Stormwatch!

I really love Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig's Stormwatch mold. He's so much fun to paint and lends himself so well to a colorful palette that whenever I see one in some solid color, like plain bay or black, I want to shout "WHY?!?!? How COULD you?!?!" at the artist. (Especially considering that he is quite pricey to purchase unpainted! This doesn't mean that I have anything against solid colored horses. My two favorite colors on a real horse are bay and grey. I just really don't think they're the right choice for this particular resin.) So, whenever I get my hands on a Stormy, I like to pull out all the stops and put my very best work into him. I've been slaving over the latest Stormy for a very long time, but he's finally finished and I think I did him justice. He is currently open for offers over $1000. I know a lot of people have funds tied up in presents this time of year, so I am willing to accept time payments on him. Take a look at these pics and see what you think:











More info can be found on Model Horse Sales Pages:
http://modelhorsesalespages.com/sales/view_details.asp?id=754710

Another Bitty Bosco

You may or may not recall the last Bitty Bosco (Morgen Kilbourn's mini version of her El Embosco resin) that I painted. He's been winning like crazy for his new owner. When I bought him unpainted, I actually bought two of the cute little buggers. For the longest time I've been planning on painting the second one to a lightly dappled, flea-bitten grey. I'd even base coated him in a nice warm white when I came across a picture that I'd forgotten all about of a bay tobiano Half-Arabian with cat tracks and a bit of roaning. Artist's are so fickle! That was the end of the grey idea and here's the outcome of roving inspiration:










He's available for offers, with time payments available.

One custom slot available

I've had a few productive weeks and am very nearly finished with all of my backlogged custom orders, so I've decided to open up my books for just one more horse at this time. I've had several requests, so to be fair to everyone, I'm just going to put the slot up for bids on eBay. All the details are covered in the auction. Here's the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230371244675

"Cold Snap" a new medallion

This may not come as a surprise, but August in Texas is miserably hot. This time of year makes me long for winter, and not the 70-degree-highs-in-February type of winter that Texas gets. Oh no, in my heat induced delusional state, I find myself wishing for the below-zero-for-weeks-at-a-time-in-February kind of winters that I grew up with in Michigan. Over the course of this hot summer I have knitted a lovely, thick, bright yellow scarf that I'll probably never get to wear and I sculpted "Cold Snap" a medallion that celebrates the first blush of winter.



I made "Cold Snap" just a tiny bit smaller than my other medallions in the interest of keeping him affordable. He measures 4"x4". He'll be cast in-house and limited to a two mold run in unpainted resin. I hope to cast him in ceramic as well in the future (more on that soon) and designed him with this in mind. At this time, pre-orders are being taken only on the resin version. He is priced at $25 including shipping within the USA. Shipping outside of the United States will cost just $5 extra. He's available to purchase on my website:

http://eponastudio.com/coldsnap.html

(The scarf though, is not for sale. Sorry.)

Ravenhill and a new/old technique

The Pre-Raphaelite painters of the Victorian era were known for the way they made the skin of their subjects seem to actually glow with life. I've always been more than a bit fascinated with the art of this period, and in the course of my research, found that they achieved this effect by painting on a "wet, white ground". No one is certain exactly what that ground was, but the common belief is that they would press the excess moisture out of white oil paint and lay that down on the canvas before beginning to paint. The science behind the technique tells us that the paintings seem to glow because light passes through the upper layers of glazed paint (more on glazes here), hits that white and reflects back through the same upper layers.

I find I can get a similar effect by using a cream colored base coat (the cream gives more warmth to horsey browns than would white) on my model horses. On the horse I just finished, Tumlinson & Hurley's Ravenhill, I took the idea one step further. Whereas in the past, I would create a copper chestnut by using (surprise!) metallic copper paint, I've come to feel that the look is too garish for the modern show ring and it's preference for very soft colors. Ravenhill has a coat of very pale gold metallic paint just on top of his cream basecoat. There are very few places where you can actually see anything metallic though, all of the upper glazes hide it...but they glow.

I'm offering Ravenhill first to my blog readers and yahoo group subscribers, before the world at large gets a crack at him. He's available for best offer of $1400 and up. Time payments can be arranged, so don't be afraid to ask. Email cara@eponastudio.com for more information.

16 Aug 09 - Current high offer $1400 with terms - Pat M.

Big wins!

I love hearing how my horses are performing for their new owners. I've had two customers write to me recently to report some very impressive show wins. I'd like to share them in their own words here:

Hi Cara,
Here's a couple of photos...but I am not the best at composing these shots...small horse and large rosettes...lol!
But hopefully these will be useful to you. He really is gorgeous and in three shows he now has 5 NAN cards, judges love him!

This show was Tucson Mountain Live on 7/11/09 and his placements were:
AR Mini Mustang 1st
AR Mini Stock Champion
AR Mini Overall Champion
Best in Show (against all sizes!)

Anyway I think he's great (can you tell?!) and I am thrilled to own him.

Hope summer is going well!
Macy



Hey Cara,
I just got home from Northwest Congress and thought I would send you a report. Jaw Breaker cleaned up! He took his class, his division AND his color class. I have two beautiful rosettes for him plus 2 NAN cards. I don't show at NAN but the Workmanship card means a lot to me. I didn't expect him to do anything in the over all since resin competition in the region is stupidly tough. He's my pride and joy and it was nice to have someone else give him props, ya know? He could never go to another show and I'd be good with that...

Pat

No rest for the wicked

I'm on vacation visiting family this week and really thought that I wouldn't be working on art at all, but alas, I lack that kind of self control. I brought a half-finished resin on the plane with me and have finished her here at my mother's house. This involved the purchase of a fair amount of art supplies since most of what I use isn't legal to take on a plane anymore. She's done now though, and has been posted to eBay so here I am with over half of my vacation left and nothing to paint. I guess I'm stuck having to relax or something...*sigh*.

Here's my traveling companion (Tumlinson's Mini Scarlett) on her eBay page:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230355733925

Pardon the bad photography, I'm without my lighting and photography set-up here, just a piece of paper and the northern sunshine, such as it is. I guess it's an improvement over the Texas sunshine which would have melted poor Scarlett in the ten minutes it took to take the photos.

The best resin name ever

Well, I've finally finished another piece for eBay. Sales pieces have been on the back burner somewhat lately while I work through the last of my overdue custom orders (I just finished four more of them! There's only a small handful left to go, so if you are still waiting, fear not, your horse will arrive soon.) but I did manage to sneak this guy in. His sculptor, Debbi LerMond, calls him Peasant Stomper which has just cracked me up since the first time I heard it. This guy is the extra-hairy miniature version. If you want to see pictures, they're on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230354584742

but here is a teaser shot showing off his teeth which I'm very proud of:



In other news, about half of the New Orleans Mule medallions have now been shipped. I'm waiting for the next batch to arrive soon from Mountain View Studios so they can be gotten out to their new owners. I've decided to go ahead and have a second mold made after the first sold out so quickly so there are still mules available for purchase.

Vicarious living through the miracle of plastic

I've been looking for some time for the absolutely perfect Egyptian Arabian mare to breed to my dream stallion, Imperial Shahmon (I actually own him, lucky me!). Not having found her, I settled for creating a replica of my perfect Arabian mare in resin, using Deborah McDermott's Musetta as the canvas. I really love how this resin turned out. Somehow I don't think Shahmon is going to be nearly as impressed so she's up for offers to fund the lease of the real thing. Here are some pictures:

Scarlett is ending on eBay tonight

I'm so sorry that I forgot to post this information until the last day, but the Scarlett resin that I used in my recent tutorial is available for purchase on eBay. Her auction ends tonight! Here's the link:


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230341972700

All of the pertinent info can be found there. Thanks for looking!

Seeing spots part 7 - Finishing touches

The most famous Appaloosa characteristic is, beyond doubt, the spots. Lesser known, but also important, are the visible white sclera around the eye, striped hooves, and mottled skin. I'm now going to show you how to create these effects starting with the eyes.

I like to build the eye up in layers. Step one is simple. Paint the eye white.



Next, add a pink spot in the front corner for the third eyelid/nicitating membrane. Dry brush a tiny bit or red on top of it to give the impression of capillaries.



In order to tone the whole thing down and make it more lifelike, go over the entire eye with a very thin wash of mostly water and a teeny tiny dab of Golden Airbrush Raw Umber.



Use the same color full strength for the iris and, while it is still wet (you'll have to move fast!), blend some metallic gold into the center. This is the secret to that lifelike sparkle.



Now make a horizontal bar of black for the pupil. I like to add a bit of metallic blue at the center for depth, but it's not mandatory.



On to the hooves. Apply loose chalk pastel using a paintbrush to any hooves you have painted white. You'll want to choose a dark gold or raw sienna. This is just a base so don't worry overmuch about what shade you choose.



Now take a colored pencil in a similar shade and draw some stripes onto the dark hooves. Be sure to vary your line. Some stripes should be fat, some thin, some clustered together, others off on their own. Symmetry in NOT your friend here! Just make sure that they follow the angle of the hoof wall exactly. You will do the same on the light hooves using a dark gray or black pencil. On the lighter hooves, I like to go over the stripes with pastel in a matching color. It fleshes them out a bit.



Finally, choose a dark reddish brown pastel color and go around all the hooves horizontally. You can use this same color to shade the undersides of any raised hooves.



The mottled skin around the eyes, muzzle, and dock area can make or break the whole look of your horse, but is actually very simple to create. You will need a pale pink or flesh colored watercolor pencil. My brand of choice is Derwent. Get the pencil nice and sharp and then briefly dip the tip into a cup of water. Using the damp tip, make little spots. Just like the hoof stripes, you'll make different sizes, some you'll spread out, and some you'll cluster. Allow me to reiterate: Symmetry = Bad

Once the mottling has dried, brush a thin coat of red pastel over it, and then tone it down with another coat of pastel, this time in black or a very dark gray. That last bit is important. I've seen a lot of lovely appaloosa ruined by skin mottling that dominates the entire face by being too bold.



That's it. Give your horse a good once over for any damage resulting from handling (unavoidable), spray him/her with the sealant of your choice, and top it off by glossing the eyes, hooves, and nostrils. Your Appaloosa is now complete!

Seeing spots part 6 - Roaning

If you wear glasses, it's time to put them on. We are going to get into the very intense detail now. Do you remember how I said in the last post that white markings take forever? What we are about to do takes longer still.

We're going to add roaning to our horse. On a real horse, roaning refers to scattered white hairs mixed into the main body color. On our model appaloosa, we'll be adding some colored hairs in as well, but in the same style. We'll also be using the roaning to make some more spots. This is the look you'll be aiming for:



You have a choice here. You can use a tiny paint brush and very thinly diluted paint, or you can use professional quality colored pencils with a VERY sharp point. On Scarlett, I'm using Prismacolors which I have come to prefer. In the interest of letting you make an informed decision, here is another Tumlinson sculpture, Desperado, roaned using a paint brush:



Starting on the dark areas of the body with a white or light color (I used mostly French Grey 50% with some White and Putty Grey Prismacolors on my girl) and create a bunch of teeny tiny strokes following the hair pattern. The mane and tail are done the same way, you'll just make each hair far longer.



You don't want all solid blocks of roaning here, make more spots by leaving some holes. Feel free to overdo it and leave tons of these holes, you can always fill some (or most, or all) of them in later with more roaning.



Some, but not all, of these holes can have a spot painted into them as well. You can also take your pencils and add some tiny spots wherever your reference picture or artistic sensibilities dictate. Just be sure to stick to the spot placement guidelines we went over earlier.



In areas where there are unbroken expanses of roan hairs, I like to make parts of the roaning more dense, even going so far as to scribble in blocks of white like a kindergartener with a crayon. Be careful with this, it's easy to overdo.

The trickiest part of all this will be when you need to follow a cowlick. The easiest way I've found is to outline the cowlick in roan hairs and then fill it in layer by layer as such:



When you hit the edge where the body color and the white meet, dig out some pencils that match the body color in that area and paint some hairs onto the white marking with them by way of blending. Scarlett is obviously not a horse groomed for a show, but a broodmare out in pasture, so I went over all of her white areas with hairs done in French Grey 50% and Putty Grey to make her look both shaggy and not so squeaky clean. You may or may not want to do this with your horse depending on the model you're using. Lastly, you can choose to halo your spots with a bit of light and dark hairs mixed together. I haven't done this to Scarlett yet, but probably will by the next time you see her. Here is Scarlett now:



The worst is now over. It's finally time to paint the finishing details!