Cold and soggy

You might think this was going to be about my morning cereal, cold and soggy!
But it's the weather outside, which I LOVE! It's NOT snowing, which means I don't have to go out and use the snowblower. It means a good day for staying inside and working in the studio. The lighting on a day like today is so soft and beautiful because it's so even. We may have a few too many days like this in PA though for my liking as I do like to go outdoors.

Along with my slew of Appaloosa commissions (wait till you see the Orinocco I will be posing photos of soon!) I have a lovely Kentucky Reign I'm working on! His base color was quite orange as he is going to be a gold champagne tobiano. Well the reason I am mentioning the lighting is because my studio has very little natural light and I work under flourescents which throw a greenish cast, even though they are daylight bulbs. So KR looked a beautiful shade of gold in the studio and I had gone ahead and started his pinto markings. Then I brought him upstairs to where I moved my "white painting" bench to be closer and handier to my mother when she needs help. Well LO AND BEHOLD! HE looked VERY creamy *orange* and instantly reminded me of one of my favorite treats, a Dreamsicle! So that is his nickname while I am reworking his coat to be more natural golden. HA! Darn lighting! I'll be posting photos of him when I get some time.
Back to work!

Here he is now with his coat color reworked in oils.

Aline Ellis Clinkies!

Aline Ellis 1886-1971 was a clay modeller, potter, and animal artist,who studied at the School of Art in Bushey, Hertfordshire and lived and worked at Ebury Lodge, Little Hadham, Herts.

In the late 1940s, Muriel Jervis became the live-in companion of Aline Ellis,  who lived in Hertfordshire. Muriel continued to live with Aline Ellis until her death in the late 1960s. Aline is pictured on the left, Muriel on the right.

 

 These pieces I have were purchased by me from her estate in 2007 through Gorringes galleries UK. I was blessed to have been in touch with her great-nephew Francis Clark-Lowes who verified the pieces I have as he handled the dispersal of her estate and the last of her work.

What I don't know is if these are one of a kind works, tests or what. Most of them arrived to me in terrible condition, broken, firing cracks, glaze flaking. But the essence of the sculptures is so beautiful! My favorite is this Shire broodmare. She is huge, standing about 9 inches tall and over 10 inches long. I love her drooping lip and her peaceful demeanor. She also has a handsome colt who arrived in very good condition.

The mare arrived to me in about 10 pieces so in my spare time I have been reassembling her and am thrilled that she is now standing. She hasn't been on her feet in over three years and rebuilding a piece that is on a broken base is a real trick. She broke off her base and every leg was in about three pieces.

Her colt just makes me smile. He looks like a mischievious little devil, but you can sure see his quality. I love his colt "beard" hanging off his little chin.

Look at that face and those adorable big fuzzy ears.

Aline really had a great feel for the drafters. She could sculpt conformation and realism, and these horses looked like the good working horses of their day.

This lying cremello colt even has lovely blue eyes.

 I have quite a few more of her pieces which I will post when I get time and get them all photographed. If you have any of her work I would love to see it. All of these pieces were tin glazed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin-glazing  

Oil spots

Now that my commissions are winding down I am able to experiment on my own pieces again. This Wintersong was base coated in airbrush and I have finished his coat in oils and am adding pinto markings with cat tracks to make this nifty tovero pattern. Looking out my window reminds me of his color right now with the snow we have and brown patches of leaves and earth peeking through.

HIs mane and tail will be cool multi colored and he'll have some ermine spots stread through his feathers. He'll be for sale soon so stay tuned. I'll post him to the yahoogroup so members can have the first crack at him.

A lovely going to be palomino Jezebel in oils who will also be a tobiano when she is done.

My flat work has primarily been in oils so I'm enjoying the familiarity and love the ability to change and blend colors on the fly. But I miss the speed of airbrush, so I'll be using airbrush to do the base color and then build oils over that.

One of my projects I mentioned before is a medallion series of horses with their heads out of ther stall doors. I love barns and have seen and photographed some amazing places over the years. This first piece in the series is a horse with his head out of his stall door of a stone barn with rough cut lumber beams, headers, frames and doors.

So these are a few of the things I'm working on when I'm not working on commissions.

Finished commissions that left here recently are 2 Appaloosa Lancelot resins. So different in their patterns:

Well, that's that for now.

And yet more zebras!

Lookie at these adorable critters! These are teeny guys, smaller than SM! And look at the detail! They are just so cute and I love the way even their little tummies are painted.

And they come in Grants and Grevys!

So I had to group a few of them like a herd taking a dust bath.

EEEK! A skirmish breaks out!

The real thing:



Then this past week I lucked out and found this lovely Burchell's Zebra mare and her foal. They are porcelain and traditional scale. These are a Lynn Chase pair. Since I don't get to live show any more I've been perfecting my skills at photo showing. WOW these is some tough competition out there. These two were entered into the produce of dam class.
I wasn't so sure about how realistic the mare was because her stripes are so narrow but I found some pix as documentation.

New beginnings

I haven't added much to my model horse collection the past year. I've been too busy scrambling just trying to keep up with my commissions since my parents moved in with me. But I've found myself obsessed with Zebras lately and was able to add this darling country Artists lying down Zebra to my collection. Meet "Checkers".

 I was surprised by the size of him when he arrived. He is supposed to be a young colt and I was expecting a traditional scale colt. But this guy is larger than an adult traditional scale horse! I'm looking forward to photographing him in different scenes.

Recently Braynet started an online show for longears of all types. I only had this photo of Checkers and entered it but he didn't place. But I also entered my Calvin Roy Kinstler mule Amos. Calvin Roy Kinstler sculpted each model out of wood, one at a time and then hand painted each piece. Amos is made of wood too. If you look close you can see the grain. Since Calvin Roy Kinstler passed away around 1959, Amos is *at least* 50 years old. He may be much older. I don't know as there is no date on him. I live showed him at Bentleyville a few years ago and he won several NAN cards there, both in halter and performance. Anyway I entered him in the Braynet show and he won the AR traditional scale mule class, then won Overall Grand Champion AR mule.

                              Amos. Sculpted and painted by Calvin Roy Kinstler over 50 years ago.

I'm having a heck of a time typing this since Purrcie thinks he needs to be lying on the desk in front of the keyboard. He wants his turn on the computer.

Well I'll do the best I can and he can wait his turn.

As soon as I finish up these last three commissions I'm looking forward to some sculpting I have started. I have a pretty neat medallion in the works using a clay/wax composition that I am trying out. and I love the medium so far. This is how it looked a few months ago actually. The walls are rock now, and I have the woodwork more finished. The horse's face is more detailed. I know I need a new picture! I have this idea for doing medallions of horses with their heads out of their stalls, different breeds and different kinds of stalls. Like in Pueblo CO at the state fair they have these really beautiful stucco stalls.

The commissions I'm working on right now are really labor intensive. Leopard Appaloosas, and they are completely hand painted.  I start out with a dark base coat and paint white *around* the spots. Some folks start out with white and paint the spots on, but I can't get the tiny hair like detail doing it that way.

These are two different Lancelot resins. This one is nearly finished, maybe you can see the tiny hairs and hair whorls in his coat. The one above shows how the color and pattern develops.

Well it's my bedtime and Purrcie is still waiting his turn so I better scram.