.000-06:00

It's been so dry and dusty here lately. No amount of brushing can remove the sheer amount of dirt on my two boys - trust me I've tried! It's really time for a bath, but it's been so cold lately there hasn't been opportunity. So, I've been exploring eco-friendly alternatives to pencil and paper on our 2 y/o 100% foundational bred Morgan gelding, Rocky...

He's such a sweetie he has no idea I'm having fun at his expense. He just registers that I'm touching and petting him. My other boy, 5 y/o Arabian gelding Myrlyn isn't as succesful as a dirtboard. He's very light and so the writing doesn't show up. Hubby and I have taken to writing new messages on hem every morning for our own amusement. We're so bad.

Myr has so much static cling from the dryness his tail is spreading out like one of those fiberoptic globe things. No pictures of that yet though.

Sneak Peek of Morgan Stallion

2010-10-24T22:54:00.000-06:00

Finally this guy is pretty much finished! I thought he was before, but then I took a break and came back. As usuall, all I have to do is refresh my eyes to see all those faults. And they sure do glare back at you!

For those of you who are unaware of this guy, his name is Fitzwilliam - Willy for short - and he's Darcy's main man. He's meant to be more of the old styel/foundational bred Morgan in type. I am very happy with how he looks now, but have sent out photos to a few experts to see where he stands. If he's good I hope to have the master cast in a few weeks, but we'll see. He's only going to be available unpainted to those of you who bought a Darcy or Elizabeth resin; otherwise, he'll be sold painted only.

Btw, ignore his feet. I'll be evening them out in resn as the clay is just not being friendly in that area.

China day at Karen Gerhardt's!

2010-09-26T12:56:00.000-06:00

So I've been expressing an interest in china pieces for a while now. Let's face it. It's hard not to be sucked in by that glossy clinky goodness! Of course, one of our local residents here in CO is Karen Gerhardt, fantastic china painter/sculptor extraordinaire. :D Karen just got back from England where she spent a lot of time over at Alchemy learning about glazing and molding and all things earthenware related. She was gracious enough to host a "China Day" for Sheila Anderson Bishop and I!

Karen showed us her shelving, which holds all of her sculpture's plaster molds. Unlike resin molds, which are made from silicone rubber and are extremely flexible, bisque molds are made of plaster. The plaster of course is completely rigid, so there's so many more pieces that need to be made in order to wrap around the curves of the horse.

There are a couple ways to make the mold - one you can try to mold the whole horse as one big mold by creating a puzzle of mold pieces that fit together. I believe Stormwatch's mold was done this way and boasted of a count of 19 mold pieces!! Most resin molds consist of only two to three pieces, just to give you a better scope of things.

The second way is the more traditional way of doing it. You actually cut the body apart and mold the separate limbs, which once cast will be "glued" together before firing. Bronze is done this way too. I have to admit that when you read about this, this technique sounds scary as hell! But after our little clinic with Karen, it was completely un-frightening.

So, Karen is a master clinician! Sheila and I get there to find Karen has laid out everything for us to begin. Our project for today would be a Mini Boreas. Now, this guy will end up being close to LB/Pebbles size after firing, but fresh out of the mold he's closer to classic size.

Here's Karen with her lined up Boreas parts (one horse on one side of the table, a second mold for the same horse on the other side) along with Sheila:

The biggest block there is the body mold. Then there was the mold for the head, four legs, and two ears.

Karen's pouring the "slip" into the plaster molds. The slip is literally just earth and water. Karen brought up a great point when she said she loved working with china more than resin because of the organic qualities of it all. There's none of the chemicals used in resin here. Just a wonderful natural earthiness. I loved it too!

Sheila and I learned that when your pour slip into the plaster molds, you want to pour down the side of the hole, not just down the middle so that no bubbles form and cause a wall to trap air. You want the slip to fill the cavity and the air to escape out of it in the process.

Now, some of you are probably asking, "Well how do you get it hollow then?" The thing we learned about slip casting is that once the slip has been poured into the mold, the plaster mold immediately begins absorbing the water out of the slip, causing it to harden. Apparently there is no set length of time for this process either. It's basically trial and error. You can get a small idea of where the slip's water level is by checking your pour hole clay to see if it's formed a skin or not. When you think you have a sufficient amount of slip that has thickened to form your sculpture's walls, you tip the plaster mold over and pour out the extra slip, creating the hollow middle since the dried slip will not pour out.

Karen and Sheila are shaking out the extra slip so we get the hollow cast. These molds are *heavy* so we tag teamed it by making the third person out the reliever.

Now, something we *all* learned that day! One thing you want to make sure you do when pouring out the slip is to only slightly tilt your piece so that the slip pours out the side and still has room for air to come back in. Otherwise you'll create a vacuum that will suck the drier walls of the body in. You can see the evidence of this below.

We poured each mold twice so we had some spare body parts. Sheila took the body with the caved in flank and I took the body with the caved in butt. We also had some fun episodes with the head pieces so none of them were quite perfect. It was all for the sake of education though so not a bid deal. Plus they will be custom clay bodies so we were going to do work on them anyway.

I got so wrapped up in working on the piece I forgot to take more photos. Luckily Karen had hers out so I'm borrowing these photos (with permission) from her. In these next two, Sheila and I are "gluing" pieces on. To do this, we took the body and the piece we wanted to put on it and applied a quick brushed on bit of raw slip to the edges. Then you stick together and hold for a few seconds while the air dries the slip and the pieces bond. Then you go back and dab in more slip to fill in the gap of the seam. We'll clean these up later when the piece has dried out a bit more.

Sheila is gluing on her head while I'm working on my second back leg.

Obviously we made Karen take the best parts so she could get a real cast. :D Here is her mini Boreas clay body custom!

Karen also thought ahead of the game and sent us home with our clay bodies in a humid Tupperware piece, a tub of slip, and orders to finish our products so we could fire them! I'm was giddy with anticipation when we left. I've been working here and there on my piece in between things and I've now made the adjustments on how to work with the clay. My boy is definitely going to be a custom and I'm excited to show him to you all. When I get him closer to where I want him, I'll start posting sneak peeks here.

A BIG thank you to Karen for inviting us over for a fun day working with mud and ponies! :D I'm definitely a convert and will plan on doing more!

Mini Blobness Gets Adjustments

2010-08-21T12:49:00.000-06:00

So here's an update on our "Mini Blobness" series. We're looking at all the different stages and work that goes into creating a "Mini Darcy" from a small wire armature and Aves Apoxy Sculpt. I've been working on other projects - like getting out resins and painting commissions that I haven't done much work on her at all since our last update. However, I felt this part deserved a post to fill people in on how I'm "matching" Darcy.

It helps to have the big Darcy modeling in front of me while I sculpt on the mini, however even though I've already sculpted her once, seeing it again in a different scale is not as easy as one might think. I'm close, but I want exactness!

Photos of your piece can be an invaluable tool if you have a good camera that will not distort your item being photographed. One, you'll see the piece in a clear picture with a new eye. There's something about a different setting that recharges the eyes. I've heard people using mirrors for this too, but there's a reason I like photos better.

Superimposing!

By placing the picture of the original Darcy on top of the picture of Mini Darcy (or vice versa) and then turning down the transparency I can see exactly where I'm off. Close is no cigar! Lots of things were pointed out to me - the head and poll needed to be moved up, the front legs needed to be moved forward as well as shortened and the chest needed to be extended forward a smidge, the back needs some slight straightening, though at least the length is correct, the tail extends to far out so it will need to be trimmed, the rear legs are too thick at the stifle and gaskin and need trimming as well, and the rear cannons' angle needs to be larger as well as the the length needing shortening. I learned *all that* just by putting the two photos together. Talk about a time saver!

So, the work begins! Here is where I miss my non-hardening J. Mac. clay/wax mix. You can't exactly squish and move cured Apoxy so, we slice into and break until I can bend the armature wires into submission! Her head no longer has enough support to hold it's weight in place so I'll need to be careful about getting the angle/placement right when I put Apoxy back around there.

Let the sanding and resculpting begin.

Domination of the Dapple Grays!

2010-08-17T09:49:00.001-06:00

Yes! This August my studio is being dominated by all the dapple grays getting finished up and hopefully ready to go out the door by the end of the month. Another appropriate title would be "Death by Dapple Gray".

My poor white oil pencil keeps getting shorter and shorter. Pretty soon it will be just a little nub of a thing and I'll have to toss it. I hate tossing pencils. I will work with them until I cannot find a sharpener that will get the job done - usually leaving me drawing with a little 3/4" stub of a pencil, fingers protesting at working with such a small object.

Any artist will tell you that dapple grays are the hardest color to paint. They've definitely been my personal challenge for the last decade. However, something crazy happened while working on the Stormwatch. I had my airbrush base roughed on in there and was taking my white paint to try to tone some of the darkness down when my hands started to move of their own accord. Seriously. I remember thinking to myself, "That's odd..." while I watched them go. Within 30 min I had a section of blocked in dapples that looked fantastic. Now white painted on top of things tends to make a blue gray hue so I took some pigment and dry-brushed burnt umber and black into areas to warm it back up. Add another layer of finely painted white hairs on top of it, add cool contrasting flea-bites and bam! I had a dapple flea-bitten gray I could be proud of.

Of course I couldn't stop there. I got to thinking, "What if I did this?" and "What if I did that?" and had to grab the next commission order that had been neglected due to the complexity of it's color - a portrait gray on an Esperenza (the original) body. This order has been gnawing at me for a while, but I have learned from experience that when I struggle with a horse, just set it down and there will come a time when everything will fall oh-so-easily into place and the end result will be a million times better than if I were to have sat there and fought with it. Sure enough, this piece's time has finally come and I am moving on her! I feel I've matched the owner's mare perfectly! I've already painted over the other side of the piece and the areas already started to continue on with this new technique.

Here is the mare that she's a portrait of:

The last two pieces are sales pieces - the Rose Reiner and the Mini Ziryab. Mini Zyrab was another experimental piece and while I like the look of her, she's a different technique than the two above. I'm also working on a Rose Jezebel in dapple rose gray using the above technique and I'm finding out it doesn't lend itself as well to that small small scale. This is the reason I call them experimental pieces. I learn what works and what doesn't on what scale. I think I'll try a hybrid of the two techniques next time on a mini and see how it serves.

Mini Zyrab painted with wet on wet oils and then pencil detailing on top:

I'd like to see her dapples smaller and less uniform, but I'll continue onto her other side with the intent of matching this one. I'll know for next time to shrink them up.

And below is the Rose Reiner sales piece done in a more contrasty darker dapple gray with a lighter fore.

So I guess the story of this whole bit is that even if you have been painting forever, it's good to try new things out. The learning process is NEVER over and there is always room to achieve more. I for one am excited to start applying this technique over different base colors - I have a Gomez I am customizing for my own show string that I'll be painting dappled buckskin going gray. I'm eager to see if this technique will translate!

NAN lot peek and just because

2010-07-07T11:28:00.000-06:00

I'm so squeaking under the deadline wire with this year's NAN donation, but she will be utterly worth it! When I first signed up I debated on going with either Legacy or Darling. But I was becoming particularly fond of my newer HUS filly so I decided to go with her. I also felt she'd be more versatile then my jumper and attract a larger crowd. If I had time, I probably would have sanded down her braids and banded her mane/forelock, but as you can see I ran out so I will just plan on doing that on another copy. I had also debated making "her" a "him" with some minor customizing, but again Time foiled me. That's the beauty of being the sculptor of a resin though is that many more bodies for all these ideas are readily available. :D LOTS of colors I want to paint on this gal as she can get away with anything under the sun with that stock breeding so she'll probably one of my most highly painted resins in the future.

Usually I only paint one or two of my editions. I want to change that. Now that I have a pretty good stock of unpainted resins of my own to choose from, I'll be integrating more paint work into my sculpting routine. In my on going quest to catch up from the disastrous roto-caster wait, I've been painting more while I get these unpainted bodies out to customers. I've found the switch a refreshing break and noticed that when I do go to sculpt, I feel more energized and my eyes more open to what I am doing. This is pretty important as it means I do things with less faults the first time so there's not to much "reworking" anymore. Do you know how much time that saves? And time is money when this is your "career".

But I digress. NAN Lot. My piece is part of the Sweepstakes lots and I'm pretty happy about that. My work sells for high dollars on the market, so this makes a very nice piece affordable to many people in that all it takes is one winning ticket! A small amount for a ticket is much easier than trying to come up with a huge sum of money.

The color I finally decided on for my "Girl Gone Hunting" was dunalino. It seams to be the emerging color lately and I knew it'd help show off the femininity of this piece. Not to mention I could get a "flashy" solid color done in time rather than trying for a more time-consuming pinto pattern. She's shown below in her airbrushed basecoat (forgive the messy studio table-top bg) and as you can see the soft golden color is lovely on her. She's as pretty as a girl could hope to be. :D And we'll add just a touch of chrome in those back legs and a small facial marking to top it off.

Moving away from the NAN lot for a moment, I felt moved to post this. Most of you know we moved from our Denver suburb home to the beauty of the CO foothills (which most of you would call mountains). Everyday I look outside or sit out on our deck and am so very thankful we could call this place home. It's been amazing. The majesty of nature that constantly surrounds me is breathtaking and so very refreshing and inspiring. I realized how stifled and frustrated I was becoming living in our cookie cutter home neighborhood now. I am so much happier and at peace up here. I grew up 1.2 miles away from our new home at the house my parents still live in too so it's basically coming home to me.

It's been really sunny here lately, as CO tends to be, but this last week we've gotten a little breather in the form of misty rainy weather. It's been wonderfully cool at about 60 during the day to break up all that mid 80's stuff. This is actually my favorite weather. Everything becomes so green and there is a magical feel to everything around me. We are usually quite literally in a cloud.

During the first day of this, as the rain storm was beginning to let up and move on, we were pleasantly surprised to see this double rainbow in our property. Hubby immediately told me to go run and grab the camera before they disappeared, as those elusive rainbows tend to do. This is our barn, though the horses are on the other side of the field when this was taken. You can't see it in this photo, but when the skies are clear, if you were to look where that ridge behind us goes down to the right there, the city can be seen. We call it our CO ocean because it almost looks like the rolling seas.

Flying Hearts Fundraiser - Melissa Gaulding needs our help!

2010-06-14T10:57:00.000-06:00

It's truly amazing to me the capacity of generosity and love we humans can have. It just seems to take something very important for us to step up to the plate. And step up we have!

Melissa Gaulding, a fellow hobbyist known and loved by many of you, has had a run of nasty luck. Her husband Herman is battling cancer right now, and in order to pay for medical bills, she would liquidate her entire collection. Because of the effort of many individuals who wanted to share her pain and ease some of her burden during this tribulation, the Flying Hearts Fundraiser was born. Hobbyists across the globe have donated services or products to help raise funds, many offering up prize pieces in their collections. For someone who can have a rather cynical view of humanity like I can at times, it was truly an awe-inspiring and awakening sight for me to see the response of caring individuals. Of course, I had to get on board and do what I could to help as well!

So, my way to start off the donation line up was to paint a piece that had just been sitting base-coated in my studio for *years*. Enter Sarah Mink's Feral Mare medallion. She's up on Auction Barn right now! Be sure to check out all the other fantastic items hobbyists have donated as well in that special Flying Hearts Fundraiser auction section.

Next up? I'll also be painting a Dinky Duke graciously donated by Jackie Arns and will have a few other items. I have to make sure the rest are do-able before I commit them though. But if I can, they will be *very* nice items!

More Mini Blobness and a Sneak Peek

2010-06-03T21:24:00.001-06:00

Mini Darcy is shaping up, though she is most definitely still in the rough layout stage. Proportions are a bit off and so she'll need to be cut up and put back together in places. Things need to be sanded and other need building up. She really looks aweful right now, but again, this is for learning more about what goes in to sculpting a mini from scratch so they get posted anyway! They'll be fun to look back at after she's been beautified. ;)

Also, because I'm having such a good time with the mini and I'd like to get more out, I've got another little one I've started! The pose was taken from a photo of a Saddlebred and I was going to go that way, but I think I was channeling my Arabian at the time because this little thing just kind of went towards that breed on it's own accord. So, I'm not gonna fight it when it's yelling that loud at me!

Blogging Again! New Mini blobness

2010-04-10T11:10:00.000-06:00

Yeah! I am finally getting caught up enough in my resin production that I feel I can justify some time spent on the blog. As you can see from the date of my last post, it's been very neglected. Poor blog.

After about 2 and 1/2 weeks from now, I plan to be fully caught up on all my Darcy, Beth, Gawyn, and SG orders and will start on Legacy and Darling orders. Those should take me about 3 weeks to get caught up on as well. Darling is actually my NAN donation horse this year too. My creative juices have been overflowing and I have been near twitching to start new pieces. I have so many ideas lined up in my head it's starting to get crowded up there. ;)

I haven't had much extra time while I play catch up, but here and there when I could sneak in some sculpting time I've been working on a couple new pieces. These will be the first of the line-up to escape my head's captivity. I want to play with different scales so I can appeal to a wider market. So while one is still a traditional piece - the very much anticipated Morgan Stallion to complete the Darcy and Elizabeth set, the other is on the opposite end of the size scale - a 3" tall representation of Darcy! MINI Darcy! Now that the big gal is sold out, I felt it would be okay to start speaking of the shrunk down version. I thought it would be nice to give those who wanted a Darcy but couldn't afford her another option. Also, many people who only collected the smaller scale loved the big one, but again, wouldn't buy because she *was* traditional.

Mini Darcy is a completely new endeaver for me. The scale is very small, and at first I was a little intimidated. I also planned to use a wire armature with Apoxie Sculpt as my medium, instead of my normal J-Mac clay. The reason being I knew I would want to sand things down and get sharper curves, and I didn't think I'd be able to get that smooth look I wanted in complete clay form. So, a hardening material would be needed. I had a new order of Apoxie Sculpt sitting on my drafting table going "Pick me! Pick me!" so I did. :) I'm actually having quite a bit of fun with the medium. I don't plan on switching over to use it on my larger sculptures, but it's working out wonderfully on the smaller one! The technique is so different and the only thing I get a little frustrated with is the fact that I need to work in small layers and wait until that layer dries before adding a new piece. But, working with my oils has taught me much patience. :)

A lot of you are probably asking, "Well, why didn't you just have her digitally reduced like Mini Scarlett was and Bitty Bosco was?" The digital reduction process is *extremely* expensive (like around $2K). I've also heard that the master copy you get to work on has these lines running through the resin, which is extremely hard and difficult to sand down. Mane and tails are so bad as to almost be easier to resculpt. So, I thought it'd be more fun (and certainly easier on the wallet) to sculpt the complete piece from scratch and save myself all that not-fun work.

I thought it'd be a fun and interesting thing to see the process of her morphing into a blob on wires to somthing that resembled a horse. She still has lots of issues here that will be sanded down and redone, but again, these are the early stages and just shown as a explanatory peek into the process of sculpting a mini with Apoxy Sculpt, sand paper, and carbide scrapers. More to come. :)

Myr gets to use his new bankie!

2009-11-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

Most of you know by now that I have a really special little Arabian named Myrlyn. He's really not little height wise - he's 15.2 (tall for an Arab), but is very very narrow. So narrow in fact, that the 72" winter rug I got him last season was basically a tent on him. It was bad. And, now that I have my own place that he can be turned out in, I really needed a winter turnout rug that fit him. He likes to run around a lot (which is beautiful to watch), but because the tummy straps and underleg straps hung down so far, I was terrified he'd catch a leg in them and seriously hurt himself. Yes, I am a paranoid momma.

I'm a bit of a bargain shopper when it comes to horse stuff - not because I won't spend the money (I have no problems at all in that department! ;P) but because I just don't have it to spend. But obviously this was a very needed item. So, a friend and I were looking at rugs for our horses (in fact, Liesl's just posted photos on her blog about Leg's and how she's pretty in pink in her new winter rug! http://phazestudio.blogspot.com/2009/11/indian-summer.html). After searching on craig's list and not really finding anything I went to check on ebay. Low and behold, there was this SMASHING navy and white plaid designer blanket for a rediculously low price. It was tiny at 62" but I knew Myr was narrow enough he may just fit. So, I grabbed my measuring rope and ran out to the barn. Low and behold Myr measured at exactly 62". It was my sign that I was supposed to buy it (My shopping self really doesn't need much encouragement). Well, I put the bid in and kept my fingers crossed for the next few hours (which was how much time was left in the auction) that no one else would want it. It was so nice that I couldn't imagine being the only one wanting to buy it. But I think the small size saved me.

So, anyway, we have our second big snow storm here in Colorado very much underway. We got at least a foot overnight here in Evergreen anyway. So after going out to the barn this morning to make sure all of Myr's needs were met, I started snapping some photos!

This next photo I absolutely love and think came out so nice with the dark background of the barn's interior faded out and the snow lightly falling around him. I think the hay is a cute touch too. :D

Makin' Progress!

2009-09-24T20:30:00.000-06:00

So jumper guy is making some headway in my studios over here! He has been patiently waiting for my attention to go back to him after it wandered to painting for most of the month. I'm happy to say that my mind is happily balanced between the two right now, and the work is diverting my stress into a healthy outlet.

The stress is coming from a loan hurtle in the guise of "seasoned funds" in our bank account. To veer off topic a bit, our loan broker told us that we would need closing costs and earnest money to show in our account for 2 months. No prob. We have it. But when it came down to get the loan, suddenly he's trying to tell us we need to show the earnest money twice over. Um, that's money we don't have. It's like, person, the earnest money has CLEARED THE BANK ACCOUNT and you still want to show that the funds are available to be drawn for the closing costs PLUS that again??? Sigh. I am finding out there are numerous stupid, non-logical rules about the mortgage world that people of any intelligence would be shaking their heads over. It's enough to leave me wanting to pull my hair out. Especially since the closing is supposed to be the 30th (of September - that this month, as in 6 days away). We are only 2/3 packed (we held off packing everything until we got the final approval otherwise we will have to unpack EVERYTHING), we have not called the moving company (since we don't know if there will be a move now or not), we have not called utility companies, etc. Hence the reason I have some stress. I know that things will work out, it is just a question of how long it will take to "season" fundage and close. I have been waiting a long long time and frankly, I am just sick of waiting any longer.

Sigh. Okay! Now that that is of my chest I can move on back to news on the jumper! He is nearly complete! I am sculpting the other half of the tail and then I will work on the head and give this guy some "gelding gear". After that, I want to add some butt dimples and some neck wrinkles. He will have shoes, but they will come after I have a solid cast to work with. This is so I can make sure all the feet are level.

I have decided to do a "Performance Horse Series" of resins. This guy will be the first of that series. Next up is a floaty stock horse hunter pleasure, and then a reiner, and then possibly a western pleasure horse. I am thinking I'll include the Park Trot Morgan Stallion I've been promising Linda in this group too. If you've got an idea for a really obvious perfomance position, I'd love to hear about it and see photos!

If all goes according to plan, I will have him done by the end of next week and start taking orders on him. I had planned to no longer take pre-orders on pieces, but because my rotocaster is not here yet I will wait until the next release to sell already cast batches. I will probably be selling a small quantity to start of these guys and hold off on selling the rest until some are cast. Say 30-35 pieces. Orders will be posted to my mailing list first, so if you are not a member you might want to join up!

Pictures, pictures, and MORE pictures!

2009-09-07T16:08:00.000-06:00

I just decided to one big (and image intensive!) studio progress share here. Believe it or not, but there are yet more things in the works that just aren't photo'd. Yes. I have been a busy beaver.

First, sculptural updates! The jumper boy is coming along quite nicely as you can see below! I've just got to finish up his legs, face, ears, and "hair" at this point. Oh, and his manly parts. Though he's a gelding so he won't be too manly. Poor guy. If his left hind hoof looks slightly different than the others, it's because it's the only one that's got a shoe on it yet!

And I've decided to post a few photos of some finish work pieces I'm working on now. There are LOTS more of these guys on my shelves than the ones posted, but I had these out and looking good enough for some quick photos.

First is a lovely (and a mite squished) group shot:

The horse on the upper left is an Eberl "Vincent" with a custom mane and tail by his owner. He's really something to see in person with a ridiculous amount of fleabites! I should have him finished tomorrow at the latest. Horse #2 is this guy:

A Williams "Venator" resin who is giving me hell trying to photograph him. He's really a beautiful shade of dark dark dark dappled mahogany bay. If I get the body color perfect in a photo, the white becomes unbearably bright and contrasty. But you can at least get an idea of how cool he's coming out. He's actually one of my own that I will plan on selling when complete.

Moving on brings us to this lovely lady:

A McDermott "Persuasion" painted to a really pretty golden dappled liver chestnut. You may be able to see in the larger photo that her skin has been "oiled" too! She's another one for the sales table.

I didn't take a solo shot of the Bitty Bosco, but he's a simplistic red dun in his first layers. He's just kind of been hanging out on my table for a while, and he's someone I really need to finish to get another example of a "dun" for my very pathetic and near empty dun and grulla gallery of my website. Yet another sales piece when I ever finish him. My own horses tend to stick around in various phases of completion for quite a while before I ever come back to them.

The Dinky Duke is last on that photo, but he's really something to see in person. He's definitely not a "boring" bay! His coat has a lot of depth and richness to it. He's being done as a custom order and I should have him completed by the end of the week!

Because I felt like taking a photo of her, she got added to the group! This is mini Scarlett also in a dapple bay, only a very dark golden bay. She will be a collaboration between Sheila Anderson-Bishop and myself. Once I ever finish the body color, she'll go into Sheila's hands for white markings. She's off to the sales listings after the two of us do our 'thang'. :D

As I mentioned, there are lots of horses that got left out of my little photo shoot today, but I will be sure to not leave them too neglected for too long. You'll see them up here at some point!

Identifying the Visitor

2009-08-30T21:47:00.000-06:00

Okay, I'm not usually a bug person, but when I find a caterpillar that is over 3" long in my yard, I want to know what it is! So, after a little bit of research, I am 99% sure it is a tobacco hornworm. I found info on him on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_hornworm
Now, what's interesting is there are no tomatoe or tabacco fields near us. No crops of any kind, really. There are fields yes, but it's all cows and livestock. So, I'm wondering how this little guy wondered upon our doorstep.

Apparently, the moth that it becomes has a wingspan of 4-5". YIKES. Now that is a serious moth! Like it's caterpillar form, I've never seen a moth of that size. It'd be rather unique around here, so I know if I see a moth of that scale, it will be our green friend all grown up!

The Biggest Caterpillar I Have Ever Seen

2009-08-30T18:35:00.000-06:00

LOOK at what was creeping under my front door tonight!! Is this "little" thing cool or what?! Hubby Matt was outside playing with the dog when he spotted this guy. He came running in and yelled to come out that second. Well, I came running, and quickly went back inside to grab the camera! This guy is HUGE at 3" long. Easily the largest caterpillar I've ever seen. We tucked him inside a bush in the yard to keep him safe. I'd just love to see what kind of butterfly this guy grows up to be!

More Jumper Photos

2009-08-29T12:06:00.000-06:00

I'm definitely in productive mode over her in my little studio! I have 4 or 5 horses I plan to have complete by the end of September paint-wise and of course I want the jumper that I have been working on to be finished by that deadline as well.

You can see more pictures of the jumper below and the progress that's been made on him! We are only about midway here. The neck and the shoulders are pretty much done muscle wise and have been smoothed. When the rest of the horse gets to their level, I will then add wrinkles and possibly veining. The left side of the head is more finished than the right side, but it's still only blocked in. The butt muscles on the left side are at the same stage as the neck and shoulders. I think my next move will be to finish the chest and front legs, then move on to the right butt muscles. Everything is measured and proportionate at least (except the right back leg) so that hard part is out of the way.

I am thinking about mane options for him, though it's probably a bit premature. At first, I wanted braids to really make him a snazzy jumper. But then I got to thinking about versatility and thought maybe a short loose mane was better so he could do x-country. If he is popular enough, I may do two versions of him - one with braids and the other sans braids. You will probably see a poll come up in the very near future! :D

Lofty Goals

2009-08-20T21:21:00.000-06:00

Here's the latest piece I'm working on sculpturally in the studio! I'm really excited and putting lots of energy into this piece. The dynamic pose is completely feeding my need to do something different from a standing horse, and with the twisting he's doing his best to stand out from the other jumpers in the crowd of the resin world. He's already got a presence in person, and I'm only really finished with blocking out the position and the muscling in the left side of the shoulder neck, and upper front leg. Needless to say, that makes me one happy camper!

The other thing that makes me pretty happy about this piece is that he's turning out to not be near as much of a challenge to get correct as I originally thought. Though I've probably just jinxed myself now. I really struggled with Darcy's stretched out back legs so we'll see how this guy's posterior goes.

Latest Sculpture Progress Pics

2009-05-26T11:41:00.000-06:00

I know, it's been forever since I've written, right? Well, I'm going to attempt to be more faithful at "blogging" from now on. This is a great way to share what's going on in my studio! The website can be for the finished pieces and the blog will be there to show you how they got there!

First on that list of projects to be shared will be the sculpture I'm working on right now. He's a traditional scale Gypsy Vanner/hairy draft type horse. Gelded. He'll be "large traditional" only because of the draft part, but he's to scale with my other normal trad. horses.

I wanted to do a drafter that was a little different. In the photos I was looking through to get inspired, most of them were of nice rounded and collected trotting drafters being ridden on the flat. I loved it and thought, how cool would it be to make a draft horse with performance in mind?! And sooo many people want a *hairy* drafter and there's a serious lack of correct quality pieces of them. So I'm trying to "fill the gap" again. Not only will this big guy be correct when he is finished, he'll be very performance friendly - even with the big hair! And by performance, I mean more than just a harness horse.

He's still got a long way to go here, but you can get a pretty good idea of where's he's going from these shots. Photos are an excellent way to look at the same piece with a new eye. For example, in person, I've been staring at that left shoulder for a while, knowing something wasn't quite right. When I looked at the photo, I cringed because I could finally see just how off it was! The point of shoulder and in particular the elbow are WAY to high and need to be dropped. This of course, moves the rest of the leg's proportions...which stinks to have to redo, but really needs to happen so it will. The right shoulder has been bothering me too. I think I need to widen the muscles above the elbow back a little. It looked okay in person, but now that I'm seeing them with those new eyes, it looks a mite too small and disproportional to the rest of the piece.

As usual, the head and ears, mane and tail, are the very last things to get finished. They are really just roughed in here and will have lots of work done to them at the end. I'm hoping to have him finished within the next couple of weeks. As the sculpting is my full time job now, I shouldn't have a problem with that goal. And as always, critiques and comments are ALWAYS welcome and most appreciated! Please e-mail them to me at the new e-mail: jenn @ aspenleafstudiosllc . com (without the spaces).

Photos (click on them to open the full picture - a lot of them got cropped because of format issues on the blog):

Walking with the Crowd

2008-10-16T15:29:00.000-06:00

Yes! I have finally joined the mainstream and set up a personal blog for myself. With major personal events coming into my life very soon, I thought it a propitious time to do so! My fiance Matt and I's wedding is coming up just around the corner, and I thought this would be a great place to post details as I set them. Not to mention doing some upgrades to our current house, selling said house, and working our way toward buying the new "farm" we so desire. It's a very exciting time, if a mite stressful! I do think I'm fairing rather well however - no bouts of hysterics yet, though there have been a few sleepless nights. It's a large turning point in my life and I really am very excited about everything that's happening right now. So, I'm riding the wave with enthusiasm. My next post should have some photos of all those things happening right now so stay tuned!