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. 

Pizzaz Painting

Okay, so I'm a *huge* fan of Deb McDermott horses. I love that woman's work. And, her style of sculpting and my style of painting just seem to mesh really well. The end results are usually fantastic.

So naturally, when I got a chance to paint another David any way I wanted I was a very happy panda. He is probably my favorite sculpture by her to date. Here is a dark dappled palomino with some soot coming along. I love the way the overo markings just create even more movement in this piece and add just that much more "pizzaz." I'm usually not a huge fan of flashy paint jobs, but this guy has so much presence to him already, he can handle it without being overwhelmed.

This side is just about finished. The mapping needs to be added to that tummy spot, and more white needs to be applied to that leg. The m/t of course gets saved for last with the hoofies and base.

I adore this model's head. Honestly...just look at it! How could you not?

And those large eyes are great for painting. Can you believe this blue orb is done 99% in colored pencil?

Where's the other side? Not quite ready for photos. :) I need to add the layer of raw umber to bring out the soot and block in the markings on that side. Honestly, that's really all that's left to do besides finish the details.

I'm thinking I might have do grab an idea from Danielle Feldman's blog and do an artist collaboration post of pieces of Deborah's I've painted. There's not many, but the ones that have been done are definitely lookers!

P-p-painting

Jennifer Buxton mentions we've been having pretty cold days in Colorado on her blog. I'm up a few thousand feet from her, so we usually are about 10-15 degrees *colder*! It was -15 last night. The Saint Bernards are happy as clams. Myr is his cold, crabby self and hanging in there. Rocky, I'm convinced, is part polar bear. He is totally content to be out in this kind of weather. 

I, am not. It was a great day to crank up the heat and stay inside! I figured I'd been spending a lot of time updating the blog with ceramics that it was time to post on painting again. So, since I got a lot done tonight, I'd show you a couple pics!

Technically this guy has been done for quite some time. But I never got around to taking photos of him until now. 

 That color is super cool in person. Because it's layer upon layer of color, and those layers aren't fully opaque, you see this depth with the undertones coming through.

 Hints of burgundy an blues and purples shine through here and there depending on where the light happens to be hitting. This guy was a commission and his owner will be thrilled to have him arrive. 

Next is a Mini Pearl. This is the little one, not the more LB/Pebbles scale one. She's also a commission, and I *know* her owner is ready to have her home! ;)

I absolutely love the light flaxen mane and tail on this piece. Lots of movement to paint on! I also love how her face came out.

I've got lots more horses that had a lot happen to them today, but only took photos of the ones that needed to ship soon. Photos take a lot of time so I decided to use that time painting. I know that means less eye candy, but it also means a blog post for later. :) 

Misc. Creativity

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.

Sales and the painting continues!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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