A Simple Saturday Update

JerryLynn's Sencillo is up next, leaving on Mini Darcy left from the early group batch. 

JL ordered up a graying smutty buckskin overo and I, along with lots of you I'm sure, will agree this is a great color for Sencillo. He did very well at a local show she took him to the day after completion!

I'm thinking that my lighting was a bit off the night I took all these photos before I handed the horses off to their owners the next day at Springamathing. I'm really not happy with how any of these photos came out. It just seems like they're not as sharp as usual and don't seem to be picking up on the amount of depth and shading in these pieces. 

In the above photo, the interference gold and metallic gold dustings he has are really picking up the light, causing certain areas to get a yellow hue. He's really a lovely tawny color in person. 

It is apparent to me that my painting technique has now far transcended my photography skillz! I will have to work harder to take more flattering photos!

Painting Peek!

Lots of horses are getting painted and preparing to get out the studio door over here! I haven't had time to crop or edit (to correct color when necessary) any of their photos yet, but I have these guys pictured below photographed and uploaded to my computer. I have a Victrix in there as well, though she was a day late to join these for their group photo shoot. Probably a good thing as my background was barely big enough for these five!

Stay tuned for more photos of these five and the Victrix shortly! And then five-six MORE horses after that! I'm on a painting spree!

In the Works Wednesday

It's late, the light is bad, and I'm squinting because of it. It's a good place to stop before I can't see to go upstairs to bed! 

I've gotten my highlight/body color on a new face: Amelia's Eberl "Rose" as well as the first layer of dry-brushed shadow. This horse's reference is this amazing dark bay with these bright dapples. The lower shoulder/elbow area got a little sampling of it tonight, but I was starting to pull off that first dry-brushed layer. It's kind of a fluke that it wasn't dry enough to rub on it. Usually those thin layers dry pretty quickly. I'm thinking it's because I added some linseed oil to smooth the edges out more for a better blending zone. Something I'll have to keep in mind for next time. The much softer edges are well worth extra drying time though! 

Rose is one of those pieces that really changes when you put paint on her. This sculpture is extremely nice, but doesn't really come across that way being unpainted. I was shocked at how much I fell in love with her when she started to get her color! I'm excited to show you all how nice a "simple-colored horse" can look!

And, some more work done on JerryLynn's Sencillo. While the crappy lighting doesn't do anything for him, the main reason I posted this photo is the sections of different progress. From his head to his withers/elbow, his oil layers are finished. His tummy area shows the initial shadow layer. Lastly, that rump shows where I started with the highlight and body color oil base. You can see that the burnt umber adds a nice blanket of warmth to him. The raw umber gives him that "soot" look my customer wanted. 

JerryLynn also wants him graying and battle-scared on top of the overo markings. I found some great photos of old horses (mid 30's) that showed their gray gene only just starting to kick in. There was a high concentration of graying around the face, in the flanks, behind the elbows...the usual places that go first. I've laid down some white hairs in oil in the front section that has the final raw umber rub. That area will get lots more hairs added individually in pencil. Then comes the overo markings, and then those scars. Then I get to happily hand him off to his patient owner!

One last thing to share about Sencillo. While glazing a ceramic Darcy in linseed oil, I started trying the removal of color to reveal the dapples instead of just "outlining" them in dark tones. While it failed miserably on china (though a swap in mediums solved those issues), the same technique is fantastic on resin/cold-painting. I find it gives me a great irregular dapple, and by using a somewhat worse-for-wear brush I get this amazing soft hair look. It doesn't show in the photo near as well as in person (possibly because it's wet and very glarey) but the effect is much more realistic than the technique I was using before. I'll try to get a good closeup when he's finished so you can see what I'm talking about.

Now I hear my bed calling...

Still Workin' Sunday

There is a live show coming up at the end of May. Live shows are probably the best motivation for me to finish horses. There's just something about the excitement of it that pushes me to work harder and do more. The real job has been hectic lately, but I've been putting in really late nights for the models to get things done. It leaves me pretty tired, but very satisfied! 

I've got about 9 or so horses I want to finish. They're all in various stages of completion, but the majority are pretty close to done. It seems to be how I work. There's usually not one horse finished, wait another month another horse finished, etc. It always seem to work out that I finish a small army of horses at once. And when I do, it's FANTASTIC! I can almost hear the hallelujah chorus now. 

These two just got oil layers on recently so they're the stars of the show for today. The first is a Sencillo resin. This will be the second that I've painted. I sold off half my very limited amount of personal copies which I had originally planned on painting, leaving me with two left. One will be used to mold the ceramic edition, the other will be for my personal painted collection - which consists of like three half-painted horses. X^D. Anyway, I don't plan on taking any more Sencillo commissions, so the two gals besides myself that have these painted-by-me Sencillo's will have pretty rare items on their hands. 

The owner of this guy requested a old graying sooty buckskin overo. He's pictured below with his light and medium tones finished, and he's now at the point where I can drybrush on some shadow and soot. The photo was taken at night with my iPhone and while the color is close, he's slightly more gold in person. The soot and shadow will make a big difference. When the body color is the way I want it, I'll start penciling in those old gray hairs. I found a fantastic reference photo for this! Then I'll add the overo markings to take him over the top. 

This next piece is Roundapony. You've probably seen this pony before on Jennifer Buxton's blog. I really enjoyed reading her progress on this piece as she took him from a really rough master cast to a fantastic customized "pony". Jennifer has a bit of a thing for ponies. ^_^. So when she got her hands on a master cast of Karen Gerhardt's Roundabout resin, she knew where she wanted to take him. Jennifer is also a trading model horse goddess. She's fantastic about trading services with, and since I hate prepping so much lots of my rough guys end up over there. In exchange I get to pick a model from her amazing nekkid collection to paint. When Roundapony was one of those options, how could I *not* pick him?? Sorry Tiffany Purdy, but I get this one!

He's shown in his first layer of oils too. He's got a long way to go before he's just right, but he's making a good start. And I'm happy to say that he's being a good little pony and is probably one of two horses out the many in my studio that is not giving me fits getting him painted. 

I love the fact that this guy is hunter clipped! I've not painted anything like that before and it's just a fun little change. Again, still a long way to go to get that body smooth and glowing in both the clipped and non-clipped areas. You'll see what I mean when the finished photos go up later.

Isn't his face *adorable*?! He's just a cute little stinker and I'm really enjoying myself painting him. When the bay body is where I want it, Jennifer also wants some tobiano markings on him. It just dawned on me that pretty much all my commissions left over are pinto horses! You can definitely see what's en vogue in the hobby. 

Llanura - Sencillo's mate

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