Kelly-Savage

The Babysitter US edition is now casting!

2012-01-13T18:13:00.001Z

Casting is now in full swing with Barry at BearCast Moldings and I’m thrilled to report that The Babysitter is today featured on Lynn Fraley’s blog here.

A line up of the first few casts in the US Edition

The US edition is for 80 of the 130 resin copies to be made, with the other 50 being cast by Horsing Around here in England (for customs-free shipping to the UK and Europe). I’m yet to announce the US edition officially, I’m waiting on two guest artist pieces to be painted up, so the release should be in about 2-3 weeks. You can, however order a copy now if you would like to by either going to my web sales page here or by dropping me an email.

This copy was painted by German artist Max Lahrmann

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has so far ordered a copy of this model or any of my models, copies of The Babysitter are already making their way across the globe from Canada through the US and across Europe as far as Austria!

This copy of The Babysitter and her Very Little One were both painted by UK artist Amanda Greaves.

If you have a copy of any of my models that you have painted or had painted, I’d love to see a picture! I have galleries on the web page for each of my sculptures where I post these for all to see, along with credits to the artists and owners, of course.

Thanks heavens for Photoshop

2012-01-11T15:38:00.001Z

I’m sorry for the bombardment of posts this week, but I really want to share this while it is still relevant.

So I’ve been feeling a little nervous about my plans to extend the length of Pickle’s body, so much so that at lunchtime, and considering my day-job is all about computer graphics, I did a little photo-editing.

First, I removed the background from this photo taken after my most recent sculpting session:

Then I de-saturated it (made it black and white), mirrored it (thanks to Morgen for the tip) and got to work on the image until I had something I was much more happy with, then I mirrored it back and this is the result.

What do you think? A good way to see the changes is to go here, then hit the right and left arrows on your keyboard to flick between the two.

I confirmed some things that I thought were out on the model (short back, short back legs, thick legs etc.) but also discovered a few things that surprised me as I worked on the image, comparing it as I went with some photos I’ve been using for reference. I discovered that the whole shoulder and chest area were set too high and the withers too small, the top line and belly line have been adjusted too. The front legs weren’t as fat as I was worrying about but they will still need slimming down a touch, especially towards the bottom. I’m thrilled about this process on many levels though; considering I have been working from eye only until this point Pickle isn’t too far from my vision.

I can’t wait to get home and get some more work done on Pickle tonight now, I have renewed enthusiasm and fresh energy from my night off last night and I’m very excited at the possibility of creating something similar to that of my edited image, above.

Pickle Update

2012-01-11T13:00:00.001Z

Sadly, along with many other artists and creative folk, it appears I share some tendencies with Sarah Minkiewicz-Bruenig, in that when I feel inspired and try to keep up with the ideas spilling from my mind, I inevitably end up overdoing it and keeling over!

Sarah has been having a rough time this last few weeks as she has be overdoing things spectacularly for months now trying to keep up with her own amazing talents and discoveries and the incessant demand for her work from, well, the likes of you and me. She is now taking some strongly-prescribed rest and will no doubt bounce back with some more astounding creative works for us to enjoy. Sarah’s blog has some excellent advice and wisdom on how to manage the creative mind, it’s well worth a look if you haven’t already.

Exhaustion is something I think we all blindly head into sometimes and Sarah’s recent experience serves as a good reminder that sometimes projects need to proceed at a speed more friendly to the human mind and body, regardless of how much our minds want us to plough on. Luckily my body and mind won’t allow me to push myself to the edge in the same way that Sarah does and last night I suffered only from a blinding headache that refused to budge regardless of what kind of remedy I tried! Sitting doing nothing doesn’t come easily to me and several times Adam had to stop me from staring at Pickle as she sat there on her armature beckoning for me to do more work on her.

So, there was no progress on Pickle last night, but the evening before I did manage to squeeze in just a couple of hours to do a little work on her off-side front leg. I’m not convinced Pickle’s legs are fine enough to represent the Arab breed, I’m doing my homework on this and would love to hear your thoughts on this particular issue. I’m yet to work more on the back legs, perhaps when I do that and lengthen the body she will balance out a little. I feel a PhotoShop session coming on…!

More photos can be found here, newest pics at the top.

The Babysitter: I received some news from Barry, he is currently casting the US edition of the model (all paid orders will ship out soon), he sent me photos of the mold he made and he is using a similar method to the one he used for casting Karen Gerhardt’s gentle cob resin “Roundabout” a few months ago; casting the “right” way up (as opposed to the more traditional up-side-down method) with the pour hole on the horse’s rump. Look out on Lynn’s blog, The Babysitter may be featured there shortly.

Pickle Update

2012-01-09T11:40:00.001Z

Well, after Friday evening’s marathon session I took Saturday night off, but last night I had the opportunity for a few more hours tinkering with Pickle V3.

Here she is now, not much change to her off side since the last update…

…but this is because I mostly worked on her front near-side leg, which I am considering complete (in the clay stage – more tweaks will be done when she’s in resin):

More pics here (newest first)

I’m still trying very hard to to over-think this model as I sculpt, I know there are a few issues that I will need to address in the resin stage such as the short body and the head attachment. As this is to be such a small run I am using it almost as an experimental piece, allowing my creativity and the subconscious part of me to lead the way. I’m realising just how much I have learnt during my struggles with Jasper which has been a real eye opener, so even if Pickle V3 doesn’t turn out to be absolutely anatomically correct in every way, she will represent my abilities and my take on the horse much more personally than previous models, as I have always tried to provide what I feel people want, or what will cast best, or photograph well. Pickle is, quite honestly, a little piece of me.

Pickle Update

2012-01-07T19:42:00.000Z

Well, I didn't think I'd have much time to work on Pickle last night but by 9pm I had a chance to grab my tools and get to work again. I got totally engrosses and 7.5 hours later I'd replaced the back legs with a firmer grade of clay and got a tonne of work done on her. I think that the body is a touch too short but I'm not letting that worry me for now as it will be much easier to deal with that when she's in resin (thanks to Morgen Kilbourne for that one!).

Pics can be found in Picasa here but here's a quick look:

The back legs are green as I have replaced the Chavant Le Beau Touche with Chavant NSP grade medium, which is still much softer than the clay I usually use but is less sticky than the red Le Beau Touche.

I'm really enjoying this new little project, even though it will be a very small run I'm so glad I took the trip outside my confort zone to try these new clays and it's given me a tonne of confidence for the next model I tackle.

Pickle update

2012-01-06T13:38:00.001Z

I know it will end soon but I feel like I’m storming ahead with the new Pickle model. Everything about this sculpt just feels right and I can feel my mind-set changing from the tight, nit-picking way I normally sculpt to a much more fluid and creative one – THANK YOU Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig for the inspiration to take a trip outside my comfort zone!

Thank you too to those that have spoken with me on this model, it seems to be being well received so far and I’ve received some excellent critique already – thank you ladies!

I’ve also heard back from a stud located not-too far from me in Peterborough. The Gadebrook Arabian Stud specialises in the Crabbet Arabians and I have been given permission to go and visit them soon. They will have new foals in April but I am hoping to get there sooner to meet the mares and see if they can help influence my model in the right direction.

I’ve managed to work on this sculpt for three evenings running which is a great bonus, tonight we take down the Christmas tree so no progress will be made on her but I’m hoping to move forward more tomorrow and Sunday as we have a rare weekend at home to look forward to. Here is the model as of last night:

More photos of her progress can be seen in my Picasa web album here, I’ve put the most recent photos at the top, with each session broken up by a random armature picture.

I’m really looking forward to meeting the people and horses at Gadebrook, my “real” horse experience is limited, I rely mostly on images and videos I find online or in books – not the “correct” way to go about sculpting I know, but you work with what you have and sadly time for exciting outings like this isn’t something I have in abundance.

New Year, New ideas!

2012-01-04T14:21:00.001Z

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a good break over the festive season, mine was filled with fun, family and a tonne of fabulous food! Needless to say, with the wedding in… 4 months 2 days (!!!) my diet has well and truly begun!

So, did you make any New Year’s Resolutions? I try to avoid being too unrealistic or having too high expectations of myself but I am hoping to eat less, move more, stay up to date with my emails and make more creative time so I can move on with a few projects.

Which brings me to this – my latest model. Some of you may recognise the face of this little lady, it is the model I sculpted as a mini-bust a few years ago, called Pickle. Just as a reminder, Pickle has been released in two versions – V1…

…and V2…

The overall edition is 125 copies and the current total, including V1 and V2 stands around the 80-85 figure, leaving me about 40 copies left in the edition to play with. My original plans were to make a third version into another mini-bust with a fancy Arabian style halter (headcollar/bridle? – my tack knowledge is as good as useless!), but ever since the thought of making her an entire body popped into my head I’ve just not been able to shake it.

Last night the muse struck in spectacular style thanks to having read a few recent blog posts from two very inspirational ladies, Lynn Fraley and Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig. Between them I felt I should take on a new challenge outside my comfort zone, aim to work much faster than I usually do, not get caught up in the details too early (I always do that!) and try a medium that will force me to change my sculpting habits and embrace a new style of working, also to complete some projects in the studio that I have been putting off.

So I grabbed Pickle V3 as she has been stood for a good year or so now…

… got some tools ready and a block of a clay I’ve not used before, Chavant Le Beau Touché - a non-sulphur* clay in a much softer grade to the Chavant NSP hard grade clay that I usually use.

*clays with sulphur reacts with silicon rubber, this is important info if you plan to sculpt for casting!

Four hours later, after a bit of an education on the new clay, Pickle V3 started to come to life:

Now, please don’t worry if there are many obvious glaring issues with her so far (there are, lots!), I’ve been working solely on getting clay onto the armature and just squishing and moving things about to find a pose and a “feel” that I like. She may well change pose subtly or drastically, I’m after something sassy but not show-ring, if that makes any sense? I love that I already have a her head, it’s a great confidence-booster seeing one bit that is practically finished!

The original “vision” I had when sculpting Pickle V1 was to portray a mature mare that has been there, done that, perhaps a broodmare or a mare that simply acts as matriarch for her pasture-pals. She has an air of attitude that says “I am capable of great love but am happy to provide a sharp nip on the backside should it be necessary”. I always pictured her in my mind as standing at the gate waiting for (or perhaps demanding) some attention. I would like to sculpt her as a more “Crabbet” style Arab, though my knowledge is limited on this, I will need to do some homework on this type (any suggestions, links or pics gratefully received!), I may make some changes to the head where necessary too, though I don’t want this model to deviate too far from the original Pickle models.

I was really pleased with progress last night, I couldn’t sleep as I was so excited and am looking forward to working on her more tonight. The new clay has obviously allowed me to work very very fast but I am avoiding any hopes of completing the model too soon as I think I may struggle a little further down the line in getting those details in there. Lynn Fraley has a tip of using brown modelling wax for the smaller details so I will see how I get on and may try going to a mixed-media approach at some point.

Pickle V3 is going to be renamed, even though she is part of the Pickle edition. I’m hoping to be able to cast her myself, but we will have to see how things go as I’ve never cast anything of this size before.

I’d love to hear any comments or suggestions you may have on pose, style, etc – either by email or by leaving a comment on this post. I appreciate there are many, many Arab resins out there already so would love to hear from any collectors and get your thoughts on what you would like to see this model turn into.

Guest Artist Update

2011-12-07T14:30:00.000Z

I am VERY pleased to be able to let you know that, following on from the lovely seal bay model Deb Brown painted as Guest Artist for the UK/European edition, US based artists Mindy Berg and Karen Zorn have kindly agreed be the Guest Artists for the US edition!

The Babysitter painted by UK artist Deb Brown

Mindy and Karen helped me out with the Very Little One models and painted the beautiful models pictured below (both of which remain in my collection). I am beyond excited about this development and can't wait to see what these ladies make of The Babysitter.

Painted by US artist Mindy Berg who also created the beautiful OOAK base

Painted by US artist Karen Zorn who also expertly painted the base to tone with the model

Don't forget that Very Little One is only 1 inch in size!

December Update

2011-12-06T17:23:00.000Z

Well it's been over a month since my previous post (not all that long by my usual standards!), so I thought I should post. Although I've been pretty busy lately there is still frustratingly little I am able to share:

The Babysitter - the prototype has now been posted out to Barry in the US for casting, it should be with him any day now and he will get cracking with making her mold and getting casting as soon as possible. For those who have already ordered a copy from the US edition the wait shouldn't be much longer!

I've already set up one exciting Guest Artist for the new edition and await to hear back from another. I hope to have a piece painted by a US artist in a few weeks but until then will use images of my own copy painted by UK artist Deb Brown.

Just as an aside, check out this copy, painted by UK artist Amanda Greaves, shown here taking care of her Very Little One, also by Amanda:

Very Little One - Considering I've failed to actually advertise this little model at all this year, sales have been consistent and the model is gently heading towards sell-out. I'm not planning on advertising again for this model until the TB Broodmare is released, provided there are any left to offer by then of course!

TB Broodmare - Not started yet (sooooo far behind schedule but hey-ho, that's how I roll!), this little lady will make her debut in Spring now, I will be dismantling a Babysitter model and reassembling into a pre-or-post foaling broodmare.

Medallions - I am currently working on a cool new medallion for a Live Show in the US next year. The model is themed and I am exploring new styles as I sculpt it. Sadly I can't share photos or info on this just yet but I hope to as soon as I have the go-ahead from the person that commissioned it. I have just today got the OK to produce two variations on it though, which I am pretty excited about!

Breyer Hullabaloo - I will be producing at least one model for this UK event, I am absolutely chuffed to bits to be involved in this from the start.

Jasper - no progress to report, but the medallion I am working on has helped me with a few issues I was having on him so though no physical progress has been made, he should be even more realistic when he does finally make production!

Other activities - I've not been too quiet in the studio, I've taken on a few projects with other artists this month. One of which was for UK sculptor Sarah Hopper involving making a mold of a part-sculpted model to enable her to complete it from a resin model. I've also found myself sharing a great deal of information regarding sculpting and casting - I don't consider myself an expert in sculpting at all, but I hope I've given some inspiration and guidance to those that are just starting out. Of course trial and error play a large part in the learning process (now I AM an expert in trial and error!) and these budding sculptors will find their own paths, but building new bridges between the UK (and ex-pat) community is helping me to build up my own confidence and analyse my mistakes that much better - these guys think I'm helping from the goodness of my heart, well not entirely! ;)

Off topic - well I simply have to shout about this, meet Roland!

Ignore the piles of mess surrounding him, this photo was taken just after I got him. Also I think I need a better stool (this one was borrowed from my studio and is a little too high!). Here's the reason I'm so excited about it:
Growing up, my Grandparents had (and still have) an old, not-very-in-tune boudoir Grand Piano. Once a pianola it provided great entertainment for me and my 4 siblings as we grew up. Grandad plays and my (fostered) Uncle also played when young, but none of use really took it very seriously, mostly using it to make as much noice as possible, climb on/up/over/under or play with our toys on (Weebles were great fun to slide up the lid!). We were quite a rowdy bunch!

My Grandad. Born 1921 and still going strong!

I had a few lessons in my teens but nothing came of that, until I was offered a piano by a friend who had a restoration company, they basically said it was beyond their help but I could have it if I would like to, so it was insalled in my parent's dining room where it lived for about a decade.
7 years ago, it became just too bulky for my parents to keep and as I'd moved a few years prior to that (I would play when I visited them on a Sunday morning while Dad cooked) I agreed that it really should go.
Since then I've been piano-less :o( I grabbed every opportunity to play wherever I saw a piano, some live shows even found me disappeared to tickle the ivories after the clean-up was done. Looking back it must have seemed pretty odd, but such is the need to release the musical energy and so inviting those pianos looked, I simply couldn't help myself!
So, with the arrival of my Roland F120 digital piano I am hoping to reawaken my musical abilities (which were never exactly great!) and this time do things a bit more properly.

Utterly Horses Hullabaloo

2011-10-24T17:15:00.001+01:00

You may or may not be aware of the Utterly Horses Hullabaloo, announced on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/utterly-horses/utterly-horses-hullabaloo/10150362579534259

I’ve been chatting with Becky from Utterly Horses these last few months, I am sworn to secrecy on the project(s) we’ve been talking about, but I will be involved with this event in one way or another and am EXTREMELY excited about it!

I’m sorely behind with updating you via my blog, wedding plans have been rather taking over my life recently! Here’s a quick low-down on where I’m at:

The Babysitter: This little Madam has been very well received in the UK and Europe, Horsing Around are casting like fury to keep up with the demand for her. Thank you so much to everyone who has sent me lovely comments on her or placed an order. You should see more painted copies popping up soon as those that have received their copies have the finishwork done on them. If you’ve not met this filly/mare yet, here she is:

Here’s a pic of her other side:

And this pic, though blurry, shows her scale a little better:

Full details can be found on my website here.

In other news, the British Model Equine Championship show, or BMECs, was held on 8th October. I provided the medallic awards to compliment the glassware and rosette awards for the Top Ten winners in each section. I’m pleased to report they went down very well and I feel that the wine-gum style of mini-award is here to stay, though I have a few cool new ideas for next year’s show already!

For the larger medallion, I found the opportunity (via a couple of VERY late nights) to add some show-tack and a microscopic little rosette. Unfortunately, as most of the work on these was done during the night I only have night-time photos, but if you click on this photo for a larger view you should be able to see the details:

To be honest, I could write a whole post about these as I found some interesting quirks whilst making them. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to share this with you soon.

I’ve actually enjoyed having a week or so away from sculpting or casting whilst I’ve been distracted with all-things-bridal, but tomorrow I’ll be receiving a new batch of Babysitter models to prepare and get sent out to their new homes and I am yet to prepare for the second mold-master for Horsing Around (each mold gives 25 casts or thereabouts, so you may see me call it a one-mold run, even though it is two as there are likely to be fewer copies from these two molds than from Barry’s single mold for the US and global edition). Once that’s done I’ll be sorting the mold-master for Barry’s edition (each master is unlikely to survive the molding process sadly so a new one is required each time) and then I have a couple of commissions to work on which I am unable to share details of as yet, including a medallion for a rather high-profile show in the US which I’m really looking forward to as it features my favourite type of horse (I will be sculpting and mold-making, it will be cast in the US for the show), and also a MAJOR project - for the Utterly Horses Hullabaloo next August. I WIAHS I could tell you more but at this time I just can’t. I will likely be talking a great deal about this project in coming months, if I am allowed, of course!

Jasper is on hold during all these developments, however I have made it a bit of a pie-in-the-sky dream to have him finished before the wedding next May, however I don’t feel that is too likely given all these new projects. I may push forward with Little Too, as that is a little closer to completion (and is Adam’s favourite) though so hopefully I will still have another model for you next year, including of course the Very Little Lady model (to be renamed probably), aka the broodmare version of The Babysitter.

I’m sorry I can’t share any more info this time, this is such an exciting time for me creatively and personally and I am really looking forward to the next 12 months and all the fabulous new projects that will be going on!

New Resin! The Babysitter

2011-09-29T12:34:00.001+01:00

Well I have SOOOOO much to tell you about, I’ve been quite busy over the last few months with several projects and here is one of them. Meet The Babysitter, a mini scale* race fit Thoroughbred mare or filly.

*mini scale – The Babysitter is much larger than a Mini Nahar, but slightly smaller in scale to Dinky Duke, she is on a par with many of Donna Chaney’s “mini” scale models, so I am classing her as a mini.

Final Prep, Finishwork and photos by Deb Brown

Seal Bay colour expertly recommended by my Facebook Friends

I put together a little movie of her too, I’m not sure how this will display on the emails or the blog, but it is hosted on YouTube (user name 3DSavage) if it doesn’t show here.

Photos show prototype model prior to casting, and painted copy of the model, cast by Horsing Around and finished by Deb Brown. Photo of finished model courtesy of Deb Brown.

The Babysitter actually started out as a broodmare – I wanted to make a “Mom” for all the Very Little One models I’ve cast so set to work on a thoroughbred broodmare (VLO was quite generic but is often shown as a thoroughbred or sport type). After starting, I thought it would be good to actually sculpt a race-fit thoroughbred, as I noticed a distinct lack of this breed in the smaller scales at the Live Shows I attended. So with this, The Babysitter was born. The broodmare version will follow on in a few months’ time – it will not be simply a fatter version, I will rework it and reposition the head, neck, possible a leg or two, change the mane and tail, face details and of course, add the bits necessary for taking care of a foal! I’m quite excited about this model, it’s one of those that I know is there just waiting to be created.

The Babysitter (named as she is “acting Mom” to all the VLO models, until the Broodmare comes along) is modelled on a young Thoroughbred or Thoroughbred cross, she could pass as a filly or a mare. I tried very hard to make her solid, after witnessing some awful sights whilst researching the breed I made sure that this filly is race-ready but proportioned correctly and built solidly enough that, should she be a real horse, she would stand the tests that the racetrack throws at young horses and thrive in her role. This build also makes her a good prospect as a steeplechaser or hunter and I would love to see a scene with her tacked up in English finery and surrounded by hounds (mental note to self – might do that!).

Details on The Babysitter can be found on her page on my website here: The Babysitter Web Page

Sales information can be found here: Purchasing Information

I hope you like my first venture into “legs and all” resins, I can’t wait to see the finished copies popping up – don’t forget to send my photos if you paint yours, they’ll be added to the galleries on my website!

The final BOYCC blog

2011-09-19T18:23:00.001+01:00

I'm a little sad that I have to close this multi-part, mahooosive report on the amazing and awesome BOYCC 2011 Live Show, Convention and Bonanza. I hope you have enjoyed reading about the wonderful times I shared with my international friends, but I have SO much to tell you about from the months since then, so I will wrap up the series with a post about my adventures with Joanie and pals before my (eventful!) flight home.

With BOYCC finished and most people off home to recover and reflect on the Convention, I stayed a few extra days with Joanie. The day following BOYCC, I accompanied Craig and Donna on their trip to LAX airport for Donna to fly home. My motives were not purely sociable, as they had planned to stop off at a pottery store on the way to the airport and with the promise of discovering new tools and gadgets, I was keen to tag along to see if I could add to my own collection of tools.

The only way I can describe how I felt when we entered the shop was “like a kid in a sweetshop”! It was heaven – I found new, unusual and some downright puzzling tools and gizmos and educated myself on the ceramics side of things by checking out kilns, accessories, glazes, books and a myriad of new ideas. With the internet at hand I have a good knowledge of the tools available to sculptors, but I’ve never delved in to what pottery can offer an oil clay sculptor. Here is the answer:

Click the pic for a larger view, but this is what I found in the shop that I felt could transfer to my own creative pursuits:

Sanding foam pads – simple little things that I’ve not seen over here, I’m told they are easily available in the US so I may be adding them to my “things I will trade for” list.
Giant Tweezers – ok, so I don’t have a specific use for these, but AREN’T THEY COOL!?!!
Palm sized plane (no idea of the correct name for it) – I felt this would be good for shaping large areas on models I’ve already cast in resin, for instance Jasper’s barrel.
Flexible Scrapers – in three different grades, there was another very hard grade that I left behind due to the costs but the colour coding on these is handy!
Mini Ribbon Sculpting Set – Made by Kemper, these have already justified their purchase, they are miniature version of the more common ribbon tools found online.
Wire Tools x2 – I bought a few Kemper tools, now I’ve found their website too I think I may frequent them a little more, the quality of the tools is lovely, I may do a couple of blog posts just about these.
Reverse Ribbon Tool – a simple ribbon tool that is large and sturdy, great for scraping slivers from a block of hard Chavant!
Duck Ribbon tool – probably not the technical name, but this took is a ribbon in the shape of a duck’s head, or sideways teardrop shape. This shape means there are a host of different radii on one tool, I’ve already used this a little but I think it will be mostly used on future, larger models.
Large Triangular scraper tool – again, great for scraping slivers of clay from those hard Chavant blocks but also good for getting larger areas smooth
Pick (in the clear tube) – a very sharp little tool, with an angled head with two sharp edges.
Scraper/brushes – we used these during BOYCC when Addi was showing us how to clean greenware. I found them so handy that I took a photo during the workshop so I’d remember, and then when I saw these at the pottery shop I thought I’d buy a couple to used when cleaning the occasional resin, or for future use should I ever create ceramic models, as I wasn’t sure I’d find them later.
Palette Knife – always handy, if only to clean clay and resin from surfaces!
Magnets – super strong magnets that I might use to convert Medallions into fridge magnets
Small wire tool – this is a handy tool as it can get into small places but it’s rounded edges don’t catch or stab.
Double Stylus – I’ve found this tool useful for making the initial indents into a model where the muscles lie, also used on nostrils, ears and anywhere that needs small, controlled indentation or hollowing out.

Not a bad haul from just one shop! We then dropped off Donna at LAX, which has some great buildings:

Just as we were driving off after dropping Donna off, I saw this sign, I only just got a photo of it but thought it a shame Donna hadn’t seen it.

We also got to see the Goodyear Airship too, which was a treat!

We got home to meet up with the other stragglers from the show, Kim Bjorgo and Melly Gaulding and we headed out to take the ranted chair back and check out a humungous antique store where we saw these (I’m sure any HR collectors would like to see this):

and this awesome Post Office counter, had I not been on the wrong continent I would have been wanting that for my house, isn’t is lovely!

Then we stopped at a local pet shop that had some very exotic birds…

…and then went to meet Addi and her friend for lunch at a Thai restaurant called the King & I. We enjoyed some lovely food, including sticky mango rice (divine!!) and a soup served in an awesome candle burner;

Drinks, including Thai Iced Tea, which tasted a bit like a tea milkshake and was very yummy;

…and the very cool decor!

After eating we headed back to Joanie’s to take the fluffy white trio known as Casper, Yasha and Bear out for a nice walk along the coast and to enjoy the fabulous sunset:

I really love this photo, shows those Eskies doing what they do best; pulllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We waved goodbye to Melly and Kim, then it was my penultimate night. Here’s a random photo for Beccy ;o)

On my final day with Joanie and Craig, Joanie decided to leave the studio and house full of shipping boxes behind and take me for a trip out into the desert. I’ve never been to a desert (we don’t get many in England to be honest!) and Joanie and Craig live surprisingly near to one. It is amazing how just going over the top of the mountains the landscape changes so dramatically!

We stopped for breakfast at Potato Shack where I enjoyed the largest pancake I’ve seen in my life (called a manhole sized pancake, and they aren’t kidding!!)…

…then we drove out into the desert. We went up, and up, and up….

Over the top…

On then THIS HAPPENED:

The photographs just do not do it justice, this was VAST!!

Joanie had brought me to the Anza Borrego State Park and it was just breathtaking – look it up on Google Earth or maps if you can, it is mind-boggling big, hot and frightening to think that, should Joanie have chosen to leave me out there I wouldn’t have lasted a couple of hours!

We stopped at the visitor centre and took advantage of their handy guides to the mountains…

…and plants

Then we carried on driving, Joanie was heading for Font’s Point but I was mildly concerned when she turned off the road into the desert, to see this sign:

It was great fun in the truck going along the sand dunes, we stopped off and Joanie took this photo:

This photo was taken from the same spot, but turned the other way, it gives an idea of the scale of it all (and look at that lovely blue sky!):

We jumped back in the truck, ramped up the air-con (thank heaven’s for air-con!) and headed off to Font’s Point. When we got there, we found this sign but not much of a view….

…but as we approached the edge…

This AWESOME view appeared (bear in mind that’s about a 100ft+ drop from the ledge):

We came across this small monument, it’s a bit like Geocaching from what I can tell, people hunt for these and sort of “collect” them, although obviously they leave them in place. They are rewarded healthily for finding these with the mind-boggling views!

I started looking at the stone around, there were some very interesting ones (I’m not a stone-buff, but I found these intriguing):

Here’s one that looks like Mary (to my eyes anyway, hehe)

Here’s one for Jenn Danza:

And here’s one that Joanie explained to me as having sun-bleached over thousands of years, one side was very dark and the other side was golden – it takes a long time to bleach a rock!! I was a little bit naughty and brough a couple of pebbles home with me including this one (I left Mary, I felt someone else would find her far more interesting than agnostic me!).

FOr all it’s barren beauty, there is life in the desert! Even though it was just after midday (I know!), this hawk was on the prowl:

There were also some tiny little birds but they were far too quick to capture on camera.

After drinking in the beautiful landscape we hot-footed back to the cool sanctuary of the truck (quite literally) and headed home via Assaggio’s, an Italian restaurant with a small airport that was in the middle of this sandy basin, but not before a small detour to check out a local artist’s work. This was my first view of some of his pieces:

Over a several mile (maybe 10 mile) area, this man has created dozens and dozens of these metal sculptures, we stopped off to meet a couple – Joanie got a bit too close to this one!

I thought I’d add this pic as it has us both on it, but from this angle it looks like Joanie is giving as good as she got, roflgigglesnort!!

Seriously though, this guy’s work is incredible and even while we were driving through, the man was there and Joanie stopped for a little chat. He was working on a monstrous creation that was in pieces when we were there, I’d love to see how it finished up!

We had to get back to Joanies after this but it was such an amazing day, the landscape, the heat, the art, the company – all wonderful memories I’ll treasure!

When we got home, Joanie indulged me and treated me to a tour of her collection, I hope she won’t mind my posting this two photos:

Here is Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig’s medallion, when I saw this I just had to agree:

And this one is a one-off hanging bat in this beautiful albino colour, I think this was one of Addi’s but I’ll have to check that.

Then, all too soon, it was time to leave the United States and fly home. I’d had 10 days of super-intense hobby fun/socialisation/friend-making/creativity/cocktails/FOOD/ and a so much excitement, I left with a happy heart.

Before my flight Joanie treated me to one last American breakfast at an undeniable French Cafe:

And we drove to the airport, I had to capture a quick snap of these, what amazing architecture!!

I flew from LAX to Ohare, in Chicago…

This is the bridge that had me intrigued when I first arrived in San Diego:

I love how organised everything in America is! With squares…

…and circles!

An interesting, random sight – 3 lakes, three different colours! I wonder what minerals make that happen!

As we approached OHA, I was in awe of this – this is a photo of about 100 miles of cloud rolling in, this was the edge of the weather, in a perfect straight line!

OHA wasn’t as much fun as I’d have liked; we weren’t given much time to get from one flight to the next, and I realise when we’d landed that I didn’t know if I had to pick up my luggage or not, so after going through security (where I had to take my belt off – this is relevant), I had to RUN through the airport to baggage reclaim…

(but I did get to see this, which was awesome – this is a rushed photo taken whilst running, trying to keep my glasses on my face, holding my book, on-board luggage and trying to keep my trousers up!)

…only to find out that my bags had been transferred for me!! So, bag, book, glasses and jean tops in one hand, camera in the other (I’m a cereal photographer, I can’t help it!), I RAN back through the airport…

…to get to the gate as the made the FINAL call for me! So, sweaty, wheezing like a trooper, tired and in quite a state, I boarded the plane in a cloud of “sorry”, and promptly collapsed into my seat for the final leg home. I was supposed to sleep on this 7 hour flight, but I couldn’t too many amazing things to see like these:

(sun going down)

(sun coming up)

(Sunrise)

(and clouds on fire!!)

See!

I loved this – the on-board screens tracked your journey (I’m easily pleased, me!)

And after a few more entertaining sights, like my engagement ring casting these beautiful reflections on the wall (click to enlarge)

I was home.

Well, London anyway – that’s the Thames from above:

Back to the rolling hills, clouds and the suburban metropolis of England. For all my excitement in the US, it was good to be home.

So here ends my BOYCC report, I hop you didn’t find it TOO long, there was just SO much to tell you about!

Back on track next time, I have some exciting news to share about a fresh new model (hint – go check out my website to find out what it is!).

BOYCC Part 05–The Goodie Bags!

2011-08-24T18:19:00.001+01:00

Well, we’re nearly there with the almighty BOYCC report, I have just to post about the Goodie Bags and then my final few days in the US and what adventures Joanie and I went on before I flew home and a review of all the wonderful new bits and bobs I brought back with me (or had posted – thanks Joanie!!).

So, the Goodie Bags! These were just the most surprising, wonderful bags of goodies you could imagine! I’ll apologise now for my awful photos in this post, it seems the only times I’ve been able to take photos lately has been when it’s been dark (quite an achievement considers the long daylight hours of Summer!).

So, those Goodie Bags – they really were something! It seemed that everyone who walked in through the door had more goodies to add! It was quite the operation just to fill them, so Amy Peck and I got cracking and soon everyone was chipping in with organising and filling.

There were at least 50 bags to fill – Joanie had bought some lovely brightly coloured bags, in a fresh blue, lime green and purple – can you guess which was my favourite??

The bags were filled and given out on the first day of BOYCC, however, as more and more people arrived, yet MORE goodies were provided, so on day two a new set of plastic bags were filled and given out as “top-ups” to the original ones. After Gunner and Elli had provided us all with cocktails-a-plenty (perhaps a little too plenty in my case!!), I decided to retreat to our room for a quiet moment and though that would be a great time to record all those goodies!

I didn’t get a close-up photo of the awesome (and OH SO USEFUL polishing cloth given by Carol Johnson of Reins of Faith Farm (thanks Carol!!) which can be seen towards the left on the pic above (with the card with a pink flower) - mine was blue but I think I saw a few brightly coloured ones about.

Joanie’s addition was a lovely Pour Horse mug - you can see the mug on the photo towards the right, it was presented in the little (red, for me) bag at the back of the pic, all wrapped up in zingy coloured tissue to keep it safe – thanks Joanie!!

One item I’m a bit curious about is the item shown to the right of the photos above, mine was purple, it is a quilted band, I’m a bit puzzled as to it’s purpose, perhaps someone could help me out on this one, it has two little Velcro fastenings to make it a loop. Is it for keeping a drink cool/warm, or for wrapping around a model horse’s barrel to protect it? Probably neither, anyone who does know please add a comment below

We also each received a teeny tiny little badge (button) from Melly, these varied, I think there were 3 or 4 types and each featured a different horse, mine is blue with a little foal on it – you can just about make it out on the photos above. Thanks Melly!

At the front of the gifts shown are a pair of gorgeous little soaps, made with all-natural products (which is heaven, I have uber-sensitive skin!) in the shape of little paws. I forget who added these, I’ll have to check and post that later.

Also I filed all the paper/card items separately and have yet to go through them, these included art cards from Tom Bainbridge ( a lovely clinky Deputed Duke image); Lynn Fraley (Poudre and Punjabi in all their clinky finery!); a set of EXTREMELY handy show cards from Susan Candelaria and a quirky little post-card style mini-poster with some really funny “miracle cure” adverts on, I’m not sure who those were from but there were some corkers in there! Mine was for an “Age Defying Delution”.

I’ve not put anything here either about the two clinky medallions included in the goodie bags – one from Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig, and one from Lynn Fraley. Not all bags had a Lynn Fraley addition, it was pot-luck as to which did and which didn’t, however the people who helped to pack the bags were pointed to goodie bags with these in, as a thank you for their help. Both of these clinky medallions will be covered in a future post, they are super-lovely!

Here’s the rest of the swag:

I’m not sure who added in the pencils, but I’m sure this will get some use given my note-taking obsession:

The pens were from Joanie, mine was used a LOT throughout the show – you can never underestimate the usefulness of a good pen!

From Kristina Lucas-Francis we were treated to a VERY useful bit of kit (particularly at a china show!) – this retractable dust brush:

This little matchbook of paper squares came from www.AmysLoveBugDesigns.etsy.com

I can see these being very useful at live shows!

Next up is a bag of goodies from Karen Gerhardt (slightly squished from it’s travels across the ocean home with me)…

The contents are a selection of yummy edibles and also some bubbles, though they’ve escaped in this photo!

I think the Award for “Most Innovative Goody” has to go to Liz Holm, who added these gorgeous little bags of M&Ms, CUSTOM GLAZED!!! These really tickled me, with their “Shiny” and “BOYCC 2011” messages, and even little Pour Horse silhouettes too!!

Lynn Fraley treated us all to some Hershey Kisses (I’m told that’s what they’re called) – little chocolate drops which I have held off scoffing until now, but I don’t think they’ll last much longer, hehe!

In fact, Adam and I have said we’ll have an “American Night”, probably get a film on the we’ll try all the edible goodies, well, maybe not ALL of them, but a little of each, including these, which weren’t in the Goodie Bags but I sneaked into one of the boxes Joanie shipped home for me when I saw them during one of the many meals Joanie and the gang provided for us, I’ve heard a LOT of good things about these guys:

These awesome creations below were made (yep, MADE) by Jenn Kroll, ok, so there was actually only one in the Goodie Bag, but during the course of the event I somehow (*looks up at the sky innocently*) managed to obtain a couple more, including my favourite of them all – Pirate Parrot! When offered, I added the yellow parrot to the group as, during the first workshop of the even I saw a beautiful yellow bird up in the trees over Joanie’s garden.

Aha! And I got a photo of it (it was quite a way off sadly).

The chocolate parrots were all different, cast in coloured chocolate by Jenn and her family, and each bag they came in was decorated with a colour-coordinating ribbon, which I will keep and use on another project I’m sure, or maybe just tie around my studio to remind me of the show and these guys (as they are unlikely to survive much longer without being eaten!)!

In a just-as-sweet-but-not-as-edible way, this little keyring/tag/hanger doodad was in the bags – I’m sorry but I don’t remember who added these, please add a comment to the blog if you do! I’m not sure if it wasn’t Joanie…?

More edibles! This packet was given by Elli and Gunner…

…and to my delight contained three of these treats – Joanie had been given a box of these by the Hawaiian couple and she very generously let me try them while I stayed with her, so I KNOW they are super-yummy and I’m looking forward to enjoying these, they will be savoured!

Next up is an unusual little treat, consisting of a rather cute little piggy bank…

Containing two more treats! A little pin, cast in lavender coloured bone china and a set of deadly dominoes. The pin, I think was sculpted by Karen Gerhardt as we also used one of those (in white earthenware) for the Custom Glazing workshop. I will put the Piggy Bank to work saving up for the next BOYCC and I will challenge my Dad (champion Domino Player of The Woodpecker, public house) to a Dominoes match at some point too!

Thank you Margaret Olson for the multi-goodies!!

I lost track of where some of the goodies came from, so here’s a few pics of the other yummies included:

I think the idea was that the foods included in the bag were to keep us going during the Event, but I was so fascinated by all this “Foreign Food” that I kept them all and saved them to show Adam and my family.

Probably the most poignant addition to the Goodie Bag, particularly from my point of view having never met most BOYCC attendees and not know if/when I might meet them again, was the Memory Books.

I wondered if I should post photos of the things people wrote in my book, but without their knowing I don’t think I should. Ok, sentimental moment coming – thinking back to my school days, I never felt antisocial as such but, had I had a yearbook back then I think I would have struggled to fill a page, so when I picked up my memory book at the end of BOYCC to find ALL of the pages not only full, but full of wonderful, kind, positive and welcoming messages, I admit I was a little overwhelmed..

…and tickled pink – several people had added little sketches and some great funny remarks, I found a little chook-hen from Jenn and a few little horsey sketches, including this wonderful addition from Laurie Jo (hope you don’t mind Laurie but I simply HAD to share!).

Finally, the last little addition to the goodie bags was a model horse! This I will certainly treasure, I don’t know who added these but, as official bag-packer, I got to guide this little purple* pony into my goodie bag!

I think I’ve covered all of the Goodie Bag contents here, if I’ve missed anything please let me know, I’m STILL working on unpacking from the trip (our house has been a bit up-side-down from the recent bathroom replacement) but I’ll post more as I find them.

More next time, and more to tell on recent sculpting/resin/medallion works too!! Exciting times here at Studio Savage**

*can you tell what my favourite colour is?

**for the moment, as of next May I will be called Kelly Sealey :)

A small interruption....

2011-08-16T18:17:00.000+01:00

Before my final BOYCC posts I have a small pre-announcement to make.

I will be releasing a new model shortly, I'm so excited about it and should be able to share photos very soon. I've spoken to several casting companies and two will be casting this edition, which is good news for UK, European and US customers!

Those of you on Facebook have probably already seen a couple of photos of the model, I'll refrain from sharing more until I have good photos to share, but I will say it is a small-scale horse, legs-and-all, and should be pretty versatile for both in-hand and performance classes.

Stay tuned for more info soon, I'm absolutely thrilled about this as I've been hoping to scale back my casting activities to allow me to sculpt (and blog) more!

BOYCC Part 4–The Dinner!

2011-07-26T15:50:00.001+01:00

Don’t worry! This post won’t be anywhere near the mammoth length of my previous post, promise!

BOYCC ran from Thursday through to Sunday, Thursday and Friday were Workshop days, Saturday and Sunday morning were the Show and Sunday afternoon was the final Workshop. Saturday evening, part way through the show we had a lovely evening meal, a group of artists, some present, some not, had each dressed a table with the theme of their work.

The artists were;

Joanie Berkwitz
Addi Hude
Sarah Minkiewicz*-Breunig (*which I found out is pronounced – Mink-e-vich, certainly not Tinkywinks, which Laurie Jo found hilarious – sorry Sarah! ) – Sarah wasn’t at BOYCC as her father was poorly, but she sent along ample gifts for her table including the amazing OOAK sculpture she created prior to the show.
Karen Gerhardt
Donna Chaney
Marge Para
Kristina Lucas Francis

I think that’s all of them. Here are some photos of their tables:

Ok, so somehow I didn’t get a photo of Joanie’s table (I’m SURE I did, I’m definitely missing some photos somewhere!!), but this is her centrepiece, it was so lovely – Joanie took an Otto, a Collier and a Limerick and turned the Otto into a teapot (yep, you read right!) and the two smaller horses into a creamer and a sugar bowl! I can only find this photo of them (yes, I must have lost some as I took a load of these as I liked them so much!) but they are shown here incomplete (photo taken prior to the show). Joanie added some lovely wire handles to each too, and glazed them to this beautiful sea-green colour. Each member of Joanie’s table was gifted a horse pin, glazed in this same colour.

Addi Hude, her centrepiece was a unique bowl she had made herself, filled with a heap of goodies including chocolate and tea. Her gifts to each table-member were some pretty little pins she had made.

Donna Chaney – Donna had created an amazing centrepiece scene model, with a Venus, Cupid and this beautiful Palm Tree too! I’m such a fan of her work and my favourite model is Cupid, so I thought this piece was simply divine! How she managed to fly it over from the UK safely is beyond me too, but she claimed it was no big deal – Donna has a great track record for flying her models round the world, the lady knows how to pack well!

Each of Donna’s table guests was treated to a custom glazed chess piece model. I was a little envious, but the following day my cats model won me one of these, so I was ultimately very happy!

Kristina Lucas Francis’ table was a tropical delight! Kristina wasn’t able to attend, so a photo of her was placed on “her” chair, I thought this was a lovely idea.

Kristina’s gift was her Tiki-Saurus model, and her guests were each treated to a little pin she made, I’m not sure what it’s called, I have one from a few years ago, it’s a little leaping pony, and each was glazed to a similar (possibly the same, they were in envelopes so I only got a sneaky peek) colour as the Tiki-Saurus.

Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig’s table was watched over by her smiling photo. I was a little sad that I wasn’t able to meet her during my trip, but knowing how lively and bubbly she is, and how exhausted I was after my trip, I’m happy to hope I’ll meet her another time. From all the stories, I hear she is a whirlwind of enthusiasm and creative energy which was certainly proven by the amount of goodies she sent for us in her absence.

Sarah’s centrepiece was the talk of the show, all of the models and donations were incredible, but, perhaps as we’d watched it developing on Sarah’s blog in the previous weeks, we all enjoyed having this gorgeous little pony around for the days leading up to the dinner! Sarah’s guests were each treated to two magnets glazed in some really beautiful colours.

I didn’t get photos of Marge Para’s table sadly, her centrepiece was the brightly coloured pot I pictured in my previous post. Her guests didn’t know what their treats were, as they had been boxed and wrapped up prior to the event and were sat on each guest’s chair.

Karen Gerhardt openly admitted that she may have got a little carried away with her gifts. As I was on Karen’s table this was no problem at all!

Karen’s centrepiece was the humungous Boreas custom model, he was surrounded by pine needles and cones from the forests where she lives. Her gifts were… (pause for dramatic effect)… a Halfling Boreas (!!!) art glazed, and some of the models had also been claybody customised slightly – an ear twitch here, a mane edit there. Each Halfling Boreas was accompanied by a little photo frame featuring a sign for one of the Passes in Boulder (where Karen lives) and a map showing it. Boreas is named after a Pass I believe, so these added a lovely personal touch to already over-generous gifts.

Here is Karen with a couple of my table-mates, Michelle Platt to the left, and Sue Stewart to the right.

Nobody knew this before the show, but we found out on the first day – each table centrepiece was TO BE GIVEN AWAY to one of the guests at the respective tables!!!

This added such an air of excitement to the show and the dinner – everybody was so thrilled with their gift and it was decided that each artist would throw a die and then count the resulting number to the left around the table, the person the number laded on would then WIN the table centrepiece!

First up, Kristina Lucas Francis’ table – her is the winner (sadly she wasn’t wearing her name badge so I don’t recall her name):

On to Marge Para’s table, the winner of her centrepiece was Pauline Entin:

And in those wrapped up boxes – hand made pots and candle-holders, they were gorgeous!

On to Donna Chaney’s table and the winner of the amazing Venus and Cupid scene model, was Deb McDermott!

I don’t think the rest of her table minded though, they all seemed very pleased with their chess piece models.

On Addi’s table, the winner was Liz Holm!

On our table, the proud winner was Kim Knight, I think her face says it all!

Again, though, nobody lost on our table! I was actually the first to arrive too, so I conveniently positioned myself next to this gorgeous ruby-red Halfling, he now sits proudly on my shelves and is a treasured part of my collection!

So (insert drumroll here please) – Sarah’s table!

Dum dum dummmmm, and the winner is…..

Katie Younger-Gehrt!!! Congratulations Katie!

…you can’t hold an event like with without some speeches! Joanie thanked everyone who had contributed to the show, which was probably most people in the room, hehe! Then Addi took to the mic’ to express her thanks to Joanie and tell us about the mammoth preparations she had undertook to make the BOYCC 2011 Event a success. The applause shook the room and last a long time, it was obvious how much everyone appreciated all the hard work that went into the show.

After the silliness of dinner…

…and the drawing of the door prizes (I added a copy of Inferno cast in bronze, and my number was drawn so I got a reject time, yey!!!) – check out those Hammies, hehe!…

Lesli Kathman held her talk on Colour Genetics and disproving some preconceptions about horse colours. I didn’t get any photos from this but as Lesli is planning to release her book soon, it should all be in there. Lesli has a wonderful way of explaining genetics, if you’re interested in horse colour genetics (and other animals too), check out Lesli’s blog, The Equine Tapestry.

The following morning it was time to say goodbye to the Lake San Marcos hotel and head back to Joanie’s house for the final workshop – Mold-Making with Margaret Olson, for those who attended my Making a Simple Medallion workshop on the Wednesday.

This is the view from our “Party Bungalow”

And here you can see the outside of the show hall, it actually sat in the lake!

On the way back from the hotel to Joanie’s house, we saw this guy giving it large on one of the junctions. I’ve never seen a man dressed as a hotdog before, especially dancing away on a street corner, hehe!

During the Mold-Making workshop on the Sunday afternoon, I didn’t take many photos, I was too enthralled with what was happening (and did get drawn into a few great gossipy conversations, I admit!). I took this photo on my iPhone though, as I felt it summed up the whole event, and the feelings of those who got to “play in the mud”:

BOYCC 2011 was over, people headed home or back to their hotels and there was a collective, mixed feeling “sigh” as we all realised it was over but also knew we had memories to last a lifetime and many, many new friends.

The next post will be about those Goodie bags!!

BOYCC Part 3–The Show!

2011-07-26T14:35:00.001+01:00

Ok, so this is getting a little ridiculous now – over 2 months on and I’m still raving about the BOYCC event. Well, that’s just how I roll I’m afraid!

I just realised I didn’t post about the Goodie Bags! I will save that for a separate post, as the bags were so incredibly generously filled that I think they deserve a post of their own!

So, on to The Show – the middle section of the BOYCC Event; a two-day show, day One being Workmanship and day Two being Breed classes. On the evening between, we had a lovely meal with themed tables – although this took place in the middle of the show, I’m going to report about that separately (perhaps covering the event in 5 posts now…?).

I’d not been able to pack many models, so the image below shows my entire showstring for this event, including the two additional models I bought from Donna, two tiles I bought from Melly (the FHF Tiles, I missed out when they were available and thought I’d never get one [all unsold copies were destroyed after a certain date], so I was very please when Melly brought some she had kept to sell, to raise funds towards the next BOYCC, where she plans to sponsor another person for the show. I think this is a wonderful idea!), also shown is my SMB BOYCC special tile, still in it’s cellophane wrapping.

Aside from all the clinky goodness on show, there were some additional goodies on display, including these items of Jewellery from Mel Miller – some of which included Lesli Kathman’s bead-works.

Here are some of the other lovely sights from the showers’ tables.

If there were a single model in the world you could own – what would it be? I think this guy would have to be mine. The ever-stately Boreas by Karen Gerhardt, this copy glazed by her to a mind-boggling matte dappled grey.

Heather (I think, so sorry, the name has escaped me!) brought along a host of Hagen Renaker models. HR had produced a special run for the show, it included a really sweet dog and a grey appaloosa horse. They came as a set, advertised as “buy the horse, get the dog free, or if you prefer, buy the dog and get the horse free” – made me chuckle! That giant squirrel in the background was an interesting model…!

On to the classes! First up was the Appaloosa Workmanship class. This model by Addi grabbed everyone’s attention, it has an incredible glaze-job on it!

This was my entry:

This was one of the models Donna had brought with her, I had been sooo tempted over this one, he didn’t hang around for long though and was right there on the show table the next day!

The level of detail and craftsmanship in this first class set the standard for the rest of the day….

Whilst the show was going on, the various artist donations were arranged along the bar area. Here is the donation from Kristin Lucas Francis. She hadn’t been able to get to BOYCC but had sent over not just a centre-piece, but all the decorations to make her table (on the evening, see further down this post) into a tropical paradise. Her Centrepiece was a fabulous arrangement of basket and flowers and, nestled in the middle was a “Tiki-Saurus” model.

Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig overwhelmed us all with goodies, here you can see the amazing one-of-a-kind centrepiece model alongside some of her other donations – here we have a set of her little Hammies, and also some additional tiles she sent which were actually reject models, experimental glazes that hadn’t worked for various reasons. I was lucky enough to have a winning ticket for the door-prize (aka raffle-that-isn’t-a-raffle-cos-we-weren’t-allowed-to-in-that-building) and I swiftly chose one of these – I plan to hang it in my studio to remind me that, though something may not be “technically” perfect, it can still be very beautiful. Hopefully it will help me to accept the time to cast a model and stop picking away at it – something I do really struggle with.

I know you want to see this closer, so here is a couple of shots of Sarah’s amazing Table Centrepiece:

It was smaller than anyone expected, which shows just how very detailed this model is. The finger in the shot isn’t for scale, I just kept on shooting while the other ladies were having a mooch through all the goodies too!

Here we have a couple of very large medallion models (I’m not sure they are called medallions – you wouldn’t want one of these enormous models hanging off your neck, that’s for sure!) donated by Lynn Fraley. Lynn wasn’t able to attend BOYCC as she was having surgery following a round of chemo. Lynn is an incredible woman, check out her blog for some inspirational positivity!

In the background is the pot donated by Marge Para, it was superbly decorated, it reminded me a little of the Hagen Renaker wall hangings I’ve seen on MH$P occasionally.

I can’t remember who donated these Collie medallions, I’m so sorry, please add a comment below if you can credit this artist. I thought these were really lovely!

Karen Gerhardt brought along some goodies, including a (insert “shock, horror” moment here) resin model!!! She had on offer this lovely Optime bust, plus a couple of art-glazed mini medallion/pins models similar to those from the Workshop she held, and a resin Roundabout model, allowed in with special permission, as he will shortly be appearing in clinky form. It was lovely to see this model, especially as he was inspired during Karen’s stay in the UK.

Donna Chaney also had more goodies for us including these little chess piece models. I have to admit, I’m a bit of a sucker for these guys and might have tried a bit of bribery during the show to try to get my mitts on another one! Sadly I wasn’t successful, however it all turned out ok in the end (as you’ll see further on).

Here’s another random panorama from the show. I love these pictures, they really grab the atmosphere of the moment!

Back to the donations – this, well, this guy was just divine! This is Karen Gerhardt’s Table Centrepiece; a custom glazed, claybody custom large traditional scale Boreas! Needless to say, I was all over this guy – I was going to be sitting at Karen’s table so was going to get to ogle him all evening, he was just stunning!

This is Donna Chaney’s Table Centrepiece, it was so beautiful! Cupid is my favourite AA model and this one of a kind scene model was just beautiful. How Donna managed to fly this from the UK to the other side of the world without breaking it is beyond me!

Here is Addi’s Table Centrepiece. it’s not shown very well here, but the piece was a pot that she had made during college I believe, it was a unique twisted shape and had some very bizarre transfer-type images on it but it also had Addi’s style and charm, and was filled with some lovely decorative treats including some lovely tea!

I admit I didn’t get many photos from the show itself, I was either running around like a lunatic trying not to miss classes (with my tiny showstring I really had no excuse!), or making like a Magpie at all the lovely shiny things! Here are a couple more highlights though, including this brand spanking new Wyakin in Bone China, who made up Michelle Platt’s entire showstring I think. She was so lovely!

I thought this Animal Artistry Rearing Shire was beautiful, I love the steely greys!

And this little miss, wowsa – there were a few Vixen and Imp models (most if not all belonging to Melly!) and they are just amazing – how they are cast without breaking is just mesmerising!!

Here were some more awards, Addi told me that some had come from Etsy, I got the card of the artist, I’ll try to remember to post those details here at some point as these tiny little pin awards were so beautiful, and the way they were presented just added to them.

During the show, upstairs a few collector classes were held. First up was the Medallion class, there were some really interesting entries and it was quite an education reading about them (click the pics for larger images):

This was my entry, though I also added a little “Key” explaining each one. I had mistakenly thought that there would be medallion classes in the show, so hadn’t brought a “collection” per se, however I did manage to cobble together these, now I had my FHF Melly tiles and my BOYCC one too.

I’d happily have any of these, I love Lesli’s work and am hoping to add one of her “trading card” medallions to my collection one day, but I want to create my own trading card style model following her lead, perhaps we could trade, hehe!

Talking of Lesli… Throughout the show, Lesli was wearing one of her lovely pendants. I can’t find much information on these apart from an old blog post of hers here. I am a big fan of Lesli’s work, the only reason I don’t have more is that my “up” times financially never coincide with the times she sells lovely treats like this. I commented on the necklace she was wearing at the show, and to my surprise and delight, she took it off, handed it to me and said “call it a wedding gift”. So, I am now the very proud owner of this beautiful pendant, with a gorgeous glaze design.

Even the back is beautiful – look at the filigree style mount, it’s just gorgeous! Thank you Lesli, this is a VERY special item and I will treasure it!

Ok, back to the show! This was another entry into the collector class. I did squeeze two entries in (after I explained my goof over the medallion classes vs single collector class). These chess-piece style models from Donna Chaney are beautiful, very tricky to photograph though, so I’ll put two pics of them.

These are glazed in a green/metal glaze, I’m not sure what to call it but it is very nice indeed. I also have some in a blue glaze, and some in a creamy coloured glaze but I only have the complete set of 6 in this green colour.

This set was lovely I thought too, and as the show progressed, this entry grew and grew after Mel Miller added in a Lesli Kathman pendant she had constructed into a dramatic deep red necklace, and I added in my new treasure, and I think someone else added in a piece by Lesli too, sadly I didn’t get a shot of this once everyone had added in to it (I’m sure I did, I think I’ve lost a few photos! )

Here was a great entry featuring the original BOYC Trophy model in a lovely metallic glaze. I love the Fraley “rock” models too, and as it turned out I managed to purchase a pair of these from the show to add to my own collection (it might even be the ones pictured, hehe!).

Here is a lovely collection, very nicely presented too, I think these belong to Kim Knight, I’m not sure though.

I particularly liked the two SMB medallions in this set, I own a pair of these and have seen lots come up on MH$P and eBay over the years, but I’ve never seen them in this lovely variegated glaze before.

Another addition – spot the newby in the collection below (scroll up to see how it started out, hehe!)

Finally, this superb collection of medallions including one model I’m not sure what to call – the centrepiece of this collection was an incredible piece! Nobody knew anything about it, I think it should be in a museum it looks so incredibly delicate (and in MINT condition, too!!), I was in awe… and so was the judge – this collection took first place in the medallion collectors class.

My two entries took fourth and fifth places, which I was very happy with. I was even more happy when I saw that they had won two new little SMB magnet models – Sarah must have been working round the clock to have all these gorgeous models done in time for BOYCC!

There was also an Animal Artistry collector’s class, sponsored by Donna Chaney. I appear to have lost my photos from that, too which is disappointing as there were some very collectible models in the class! I had entered 5 of my 6 Cupid models as, stupidly, I had managed to lose one of them before BOYCC. I have now found the wayward model, it was still wrapped up and hiding in the packing materials for my show string! Here are my Cupids:

First up – Cupid (predictable)

On this photo below, on the left we have Cupid the Cute (struggling for names for him!) and Little Lucifer on the right…

This is Noel, a OOAK take on the Christmas special run model from 2007…

This is Spotty – as you can see, I have trouble finding names for my models!

…and finally, this little wayward miss is the model I had lost prior to the show. A slightly more adventurous name, this is Flutterby:

Without my photos I’m not sure exactly where the collection (minus Flutterby) placed, I think it was 5th or 6th. I didn’t mind this at all, there were some super-rare models on show and my collection wasn’t complete, plus, I got this cool purple t-shirt from Donna!

Back downstairs to the main show hall and it was time for the big-guns to come out and my goodness, there were some super models to ogle! Recently (and more so since I visited the Royal Worcester Museum last year), I’ve been interested in works by Doris Lindner. There were a lovely selection of pieces by her on display, I was amazed some of these had been packed for travelling, the fragile little details on them were beautiful!

This Suffolk Punch model in particular caught my eye – I think at some point in my life I hope to have one of these, though it will have to be a rich and lucky time to find one and afford it! This model took the blue in his class, which did not surprise me at all, he was awesome and those ribbons in his mane and tail were so fine and realistic!

I also noticed this model, I’ve seen copies of these (or even this one, they’re very rare so I believe) online and loved them, but seeing it there in front of me was a treat – the engineering behind this model is amazing in itself!

As I drooled over all the beautiful model, I came upon this – it’s a Clinky Little One!!! I was so thrilled to see this, I had seen all of the Little Ones Joanie had done so far but only as photos, so seeing this model on the table in front of me was a real thrill! I took a couple of photos, one with flash and one without.

And this Little One is in very good company, look at all the wonderful models it will be living with!

More treats on show, here is a little Minkiewicz family…

…and this guy, he is Animal Artistry Royalty! I’ve seen this model pictured on the Animal Artistry Gallery for years, it’s definitely on my wish list (and probably most other AA collectors too, hehe!)!

More donations appeared throughout the show, it seemed every time I looked there were even more! These custom glazed treats came from Addi I believe:

…and these gorgeous tiles were from Marge Para too!

This is a shot of the dining area, if you click on it you can see the tables to the left, then the notice boards and book of remembrance for Karen Grimm’s family, then the tables to the right were where we had the medallion collector’s class. Over to the far right you can just see the area that was used for the presentations.

I had a little job in the afternoon of gluing the glazed tiles into wooden frames, to be used for the overall champion prizes. I think I got them all glued in pretty solidly!

As the afternoon neared and end, I took in a few more sights from other shower’s tables, including this crazy beautiful itchy horse model, it was so pleasing on the eye, I loved it!

The “Other Animal” class was split, as there were many feline entries. This isn’t feline but caught my eye – can you identify this model, I have a few friends who have seen this and would like to find out more, and so would I, I thought it was lovely!

The judge for the newly created “Cats” class, asked if I minded if they split my entry into two – a custom model from AA, glazed as a portrait of our two cats, Amber and Deeley. I though it might be because she liked one cat but not the other, but as it turned out she wanted to award first AND second place to my little model. I was so proud, my first Blue ribbon of the show!

These are the lovely little pins that Amber and Deeley won.

Here is Cupid the Cute (renamed as “Neptune” for the day as I forgot his name…sigh) on the left , Venus the Pegasus and Little Lucifer in the Fantasy class. I have a fair few fantasy models but only brought these as most I have are so delicate. with wings and horns and so on.

There were some lovely entries, including this Rocking Horse

Here’s a table shot, I was a bit tickled as the two models shown closest below; the Pegasus and the Batwing horse, are both models I have at home but had left behind, so I was really pleased to see someone had brought their copies along.

Another blue! Venus took first place and I was so excited! Neptune (aka Cupid the Cute) and Little Lucifer also got ribbons for 5th and 6th place too.

I was also really happy to see how these guys placed too!

I think this model may be a HR, but I’m not sure. He was so sweet, very large but cuddly looking (which is an achievement for a dragon!)!

Towards the end of the show, the Artist classes were on including (amongst others) the Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig class, Joanie Berkwitz class and the Donna Chaney custom model class.

I entered my cat model and to my absolute delight, they won the class!! Now, you remember those Chess Piece models Donna had, well, guess what the prize was for this class – I was thrilled!!

I think my energy was waning towards the final minutes of the show, so I got very few photos which was such a shame

The show ended which was sad, but I think everyone took home a prize of some description and new purchases galore. I gained a couple more things during the show, including another chocolate Pirate Parrot (more on that in the Goodie bag post), and a little Al Hadiye model from Deb McDermott. I really love the little Arab, Deb had a few models and I was tempted with them all, but this little one took my fancy the most.

Next up – the dinner event – well worth reading as it has plenty of clinky models going on!

10 Years ago…

2011-07-22T14:01:00.001+01:00

10 Years ago yesterday (ok, I might have forgotten about this totally yesterday, distracted by far less silly things), I got in my car and set off from my parent’s house in Birmingham for my new short-term job contract in that faraway place called Northampton.

It was a 6 week temporary contract which turned into a permanent job of 5 years. By that time I had settled into the place and met Adam, so I stayed.

I told the guys I work with that after 10 years I planned to officially call myself Northamptonian, but they told me until I can say the word “year” properly, I’m not allowed!

So, Happy 10 Yuer Anniversary to me!

Back to Hobby related matters next time

Kelly’s Trip to the US Part 2 – BOYCC, the Workshops!

2011-07-15T14:03:00.001+01:00

Ok, now for the REALLY special bit! As you know my visit to the BOYCC show was made possible by Joanie Berkwitz; china casting and custom glazing artist-extraordinaire. Joanie opened her home to me and ensured I got the best experience possible throughout the BOYCC event and beyond, into the three extra days I spent with her and her family.

Thank you Joanie, your kindness and support has given me an experience I will treasure forever.

BOYCC was such an amazing experience, it was easy to see how it had taken months (even years!) of preparation and planning!

BOYCC, for me, began on 18th May, the day before the Convention was due to begin, at Joanie’s house. As people arrived for the event the following day they all piled round to Joanie’s house and we made a start on preparations, getting the Pour Horse gazebo up in the garden, organising tables, chairs and of course, those Goodie Bags!

There were 50 Goodie Bags, and with each new person through the door it seemed, there was a new treat to add to the bags! Amy Peck, shown on the left here took control and got everything organised, and the rest of us chipped in to get all the lovely nik-naks into the bags. As it turned out, we ended up filling 50 new bags (just plastic bags) with all the extra goodies that turned up over the course of the two days!

On the evening before the show, Sue Stewart, Karen Gerhardt, Donna Chaney, Amy Peck and me all went out for dinner at a place called BJ’s. We were intrigued to see that on the menu, each dish had the calorie content labelled – we debated on whether this was a good idea, decided it was and most of us opted for one of the low-calorie dishes, which as it turned out was very filling. After the angelic main, we rewarded ourselves with a devilish dessert consisting of three cookies served in the cake tins they were cooked in, still piping hot and gooey, served with three dollops of ice-cream. We chose one double-chocolatey one, one macadamia and white chocolate (heaven in a dish!!) and one peanut butter one which I didn’t expect to like, but very much did!

After dinner we headed back to Joanie’s house, she had gone for dinner with another group so we spent a little time looking at her amazing doll’s house – you can ready more about it on Joanie’s blog here (you’ll need to scroll down a bit): http://yashasbonsaiblog.blogspot.com/

I’d seen Joanie’s doll’s house evolve through her blog, but I’d not seen the incredible loft-studio – Addi had even made Joanie a miniature model-horse-sculpture-in-the-works for it!

Click on this pic to zoom in, the level of detail in here is just mind-blowing!

Ok, back to BOYCC! The morning of the 19th – the show kicked off! Everyone piled round to Joanie’s house for the first workshop – Joanie’s Custom Glazing Workshop.

In the photo below, from the left: Elli Heritage-Mench is shown admiring some Maureen Love models that were for sale, custom glazed by Maureen’s long-standing friend, who’s name escapes me right now (if you know could you pop a comment below, I’m sorry for forgetting), Marge Para is next, she was a real trooper throughout the show as she was suffering with a poorly leg, but she stuck it out through the whole event and had some very cool custom glazed dog models including some uber-cute English Bull Terrier pins! Then we have Cynthia Perry, who is one of the loveliest, most genuine people I think I’ve ever met, then the lady in the green top is Kathy Williams, another happy, chirpy lady. I’ll list the other people late on, I’m sure most will be covered by my other photos (I have so many to share!).

So, the day’s workshop involved masking off a bisque bone chine model, Donna Chaney had sent over some bisques of her Cantering Welsh Pony and also the gorgeous Standing Friesian Mare, which is a real favourite of mine however, Joanie had offered to let me use a bisque Earthenware copy of my Little One model, so I couldn’t refuse that offer! The bisque felt so delicate and weighed almost nothing, it was a pure, pure white and I was so proud to see my little baby all clinky, this was the first Earthenware copy I had ever seen and I have to admit I got a little lump in my throat.

Ok, moving on! Here is my model post-masking, using a blue masking tape and tinfoil. I’ve always wanted to see Little One in a baby black, snow-cap/blanket appaloosa (ignore my ignorance if you please). The hooves needed to be masked off to allow Joanie to hold the piece during painting as the dry glaze is very easily rubbed off when touched. The initial masking was only rough as, once sprayed, the idea was to use rubber eraser pencils and scalpels to expand the white markings, scritching in the details.

Here is (a young, at only 15 I think) Emily Dunnan’s model, after Joanie had added the glaze (Emily chose a lovely Dun…pinto? Not sure, but it was a great choice of colour and of course, Joanie applied it perfectly!). Emily then worked on rounding off the markings and adding detail and hand painting some parts, you can see the result a bit later on…

It was a really lovely, relaxed day (though not for Joanie and Addi slaving over getting the models glazed), here you can see Sue Sifton (left), Kim Bjorgo(-Thorne?) and on the right, Katie Younger-Gehrt fastidiously working on those dapples!

Katy spent a great deal of time on her model, it was a dappled grey and involved two layers of glaze.

And here you can see where all that work went! Even before firing, this model looks amazing!

Here is Addi (in green, you can also tell by her name badge) sharing a few tips with some of the ladies, I think that is Macy Lindsay on the left, then Kathy in green and on the right, Susan Candalaria.

The dogs were omnipresent, of course! Here is Yasha doing a spot of posing for the camera.

After Joanie’s workshop everybody gradually made their way over to the hotel; the Lake San Marcos Hotel and Resort. Well, almost everyone, Joanie stayed back to make a start on firing those models.

Sadly, on the Monday prior to the show, model horse collector and real-horse breeder Karen Grimm passed away. Karen was a huge model horse collector and had a collection of models that numbered in the thousands including some rare and unique models, her collection was admired by many as was she. Karen bred Appaloosa horses and her real horses were renowned the world over, winning many top awards. Karen had been battling with cancer for a while, but after a fall at home she passed away. I didn’t know Karen but many of the people who attended BOYCC did. Joanie was deeply saddened at Karen’s passing away and I have enormous admiration for the way she trooped on, and having lost a crucial day to prepare for BOYCC, she soldiered on through the evenings while we socialised, to ensure that the BOYCC awards (pictured below) and the models created during her workshop were all ready to go.

As a tribute to Karen, each of those attending the show wore her name-tag for a while and a book of remembrance was available throughout the show for people to write their messages for her husband, and a board was put up for people to add little notes of their memories of Karen.

Karen’s collection can be seen on her website here – be warned though, if you enter this website you need at least an hour or so, a comfy seat and a good cuppa, her collection is just amazing! Be sure to check out her real horses too,

http://www.bhranch.com/

So, whilst Joanie was slaving back in her studio, the rest of us kicked back and relaxed. Elli and her husband, Gunner played host and hostess and provided a constant supply of cocktails including the deceptively potent Mai-Tai (I had one of those!), the scrumptious Strawberry Daiquiri (I had one of those too!) and Amaretto (I had one of those too…. can’t remember much after that to be honest!).

I have to admit I was awestruck with Elli’s fantastic hair. As someone who has spent a lifetime trying to get her hair to grow, Elli’s 2ft+ ponytail had me mesmerised! Gunner was bartender extraordinaire, and every cocktail (alcoholic or non-alcohotic – perhaps I should have tried more of the latter!) was adorned with fruit sizzlers and cocktail umbrellas!

Earlier in the day, whilst at Joanie’s house, she had shown us a pot she has where she keeps all the failed castings. While we were all getting very excited about her “waste”, we made a gruesome little discovery of a little lizard that had once fallen in their. In will all that bisque it was perfectly preserved and was quickly adopted by Jacqui Fernandez, who quickly made him into a little mascot. Here he is enjoying a little shade under a cocktail umbrella.

Also present during the fun of the evening were a couple of models Addi brought along to help her raise some money for a house she’s buying soon. For a blissful …6.5 seconds, I was the high bidder on this awesome little Callahan model she custom glazed, but I was quickly outbid by Barb Ness.

As you can see (click on the pic to zoom) Melly Gaulding was having nobody get in her way of snagging the beautiful little Vixen and Imp set!

Next morning, on Friday 20th May (ugh, I’m soooo far behind!!), was day two of the Workshops. Today was the day for Karen Gerhard’s Experiencing China Painting workshop, which ran alongside Joanie’s Restoration Part 1 workshop. I would have loved to attend both, but I chose to go with Karen’s china painting one.

If you look closely at the photo below, you might see what it is that Karen has there in her hands. It is a fully custom glazed copy of her Optime sculpture, that she is liberally applying some orange and blue glazes to. The glaze is a simple glucose mix so washes off, but still, seeing a gorgeous model like that being coated in bright blue glaze was a little mind-bending!

Here is my effort – we were given a lovely little set of glucose (not sure that’s correct? A thick, clear liquid) and some pigments by Karen, presented in a neat little box along with a little china pin for us to glaze. This is my attempt, I struggled very much with the brush-strokes, so decided to go with the flow and make mine a hairy little pony. I never claimed to be any good at painting….

The others had much better ideas, I’m not sure who these were done by, but the one on the left is going to be a multi-layered creations (the best way to work with these over-glazes), and the two darker ones were created by people much more confident in this that I was!

The pins were left with Karen who took them to Joanie’s house to fire for us, and were presented back to us later in the event.

Whilst I was happily glazing my pin, Donna Chaney very kindly offered to take a model that had taken a tumble while I was packing, and restore it for me during Joanie’s Restoration Workshop. Certainly an offer I couldn't refuse and Donna fixed my little Pegacorn up for me wonderfully! Thank you Donna!

Here is a quick panorama shot of the view from the rooms we had for the Workshops and show, it was stunning and I spent a good while gazing out at the scenery and wildlife during the event.

Next up, after a scrummy lunch (of which there were many!), was my workshop – Sculpting a Simple Medallion, this was held alongside Pauline Entin and Kathy Williams’ European Chinas talk. I heard lots of positive things about the European Chinas talk, I wish I could have attended all the workshops!

I didn’t have a huge amount of preparation for my Workshop unlike some of the others, but I did have to chop up several blocks of clay. The brown clay was relatively soft, but the green clay was very hard and I’m still amazed I managed to get it all cut up while keeping all my fingers on!

I didn’t get any photos from my workshop (too busy talking, haha!) but I think it went ok. The idea was to create a medallion that could be cast in Earthenware china, so we had to take many things into consideration, for instance you can have much fewer undercuts when casting with plaster molds.

The medallions started in my workshop were then left with each participant to work on during the event. I didn’t expect there would be much time for the ladies to work on them, but they set up a little area at the end of the room and were working feverously away on their medallions throughout, I was so impressed!

The final set of Workshops for the day were: Addi’s Basic Greenware Casting and Cleaning, Mel Miller’s Digital Photography and Photo Showing and Joanie’s Restoration Part 2.

I chose to go with Addi’s Greenware workshop, and it was wonderful, gooey messy fun!

First up, we poured the slip into the plaster molds:

We had to wait for the level to drop, then top it up, some people had to do this twice.

Then, after 5 minutes, we drained out the liquid slip leaving a shell of soft clay in the mold. We then left these for a little while to drain the last of the liquid out and to allow time for the plaster to absorb the moisture from the slip.

Here is my model – it was pot-luck as to which mold you had, and I got this little guy, I think he’s called Collier. This mold comes from a 2-part mold which mean when demolded, there is no definition between the legs, just a flat plane so that the mold parts come away ok. I got to work cleaning seams and adding this detail back in, although I did still miss one part out – mine was a genderless horse!

I also added a little bit of detail on his chest

Cynthia Perry was my workshop-neighbour and the mold she got to play with was a partial casting of the snorty SMB Shetland Otto. She improvised and made this beautiful miniature lamp – perhaps Joanie could use this in her doll’s house…?

Sadly, we weren’t able to keep our models, and in the most heart-breaking part of the event, we had to put them back into the slip bucket to be recycled into new models. This reminds me of that scene at the end of Terminator 2!

Throughout the event there were no end of goodies on show, and one thing that caught my eye was this pot, well, there were actually two of them. I was intrigued by the blue glazing that had an amazing leather-type pattern to it.

I was both saddened and made happy when I opened the lid to see that these two beautiful little pots had been donated to the show by Karen Grimm.

At the end of day two, we all headed back to enjoy an evening doing whatever we liked. This photo says it all really – our Bungalow was definitely the proverbial kitchen-at-the-party!

More treats were on offer this evening, this time creations by Marge Para. This little Jitterbug was beautiful

and this Otto was stunning too!

Sadly I couldn’t offer on these two, as I’d already been shopping… I’d been to see Donna!

I’d been saving up in anticipation of BOYCC as I knew there would be many whiny things on offer, but as an Animal Artistry collector I also knew that Donna would bring something exceptional! She had so many beautiful models that I was quite torn on what to choose, but I finally decided on these two – this is a Show Special model on the Morgan mold, Donna has claybody customised each with a beautiful little rosette with “BOYCC” in tiny letters along the rosette tails. It was dark when I got these, so please excuse the awful photos (and fingerprints all over little Boisy [that’s his show name]!), he’s an Earthenware AAE model.

And this is Siam, she’s the Standing Friesian Mare model which I love so much, with two little feline additions. I was chuffed to get this model as I didn’t get one during Joanie’s Workshop (I would have chosen this model had she not tempted me with the Little One ), but also as I have a couple of these Friesian mares but can’t show them as Frisians (one is Palomino and one is a Pegasus). Of course 2 minutes later as I explained this to the girls, they pointed out that Friesians don’t come in bay with white socks! As it happens, someone suggested I show her as a Warlander and she has done very well for me at several shows since then.

That’s it for this post, I thought I could do BOYCC in three, but it’s going to be a four-blog story!

Long Overdue report!

2011-07-05T15:56:00.001+01:00

I am soooooooo far behind, it’s finally time to catch up with the events of the last 2 months!

So, last time I posted I was just back from America. I promised to post about BOYCC and my trip. I have SO many photos I want to share, I’m going to split it all down into a couple of posts.

To say this trip was life-changing is no understatement. I have met new people, met people I’ve know for years but not yet seen, made new friends, discovered new and amazing people, models, skills and places and I know that will be feeling the benefits of this for years to come, so to me it truly was that momentous!

My American adventures were broken down into three parts, as a result of a rather funny coincidence, so I’m going to report about it over three posts, provided blogger can handle all the photos I’m planning on posting!

This first blog post will cover my trip across the ocean, my time in La Jolla and my visit to UCSD CRCA (the Centre for Research into Computing and the Arts at the University of California, San Diego), it’s going to be a long one so if you usually follow my blog for the Model Horse related topics, you might want to skip this blog and wait for the next instalment which will cover the BOYCC show.

I flew out on 15th May, this was my first ride for the day, this enormous aeroplane took me from London Heathrow to Los Angeles;

The 10.5 hour flight went smoothly, I had a great chat with a German man named Stevie but we all ready to get off the plane as soon as it landed!

Then after a quick dash through Los Angeles’ LAX airport, this sweet little thing was my ride from LAX, 100 miles down the coast to San Diego, it only had about 25 seats in total, I thought it was a super little aircraft!

I really enjoyed the flight down the coast, we didn’t fly at a very high altitude and we were flying just off the coastline, I had intentionally booked a seat on the left hand side of the plane so that I could watch the land as we travelled South. It was great seeing the layout of the land (I spent a while trying to work out where Joanie’s house was!), I recognised some of it from my Google Earth searches as I prepared for the trip;

The day I travelled was a long one – we left home at about 7am UK time, after a 10.5 hour flight to LA and then a short flight down the coast it was about 4pm CA time, which was 2am UK time. Joanie very kindly came and picked me up from San Diego airport and ferried me to my Travelodge in La Jolla. She took great care of me and was very understanding of the gobbledegook I was coming out with, when Joanie took me for a lovely meal at a local Italian restaurant, it was only about 6pm but my body was telling me it was 4am and I had been awake for over 22 hours at that point – in all honesty I can’t remember much about our conversations over dinner!

One thing I DID remember though, was seeing this Bugatti Veyron car in a local gallery (?), which was itself next door to a Rolls Royce and Porsche car sales place. Joanie had told me that La Jolla (pronounced “La Hoya”) was a lucrative area and she wasn’t wrong - it was extremely posh!

I was staying at the La Jolla Travelodge, a motel-style lodgings that worked out extremely cost-efficient especially considering the prices that the local hotels were asking in this very high-end area. The room was lovely, it had a huge king-sized bed, all the mod cons (though I had a small panic when I realised there was no kettle!!), and although having never stayed in a motel-style place before (ie where the door to the rooms open to the outside, not to an internal corridor like at a hotel) and being slightly unnerved by it (you can thank Mrs Bates for that!), I was so tired when I got back though, that I slept heavily and soundly, regardless!

The following day; the Monday before BOYCC, was my own – I knew I’d need a while to adjust so made this my “tourism” day. Before I did anything else I wanted to make a start on my contribution to the Goodie Bags for BOYCC.

First stop was Harry’s diner for Breakfast, as recommended by the Travelodge staff. I was feeling confident walking to the Diner, Joanie had shown me how crossing the road worked, which I was so grateful for, I felt like a child trying to cross the roads, having to point each way to work out which direction the traffic would be coming from and which pedestrian crossing button to press, I must have looked like I was dancing!

I got to Harry’s and it suddenly occurred to me that, having never stepped foot in a Diner before, I hadn’t a clue what I was supposed to do – should I go sit down and wait to be served? Should I wait at reception to be shown where to sit? So as I walked in and all this dawned on me I just froze, when the waiter saw me and asked if he could help, I just blurted out “I’m from England!” Luckily this must have happened before, he said “you go sit down over there and we’ll come and serve you”. Not the best start, if I’m honest!

Breakfast was all I’d been told to expect and more, I ordered blueberry pancakes with strawberries after a friend had raved about having this when she visited New York last year. I was expecting the portion sizes to be larger than at home, but wasn’t quite expecting the mountain of food that arrived! It was gorgeous though, I managed to eat almost all of it (I’ve been raised to eat what’s on my plate but even I had to admit defeat by the third pancake!).

Having filled my boots at Harry’s I took a walk up through La Jolla to the seafront. I saw a couple of interesting building en-route including this Architects, which doesn’t look all that amazing until you notice the huge shard of metal cutting through it!

Another shop that tickled me was this one, just a boutique, but it had a great name!

I had a bit of a shock as I approached the sea, a bird flew over my head that I was certain was a pterodactyl!!! It turns out it was a pelican and that they are quite common along this coast, but I wasn’t expecting to see anything larger than a seagull and the first pelican I saw had me grabbing for my camera! Now, you’d think that a bird as large as these guys would be easily to catch on camera, but they are moving deceptively fast and trying to get a clear photo with the whole bird in shot turned out to be nigh-on impossible!

The coastline had more to offer though – La Jolla has several very beautiful and interesting little coves and a very pretty coastline.

Everything was very clean and tidy and I discovered a few interesting little details which I just had to snap photos of!

I’d picked a great time of year to visit, all of the flowers were in bloom and these gorgeous purple flowers were everywhere,

They are actually purple with white centres…

..and they were in huge swathes, I used the panorama feature on my camera to try to get an idea of the effect (click to view BIG);

It wasn’t just the flora that had me intrigued, the fauna was so interesting too! These little squirrel critters were everywhere, zipping about and in some places, sunbathing!

The birds, oh the pelicans, they just had me captivated! I got a little more luck in getting them in-frame, but throughout the entire time I was in America I didn’t manage to get the shot I really wanted.

There were seals, too, lots of them! The story is that La Jolla, being the wealthy place it is, felt it should have a sandy beach to offer it’s residents, so they invested an enormous amount of money and created a man-made sandy beach. However, the seals took one look at the new beach and thought “that looks like a great place to raise our babies” and moved in, so the locals are still without a sandy beach, each least while the seals are raising their young. This is the lovely sandy cove that was man-made:

And here are just a few of the seals, the colours and patterns were beautiful and made for great camouflage against the wet rocks;

I spent a thoroughly enjoyable few hours watching the pelicans diving like torpedoes into the sea, the seals sunbathing and the little squirrels and their babies scurrying around on the sand and grassy areas.

On the way back to the Travelodge I walked through the residential part of La Jolla and my goodness there were some lovely houses and gardens!

This little detail made me chuckle – a window in a wall with no room behind it!

The gardens were all in full bloom, these foxgloves caught my attention though, I’ve never seen foxgloves with flowers all the way round them? The garden they were in was in the style of an English Country Garden, several of the houses were landscaped this way which made me feel more at home, one garden in particular was bursting at the seams with Sweet peas in all different colours, the aroma was sensational!

I got back to my room and the jetlag kicked in, so I decided to finish making up my Goodie Bags and set to work making up the BOYCC Memory Books. This photo shows the sort of thing I put in my bags;

The English Penny and the Euro Cent were a silly little idea I had – have you ever seen a model for sale with a US Cent against it for scale? Well until recently I didn’t actually know how big a US Cent was, and it occurred to me that only UK hobbyists might know what size a British Penny might be and likewise with the Euro Cent. So, I added one of each into each bag so that nobody who had attending BOYCC would have this problem. I also added in some traditionally British bits and bobs, like the Limited Edition Twinings Royal Wedding tea, sadly I couldn’t get 50 so mixed in some other Twinings favourites. There were also some little sweeties (candy) that are typically from the UK including some Cadburys chocolates and Swizzlers including my absolute favourite; Parma Violets, mmmm! Finally I put in a small sheet of foam, in case anybody forgot to take a soft surface for the show (like I always forget to do!) – Clinky models need a nice soft place to sit!

The Goodie Bags were insanely full by the time everyone had added their contributions! I’ll cover the full contents in the BOYCC post.

Here is the stack of Memory books I also assembled that afternoon and evening, whilst enjoying two bagels (lunch/dinner); one Rye with turkey, avocado and lettuce and one Pumpernickel with smoked salmon, lettuce and cucumber which were both lovely, although I didn’t know that English cucumbers are very different to the zucchini style cucumbers in the US.

The Tuesday before BOYCC I had made arrangements to visit the University of California, San Diego’s Centre for Research in Computing and the Arts. Quite a mouthful but also know as the UCSD’s CRCA which is much easier to digest!

The reason for this visit was a rather, the University I work at has strong ties with the CRCA regarding their Virtual Reality and 3D installations. Apart from this though, they have an ultra-cool 20 foot tall stone teddy bear on the grounds, which I found hugely entertaining!

Sadly I can’t share the photos of the technology I got to see at CRCA, but I can offer a few links to more information on it, such at their 50 screen, 200 megapixel HIPerWall, the 5 (or 15, depending on how you look at it) sided StarCAVE and the simple yet effective and completely awesome HUVR device!

The next post will be my show report from BOYCC and all the fun things we got up to during the show, workshops and party-time (oh yes!!) of that fantastic week!

Back to Work!

2011-06-02T17:36:00.001+01:00

Phew!!!

What a CRAZY month May was! I had an incredible time at the BOYCC show, I will post about that separately when I've had chance to put the events and photos into some sort of order. This post is to let you know the current goings on at Studio Savage (not an official name, but it has a certain ring to it, don't you think?).

The first thing is the new blog and website. You won't see much of a difference in the blog if you get these posts by email, but I have changed the whole colour scheme from a yellow/ orange/ gold theme to a much more subdued pale blue theme, I have kept the orange for the titles though as I do like to have a little bit of zing going on!

The new website is a complete overhaul from the old site, using a completely new domain server and site builder. I'm hoping that this new site will display quickly (and correctly) on all computers, mobile phones and tablet pcs and that you find it easy to navigate around. I've added some PayPal features so you can now buy any available models directly from the website, lots of photos and info on previous models, current models, works-in-progress including the upcoming Pet Portraits and some information that I plan to expand over time, on topics such as casting with different materials and various supplies and tools.

I hope you like the changes, if you spot any errors please let me know.

In the studio, oh yes – I have a Studio now! It’s a bit of a stretch on the meaning but I’ve never wanted to use that word whilst I sculpted on the sofa and cast in the kitchen! Early this year Adam (my new fiancé, giggle!) and I set up the conservatory as a dedicated studio. This hadn’t been an option in years gone by as the conservatory had such radical temperature fluctuations throughout the day – in Winter it can get as low as -10°C (14°F) and in Summer as high as over +60°C (+140°F)!

In January we blocked out the direct Sun from one side of the Conservatory by constructing a nice “thatched” style shade which Adam skilfully attached between the conservatory and the fence. Here he is cleaning the roof, he’s very handy!

We coated the windows with a one-way mirror type film which will reflect much of the heat from the sun and go a small way to keeping the heat in at night. We also applied a Filter film to the glass roof of the room, cutting out 98% of the UV (yay for non-whitening resins!) and also reflecting/containing the heat. It does cut out a lot of light too, but prior to this I had suffered with minor snow-blindness from being in the conservatory looking at white resin for hours, so even though there is less light than before, it is now actually lit much better for working on models.

Cooling the conservatory down has meant that I can now store many of my casting supplies in there, stored on another new addition – some industrial racking.

Of course, it’s nowhere as neat and tidy as it was when I took that photo, but it is soooo nice to have a dedicated space to work in. I can keep most of my supplies out there (all resin remains indoors though as it can be quite sensitive to changes in heat and humidity).

I’ll do a little tour of “The Studio” at some point, I’m still working out the best place to keep everything so all those boxes are evolving to their perfect places still.

Ok, so, what have I actually been DOING in the studio? Well, first up I am happy to introduce INFERNO, a new medallion I released this week:

INFERNO is a feisty fiery horse, I like to challenge myself and for this model I decided that I needed to come away from my comfort zone of relaxed, content horses and try a subject with much more energy to it. I chose an open “roaring” mouth to learn more about that area and I also challenged myself to actually build in some flames to the model, and although subtle, they are there – if you just turn the model 90° to the right…

…there is a raging fire! This opens up all sorts of possibilities with casting and painting these models, I’m really looking forward to seeing what everyone makes of them! I have a few plans for custom-cast copies too and already have an order for a fiery custom cast which I will be working on this week. If you like this model, more info can be found on my website here, and purchase info here.

Other works on the go include, of course, the ever patient Jasper. I have reattached his head at a slightly higher angle to make him a little more outgoing and suitable for a show table. I have filled his body out in places to get rid of the minor “noodle” effect that was going on there, I have worked a little on his face and reworked the lower half of his supporting rear leg. On probably his 15th front leg by now, I think I’m getting close to the point of happiness, at last! His O/S front leg has been replaced completely, I have yet to fully define the muscles, tendons and bones but even though it looks a bit off in the photo below, the O/S leg is much more technically/ anatomically/ biomechanically accurate than the slightly more vague and technically-a-bit-off N/S leg.

Here’s a close-up of each, see what you think (and please comment on this blog if you have any suggestions, I have a definite blind-spot when it comes to equine anatomy of the front legs, particularly in the heavier built breeds). Sadly it was dark when I took these shots so they are lit artificially, causing some weird shadows.

The existing n/s leg (vague and not-so-accurate):

The new o/s leg (clumsy but more correct), note that this leg has no feathering yet so looks quite different to the n/s leg.

Of course, I am still no expert on these matters and I doubt I will ever get Jasper to the point of perfection (I think every sculptor has hopes of that for their first creation), but I’m pleased that I can at least report some progress from the first half of the year!

I have started a new Little Lady (I’m resisting, but she’s telling me that’s her name!), well, to avoid confusion she is a Very Little Lady; a thoroughbred broodmare to play mother to Very Little One, so a touch larger than Stablemate scale. I already have Jasper and Pickle V3 in the larger scales to work on and wanted a new mini to play with.

I realised a few weeks ago that I have managed to bring almost 400 foals into the world and not a single mother for them! So, here she is, about 6 hours worth of work at this point. I’m trying to plan much more with new models and am measuring as I go, so I’m quite pleased I’ve gotten this far so quickly.

That’s all I can think of for now, apologies for the long post, I can’t promise the next one will be any shorter though as I want to tell you ALL about the fun I had in San Diego at the BOYC Convention!

Crazy days!

2011-05-13T18:00:00.000+01:00

Hi all! You've probably given me up for dead by now, I've been pretty quiet for a while, even by my standards! I had intentions of announcing the release of the final batch of Very Little Ones in April, but I decided to update my website and blog first, then I thought "I'll just get this medallion finished and use it to annouce the new website"... and there you go, three months have flown by!

The most important thing going on this month for me is the Bring Out Your China Convention, I will be flying out on Sunday and spending 10 days in sunny San Diego, California including this 4-day bonanza including a Live Show, Workshops and a hedonistic smorgasboard of clinky delights!

My trip will also include some work-related experiences at the University of California, San Diego and a some time spent with clinky-guru Joanie Berkwitz. I will report back on my adventures upon my return (well, within a few weeks of then hopefully), that will be a BIG blog post!

In other news, I am about to release a new medallion, he is called Inferno and all updates and details can be found on this web page: http://www.kelly-savage.com/inferno.html, it is incomplete until I have a few copies to photograph properly, but there is a hint at the style of the medallion in the banner of that webpage and here is a photo of the mold:

I have made a start on a new mini, too, she is a Thoroughbred mare and a loose suggestion at a mother for Very Little One. Her web page is here: http://www.kelly-savage.com/very-little-lady.html

Finally for now, just a note to say that I will be producing the MECs medallions again this year, but this time there is a chance there will be some copies made available for sale (internationally too). I've not finalised my ideas yet but here are the two I made last year: http://www.kelly-savage.com/british-model-equine-championship-awards.html, I may reuse one of them if I can't get enough time to create two new ones, probably the Welsh Cob, so if you like these then there is a chance you may be able to purchase a copy this year.

My new website isn't officially "live" just yet, I need to have the photos of Inferno before I go with that and want to avoid sales during my trip to the US, so I will likely finally make that announcement about Very Little One, Inferno and all other matters shortly after I return.

So that sums up the current state of affairs, I will have plent more to say in a few weeks, when sales will go live, the website will be completed and hopefully I will have more exciting news about all things horsey!

Little One goes clinky!

2011-02-23T10:17:00.001Z

This morning the amazing china caster and artist Joanie Berkwitz posted the most EXCITING news on her blog; Little One (the original, bigger one) is now clinky!!!

Here’s her blog post:

http://pourhorsepottery.blogspot.com/2011/02/little-one-arrives.html

I can’t even describe how exciting this is (I’m re-blogging about it within 5 minutes of seeing her post!)! Having one of my sculptures cast into Earthenware China was something I never thought I’d see, but not only has it really happened, but by none other than one of the very best in the business, Joanie!

I can’t wait to see the model as it develops, I’m not sure who will be glazing it just yet but I know it will be beautiful in shiny, clinky form!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-04T17:26:00.001Z

Blimey, I’ve just been reading all of the wonderful New Year blog messages of my friends and those I admire, everyone is SO ORGANISED! I so don’t fall into that category, in fact I’m embedded about as far as it’s possible to be in the opposite end of things, in the Chronically Disorganised category!! So, I’m quite impressed that I’m writing this only about 3 days late, as usually my delays fall into months, sometimes even years!

Happy New Year! I hope you had a lovely holiday period, whatever your faiths/beliefs. Mine involved a heady mix of family, food (lots of!), films, fun, fine wine, festivities and unfortunately also a bit of flu, but hey, you can’t have it all eh!

So, news – well, the major piece of news for me has been courtesy of a dear friend in the States. I have been offered an opportunity to attend the BOYCC Convention being held in San Marcos, CA in May this year. I need to raise some funds to get myself over there (it’s precisely 5416 miles from me) but the offer of accommodation, transport and financial help has made what I thought of as a Pie-in-the-Sky idea into a real possibility! I am a real clinky fiend, about half of my collection consists of china pieces and having read in blogs and seen myself at the studio of Donna Chaney, making any form of china models is an artwork I can only aspire to explore some time in the future when I have more space, money and time, and even then I think you need a heavy dose of experience and lady luck on your side to be able to produce anything vaguely worthy! I’m in awe of the people I see who create these fine objects!

With such an epic opportunity, I’m having to rethink things a little; I will most certainly be selling a portion of my collection off soon in order to raise funds but I don’t think that will be enough, so I am pushing forward with Little Too, the traditional scale sequel to Little One. Little Too is roughly based on a Poitou, or Mammoth Jack foal, I’m not sure how “woolly” the coat will be just yet but I love the fuzzy texture and am hoping to be able to nail it, though so far it’s proven pretty tricky!

Little Too will be my first 4-legged, standing sculpture to be cast (though of course Jasper has been around the longest!).

Talking of Jasper, I am making headway with him. The front legs are still proving a little tricky (normal equine anatomy just doesn’t seem to work with a draft horse!) but I’ve been working on making the changes I mocked up in this photo, so far I’ve bulked up his barrel, adjusted the supporting back leg, made some changes to his head/face/ears and currently the neck adjustments mean that Jasper is now in this condition:

Although he appears to have gone backwards, I am quite happy with the way he’s progressing now, moving him from clay to resin has made it easier to plan, execute and fix the changes required, requiring less in the way of mental acrobatics from me as I flit from one part to another, though making those changes is a messier business than ever! Perhaps Jasper could be this year’s resolution…?

A few other little notes to add – my website, www.kelly-savage.com has been changed now. Well, actually the .com version has gone altogether (following a debarcle over the domain hosting), instead it now redirects to my www.kelly-savage.co.uk website, which has been there all along, but which I’ve not publicised very much. I kept the two separate as the .co.uk site covers my other hobby; Pet Portraiture. I’ll cover this in another post I think.

Very Little One Update:

Whilst I’ve been on my holidays I’ve not been selling any resins, but the latest figures have me just over the 200 mark sold, so I will be issuing the “final 50” warning as soon as I bring myself out of Winter hibernation. 'I’m hoping to wrap up the edition before my US trip, I might even cut it a little short if I find it interfering too much with progress on the other projects.

Results!

2010-11-02T18:04:00.000Z

Last week, well just over a week ago now I attended Deb Davis' Live Show held in Northampton's Rothersthorpe Hall, called Mini's Mania. As the name suggests, this was a show for models up to "Mini Haggis Size". The perfect place to showcase Very Little One!

There were some fantastic models on display (the lighting is notoriously difficult for photography at Rothersthorpe, so please excuse my awful photos), including no less than THREE "Kick the Can" resins sculpted and painted (I believe) by Tammy Myrold:

There were also a good number of models painted by the UK superstar finishwork artist, Naomi Coffin (or "Nell"), such as this gorgeous SMB Vixen:

I brought along the three copies of Very Little One that are painted, I had pre-arranged one sale and the Cremello was instantly snapped up as soon as it was unwrapped. So as a result of this all three VLO models were shown by three different people. Also, as the Youngstock AR section had been expanded all three models just so happened to be shown in three different classes too! The wonderful result of this is that ALL THREE Very Little Ones won a first place in their classes! This means that all three have qualified to be shown at both the UK championship shows, the BMECs and LEMS.

The Cremello had a fantastic day - not only winning it's class (Light Breed Youngstock - shown as an Akhal Teke) but also winning first place in the Workmanship class for "Other Colour", which also qualifies it to enter the Workmanship classes at LEMs, and also the UK Workmanship classes at Lems as it was painted by UK artist Deb Brown. I think the pale blue card is for BMECs (previously MECs) Workmanship too.

I can't explain how thrilled I am about these results, it bodes well for Very Little One's future and has really given me a boost.

Just to show how versatile the models is, the collector that had the Pinto Very Little One (also painted by Deb Brown) went on to use it's base for another model in a separate section - this super-sweet CM Breyer donkey by Janice Williford had everyone "aww"ing wen they saw it.

Now that the initial surge for VLO has passed and I have been able to cast enough models to tide me over for a while, I can start thinking about the next release. Three years ago (I'm shocked it's been so long!!) I created a set of Christmas models based on my first ever resin release, Lawrence, Claude and Baldy (they were released in resin in 2006). I've been wanting to offer a new Christmas model each year but obviously haven't managed that so far!

This year though, I have something to offer, it is a model I cast over 350 copies of last year (hence the lack of Christmas model then, I was super-busy casting!!) for the Midwinter's Night Ball 2010 show held by Shannon Southard, they were given as prizes at the show. I reserved the rights to produce it as a Christmas special this year in a limited run should I wish, and given that I've not seen a single one for sale since last year (I'm hoping this is because those who won them liked them enough to keep them), I think a few more are in order!

If you're curious to see what the model is, do a search on my blog for "Snowflake" and see what you come up with. I'll blog more about this soon. I'm planning a run of up to 20 copies, probably less, as with the nights drawing in I have less time to cast and Christmas is drawing in fast! Here's a look at a couple of the finishes I'm planning to use, all of the medallions will be split finish like the last Christmas models I did, but the colours will vary much more. I'll cast at least some of the edition to order, as everyone has different preferences on colour, expecially when we start talking Christmas decorations!

Very Little Milestone :o)

2010-10-22T01:16:00.000+01:00

Very Little One is half sold out! Seems odd to acknowledge this as a milestone, but as I decided to more than double the size of the edition from Little One (which was about 115 copies) to Very Little One (VLO) at 250 copies, this is a very good indication that an increase in edition size was warranted. It's taken a month for VLO sales to reach this figure, so I'm very comfortable with the edition size, I think this time everyone who wants a copy soon will be able to get one but I don't think the market will be so flooded that they won't be able to sell them again later on should they wish.

This photo shows some raw models waiting to be tidied, I decided to show this here as it shows the baby pink and blue bases, it took a while to get the shade just to my liking. The coloured foals had already been tidied when I took this photo.

Just for fun, here's a pic of a totally raw, fresh from the mold model:

And here is the lovely Acorn, who will be making her debut at "Mini's Mania", a Live Show that's to be held quite near me (no long-distance adventures this time) on Saturday. She was finally released from being (wrongly, grumble...) held hostage by the Customs people:

On a totally unrelated note, at 20:10 on the 20th October 2010, the Girl Guides held their Centenary celebrations, where Rainbows, Brownies and Girl Guides the world over renewed their promise, or, like me said it for the first time. I am a unit helper at a local Girl Guides centre and I found the celebrations quite meaningful, if a little cold! This firework was the final one of the evening, and went with quite a BOOM!

Cooking with gas... and a whole lot of rubber!

2010-10-15T16:58:00.000+01:00

Well, a lot has happened since my last post, Very Little One has been well received and the edition is now half sold out. This is particularly gratifying as I chose to double the edition size for this model; had I not done that, it would now be sold out! Thankyou to all who've ordered, check out below for some info on where I am with creating all these babies.

Firstly, let me introduce Acorn. I've had a few Guest Artist copies back (some are yet to be sent out, please note if you're a Guest Artist and not received your copies yet), and am currently on hot coals awaiting the arrival of this little lady who is on her way back to me. Acorn was painted by Mindy Berg, who is just THE nicest lady to deal with. I'd not finished my custom base when I sent the model out to Mindy, so she created this lovely base for Acorn. I'm absolutely blwon away with the detail on this little gal, her appy blanket is so tiny, I feel I have to remind myself that the foal is only an inch across!

So, with all these orders I've ramped up the production and have been working non-stop (apart from sleep and the day-job, that is) to get them all cast. I've learnt from previous editions, and had 4 molds ready to go before I began, but as I've been casting I've also been mold-making, and on Monday evening I had a total of... 9 molds on the go at once!

As I go, I learn, and this model has taught me a lot about mold-making. Firstly (with inspiration from Lynn Fraley's blog, in particular this post) I created a two-part mold. Armed with some Lego and some Newplast (which I feel is a little hard for this purpose, but did the job ok) I created this:

Now, I know that any ceramic casting artists would cringe when they see this, that ear sticking out like that -would never work with a plaster mold, but as I'm going to use a rubber mold to make resin copies, and as this is my first attempt at a two-part production mold, I thought this would be ok. So I built up the Lego to a higher level, filled it with rubber (red) and let that cure.

This is the result - after carefully removing all of the blue Newplast clay, the rubber part I poured now acted as the Newplast did before. I simply rebuilt the Lego back up, then (after using plenty of mold-release to stop the new rubber sticking to the existing rubber) poured the other half of the mold (using blue rubber).

And here is the result once I'd carefully removed all the Lego and both halves of the rubber mold from the original.

Before I used this mold for production (I did a test-cast first to make sure it worked), I created two "mold-masters" - I didn't want to have to go through the whole claying up process time after time, so I removed the original resin model and poured a resin cast, in a similar way to above but without the original model being there. This gave me a mold, to make my mold, from. It's confusing, but very time-saving!

This mold worked well, but I had an upsetting number of casts come out with eartip bubbles. I had cut a vent from the chin to the base to allow the air out from the foal's muzzle which is an air-trap, but the ears, I couldn't do much with. I created 4 molds from my mold master (this is why pigment is so important - each mold is a matching colour, apart from the original red/blue one pictured above) and fought the eartip bubble-battle for over 70 casts. Eventually however, I conceded to the fact I really needed a three-part mold.

After consulting the blogs of several ceramic casters (I use ceramic as a blanket term for Earthenware, Bone China and all things ultimately clinky, as I don't fully understand the various grades yet), I knew what I needed was a "hat". Lesli Kathman has a lovely post explaining about ceramics molds in her post here. So, out came the Newplast, but this time in TWO colours!

This process had me head-scratching a fair bit! Eventually I made this; you may notice the base is smaller; this means I will use less rubber to make the mold, which is bost cost-effective, and means I can fit more molds into my vacuum chamber therefore casting more copies in one go. So, after taking this photo I built up the Lego, then poured the first piece. Then I removed all f the grey clay, leaving the rubber and the blue clay left, and poured the second piece. Then finally I removed the blue clay and poured the third piece.

I tried the new three part mold out a few times, and it worked wonders - EVERY model I cast came out with two perfectly pointy eartips! So, I set about making a new set of "mold-masters", this time though I used a slow-setting very hard rubber, instead of fast-curing resin which can shrink a touch when curing. Here you can see the two large parts inside their Lego frames, and a round mold I made for the little "hat" piece.

And there we go! At the time I took this photo (below), I was using all four original molds (pouring resin into the ear before casting, to stop the eartip bubble problems. These are in the photo below, the red, yellow and blue on the left, and the red/blue at the bottom right); two of the new three piece molds (the whitish one on the lest and the yellow one at the front) and three base molds, which are cast just like medallions using one-piece molds. In the photo you can also see the two Lego boxes containing the new mold-masters. The red mold behind the Lego boxes is a "Random Ball" mold. Random balls are a mysterious phenomenon which occur during midnight casting sessions, watch out for random balls making random appearances throughout my blog, you might even be able to make one out in the photo below, lurking at the back!

The photo also shows the other tools I use when casting - mixing pots, I use a LOT of those! and in several different sizes too. The red bowl on the right of the photo is just a plastic bowl (I forget what sort of plastic - it doesn't stick to the uncured resin so is very handy!) that I use as a bin - you can probably see the "snow" that accumulates during casting, all these tiny bits of resin get everywhere, so I keep that bowl handy and put all the little bits of resin in there, which does help to reduce the snow a bit. Sometimes I wonder if I spend more time cleaning my "studio" (aka the conservatory) than I do casting!!

And finally in the photo, you can see the fruits of my labours. This was a particularly successful evening, I cast 20 succesful foals and 10 bases in all, which is a really good result from an evening's casting (I start when I get home from work and finish at about midnight on average when I have a lot of models to cast).

Since taking this photo I've made two more 3 piece molds (orange and red), and I've retired my red/blue mold, it did very well for an experimental mold, casting about 25 copies, it is stil ok but now I have the new three piece molds I'll retire the older 2 piece ones ones, then they will still have a little life left in them just in case I need an "emergency" mold later on.

That's all for today, a bit of a catch-up I know, but I have more to tell - just not enough time to keep up with my blogging too!!

Shipping Update:

I have now cast almost all of the models sold, and am currently awaiting delivery of the Certificates of Authenticity (some people sold second quality castings of Little One as firsts, I want to avoid that so will now have COAs for all my models) and then they will be on their way - I was hoping for this weekend but it may now be early next week before they ship. I'll update as soon as possible.

There's a new kid on the block!

2010-09-14T02:28:00.000+01:00

I can't believe it's been so long since my last post! Things have been chugging along at a slow and steady pace recently, up until the last few weeks when production has gone into overdrive.

And here is the reason, meet:

Very Little One

This is Very Little One, a stablemate scale version of Little One, the small-traditional scale model released last year. I had intended to create a mini version from the beginning and after Little One sold out so quickly I had wanted to get the mini out sooner.

I originally planned on having the model 3D laser scanned, as my career job (as opposed to my creative "job" with the models/artwork) is very heavily involved with 3D technology, however, for all our technological wizardry, I've not yet found a decent scanner easily available in this country! So I eventually sculpted this mini from scratch and it is a pretty faithful representation of the larger model, I just wish I'd done this sooner!

Very Little One is available now, and today I completed the base for it too, which is available as an option. Details on the model are on Model Horse Sales Pages and I'll be posting photos of the base on there tomorrow when I can get some nicely lit photos.

Edition details: 250 resin casts*, 200 of which will be white, 25 baby pink and 25 baby blue. I've listed all the models with the coloured ones mixed in and as paid orders come in the coloured models are allocated, so it's quite random and unpredictable (unless you buy five or ten!). I decided to complicate things like this, as casting hundreds of white resin models can become quite tedious, so adding a splash of colour keeps my motivation up as well as adding a little bit of fun and some nice surprises to the edition. All of the models can be painted in the regular way, and are all covered by my "good resin guarantee" (details can be provided on request as my website is currently under construction). *I may cast a small number of metal, clear or special resin copies in different colours to those listed above, I jut can't help myself sometimes!
Price details: £16, €20 or $25 for each foal. There is an optional base which is an additional £6, €8 or $10 (if the symbols don't display on your email, that is 16 GB Pounds, 20 Euros or 25 US dollars - I usually sell an equal amount of models to the UK, Europe and the US so have to cover all bases. Outside of these areas please contact me, but it will be the US prices)
Postage details: £3, €4 or $6 for up to two foals including bases. Please add 50p, €1 or $1 for each additional model (inc. base). All foals will be packaged with extra special care.
Payment details: please contact me to arrange all payments, but note that you are welcome to pay in either $ US dollars, € Euros or £ GBP, regardless of your location.
Dates: Casting is in progress, however I have a week's holiday shortly so am holding off the start of posting until mid October.
Charity: I have allocated a number of models and donated them to my chosen fundraisers, TIBBP. They will be under the control of TIBBP's super-mom Janice Williford. Unfortunately I cannot offer any further copies as show donations at this point, however the Live Shows I attend may well receive a copy for their raffle :o)

I think that's everything covered, if you'd like to order a model or ask any questions, just reply to this blog (if you receive them by email) or please contact me via the MH$P page here.

Finally, here is a size comparison between the original Little One (missing an ear unfortunately!), and Very Little One. For more photos please check out my Picasa album here, I'll be adding more photos as aften as I can.

Finally I would like to thank everyone that has already ordered their Very Little Ones, and everyone that ordered a Little One model last year or indeed any of my creations. Your continued interest in my work is wondeful motivation!

Congratulations Lauren!

2010-07-28T12:34:00.001+01:00

A huge congratulations to Lauren Hoeffer (previously Lauren Tapley) on her Reserve Champion placing at NAN with her Little One called Miranda.

Check out Miranda’s silver cookie, rosette and feline friend here

Jasper’s progress

2010-07-27T12:03:00.001+01:00

Here’s an update on my old friend Jasper, he’s made the transition into resin, however I have to extensive re-working to do yet. Still, I’m very pleased to have got him this far and fingers crossed will have him completed within months, not years.

Follow this link to Jasper's photo album

The mojo is back!!

2010-07-15T17:31:00.000+01:00

I'm very pleased to announce the return of my mojo! This is a huge relief as I've been suffering with a "writer's block" situation for a little while, brought on by the increase in responsibilties in my job and I've been unable to shake it until now.
I've updated the look of my blog now (you won't see this if you're on email messages), just a subtle revamp to freshen things up a bit. My website is down at the moment, I'm having a disaggreement with my domain name provider wanting to charge me $180 to renew it! Not to worry though, I can get it for the usual reasonable rate but just have to hold off for a month or so, so I'm hoping to revamp the website when I renew it too.
Lots of exciting things have been going on in the last few weeks - the biggest leap forward has been the creating of a mold for Jasper, so he is now in resin and I can begin to finalise him - yippee!! He's still a way off, but I'm hoping I'm down to months left on him now, rather than years.
I have a fantastic announcement also, the "Little One" resin that was so astonishingly popular is to be released in Earthenware by Joanie Berkwitz! See her blog post here. The bit mentioning Little One is in the last paragraph.
Talking of Little One, you may have noticed that I never did offer those last three models in the lottery. Well. They needed a couple of holes filling in, and... I may have got a bit carried away - I have customised two of them now to a filly and a colt, with resculpted tails and the colt has repositioned legs and has been carved away underneath so is no longer flat-based. I'm working on prepping these models and am thinking about how to offer them. I'm hoping to have the opportunity to paint them myself, then I would offer them up on eBay or MH$P for offers, as I've no idea how I would price them then (I never paint models, but I do pastel portraits so am mildy confident in getting something relatively realistic).
Anyway, that's not all! I've been commissioned to produce some awards for the MECs show in August, MECs is one of the two annual championship shows (the other is called LEMs). I'm producing some mini-medallion models and will be producing a small run of normal sized medallions for the show, so this is taking my time up for now. The mini medallions kind of look like wine gums at the moment, I'll post a pic when I've got a few more cast - they're very sweet!
Sorry for the mad-dash update, busy busy as always!

A little blog post

2010-05-30T21:40:00.001+01:00

I haven't posted for ages, so I'm posting a quick blog while I have a few moments (sadly I've been THAT busy since the New Year).

I'm currently in West Yorkshire for a long weekend visit (very long, until Tuesday or Wednesday), visiting my good friend Beccy and her three Greyhounds with my Cocker Spaniel, Bruno. It's been very hard to photograph them all together (as I'm sure any dog owner can relate to!), but here's one shot I have managed to get:

The scenery up here is amazing! Hilly Yorkshire is a world away from the flat Northamptonshire landscape, the views here are truly awesome and typially impossible-to-capture using 2D photography! Here is one attempt to capture it though, also shoing a trio of horses in a field we walked through (dogs with leads on, of course):

We walked along the "spine of the Pennines" today, the weather was beautiful, the wind was bracing and the dogs had an absolute ball running through the fields and woodlands.
Another of our friends, Ann, joined us today and we also visited the local pub with breathtaking panoramic views, complete with gorgeous British Bulldog sat in the dog-friendly bar (yey!).
Naturally, as with any friend-visit, the "cold snakes" were as entertaining as ever :o)

Back on-topic next time!

Congratulations Deeann, Marcy and Lorie!!

2010-03-16T22:07:00.001Z

Congratulations ladies, a Little One is reserved for you!
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There is one lottery left which I will announce shortly - there may be a slight change in the colours though, I'll update as soon as I know for sure what's happening.
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I've been feeling increasingly sad about the fact that I cannot provide a Little One to everyone who wanted one. I feel I bent the rules slightly releasing the coloured models as it is, but I want everyone who has entered the lotteries and not been successful to know that I will make sure that everyone involved in this process will receive a little something - I'm not sure what yet, it might be a discount on a future purchase from me, or even a little something in the post, I'm not sure yet but for eveyone who has entered so far, I am SO humbled by your support and hope I can provide a little something to thank you properly.
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The final lottery may be a week or two away, as I have to do a bit of work on the remaining models to make them sales-ready. Please be patient, the 50+ hour weeks I'm working at the moment have me chasing my tail a little.
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On a slightly different note, I have been inspired recently to get working again, and have 3 projects currently "Live"; one of which is a drastic re-working of a very popular previous model I did, one of which is "Good ol' Jasper" who is looking pretty good recently and a waste mold is in sight! And one of which all of those interested in Little One will hopefully find just as appealing.
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I will write more on these as they happen, I am at armature stage with the new two and will release more details shortly.
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Thanks again everyone for your interest in Little One and my work!!

Third Lottery

2010-03-06T21:46:00.000Z

Hi all!

Here they are, the third set of lottery models:

Lemon Little One

Pink Little One

Blue Little One

As I mentioned previously, these models are good casts (pink has an ear-chip) but have some issues typical to home-casting, so here's some extra info on each one - you can see photos of each using the links above. If you choose to paint your model, normal prepping will be required, coloured resin paintes exactly the same way that white resin does.

Lemon - air bubble on chin - easy fix. Air bubble on hoof, simple fix and you'll need to recreate the edge of the hoof. There are a couple of spots on the model where resin remnants from previous casts show (this happens on white resins but you don't see them), note the photo of the o/s neck and face.

Pink - small air bubble on chin, easy fix. Air bubble in hoof, easy fix. Resin remnant showing on n/s side. One ear chip, but I would file the other one down and smooth the chipped one rather than try to rebuild eartip, just my opinion but as-is, the ears are uneven.

Blue - actually lilac but basically blue. Air bubble on chin, minor repair required, simple smooth/rebuild of edge of lip. Pigmented resin showing, see the photos of this. Model is still covered by my good resin guarantee (see website) and should paint up just fine.

I discovered an extra model today - in the original post about these models, I showed a photo of all the ones I cast - see there are two green ones, well when I cleaned the seams etc on them, somehow the little Green guy got left out, so he is still raw, and didn't show in the later photos. So, the final lottery will be for 3 models; a lilac, a peach AND a green!

Same rules apply as before for the lottery - post a comment, drop me and email (reply to this post) or contact me via my website. Don't forget to let me have some way to contact you, but remember not to post your email address or any personal details on any public place. If comments take a while to show, it's cos I moderate them.

Congratulations Jennifer B, Carla and Michelle MG-D!!!

2010-02-21T12:33:00.000Z

Well done ladies, you have a Little One reserved for you!
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JENNIFER B, your breymere email address doesn't work, please can you get in touch ASAP to claim your GREEN Little One!
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Three more models to be offered soon, then two more after that and they're gone!
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Thank you again to everyone who entered, I had an overwhelming response with over 30 entries to this offer. I'm really sad I can't offer a copy to everyone who wants one, but keep watching as there is a rumour of a "Very Little One" in the works circulating... ;o)

Second Installment of Little Ones

2010-02-15T22:27:00.000Z

Here we go, the second trio are now open to lottery entries:

Pink Little One

Green Little One

Blue Litte One

Please do have a look at the photos in the Photobucket album, all bubbles, seams etc are highlighted in the photos. The blue model in this blog's draw has a marble effect that some may like, some may not (it's still covered by my good resin guarantee :o) Please note that the remaining pink model (to be sold later on) has an eartip missing, so if you want a pink one to display then this one is a better one to go for. The ears can be ground down on the other pink model so if you prefer smaller ears then wait for that one.

To register your interest, please either:

Leave a comment on THIS blog (all entries are carried over from previous blog posts) OR
Drop me an email, OR
Contact me via my website here
REMEMBER - if you don't leave a way I can contact you, your contact won't count, so make sure you leave a user ID and forum so I can trace you, or your email address if you're emailing me privately or going through the Contact Us form.

Thank you to everyone who entered the last blog lottery, all your entries will be carried over, but please feel free to drop me a line again with a new preference if you have one. Thank you too to everyone's lovely comments, it seems these "peeps" style models were well timed for Easter (unintentional, I promise).

Congratulations Lydia, Denise and Laura

2010-02-11T15:50:00.000Z

Just a little post to let you all know that the people chosen in the Lottery have been emailed today.
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I listed the names of everyone who entered, then asked a colleague to pick some random numbers to decide who got them.
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Congratulations Lydia, Denise and Laura DT* and to everyone else who entered thank you so much and I'll be posting the next three models shortly!
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The swirly purple/blue model has now been donated to a fundraising photo show being run by my good freind Beccy Fielding. Beccy has three rescued Greyhounds and would like to show her support to the charity that rescues them; http://www.tiagreyhounds.org.uk/index.html. Beccy's Photo Show is looking to be a rather special show with a large number of prizes including some really special models! If you photo show, why not enter for a chance to win, and help raise some money for charity at the same! If you're interesting in entering, drop me an email and I'll forward it to Beccy (I don't like posting email addresses here, just in case), or if you know her drop her a line direct.
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*Ladies, please check your inboxes for an email from me, if nothing comes drop me a line.

Finally, we have Little Ones!!!

2010-02-07T17:41:00.000Z

Well, here they are, the final (unplanned) batch of Little Ones! Shown in the photo below are all of the solid coloured copies I'll be offering on the blog. Not pictured yet is the swirly blue/lilac decorator style copy, as I'm not sure if that will be offered on here or donated to a local cause.

If you look at the image above, the models are set out in rows showing which are available when, so the top row shows the three I'm offering today (blue/peachy/lemon), then the next row is the pink/green/blue, which will be offered in my next blog, then lemon/pink/lilac, and finally the other lilac (slightly more pink than the first) and the final peachy one. I can't say when these blogs will be made, it depends completely on when I get a chance to blog, as I'm now working full time again.

Please note: my camera doesn't pick up the pink in the lilac/purple colours, so these are pinker than they show in the photo. I've tried everything to fix this but you'll just have to trust me that the lilacs are actually lilac, and not blue. The peachy colours are also more subdued than the phots show, however they are a bit more vibrant than peach (but they're not orange, hehe).

So, today I am offering this trio. As with all late-mold casts, there are the inevitible air-bubbles, so I've taken detailed shots of each model, as some copies will need a couple of air-bubbles filling in. None need any resculpting apart form the final two (and one pink one needs an ear-tip), which I will work on before they are released. I would recommend looking at these photos before making your comment just so that you are clear of what you are aiming to buy. The models are coloured using pigments so can be prepped and painted the same way as any "normal" white resin can. All copies are covered by my good resin guarantee, details of this are on my website http://www.kelly-savage.com/

The pigment sits on the surface of the model, so where I have sanded these down it shows lighter, hence the lighter patches on the models' cheecks and forelegs.

I put all the photos of the models into a Photobucket album, and the following links take you to the first image of each of the models available.

Blue Little One

Peachy Little One

Lemony Little One

As these models are in addition to the original edition of around 120 models, so I can't just sell them, I think this would be unfair to those that already have copies (especially as I'll be selling these at the original issue price of £30 / Euro40 / $50 plus postage).

SO...

If you would like a chance to buy one of the models I'm offering this time (ONLY the blue, peachy or yellow for this blog), then you need to leave a comment on this blog post, with a hint at which one you'd like, and some way to get in touch with you (DO NOT type out your email in case of spammers, but put your ID and the forum you're on, use your Google ID or your name if you've bought anything from me before, and details of what you bought, or if you're on MH$P I can get to you that way).

I'll give it a couple of days to allow all time-zones an equal chance, then I'll choose 3 people to have one of these Little ones each. If I don't get enough comments, they'll eventually head on to MH$P and will sold on a first come first served basis, or will be donated to local shows and causes.

Please ONLY comment about the copies in THIS blog post, all the models in the top photo above will be sold in this way over the next few weeks so if you're after a lilac or pink for instance, be patient and they'll come up soon. You can comment on as many blog posts as you'd like too, if you don't mind which colour you'd like.

All comments are moderated, so if there is a delay until you see your comment please be patient, if you can't comment for any reason or are not sure if I got your comment yet, drop me an email by either replying to this blog email (if you're subscribed) or via the contact me page on my website.

Fallen at the first hurdle (balls of various styles...)

2010-01-24T18:26:00.000Z

I know, I know, I said I'd post every Friday and the first week (it's now Sunday, sigh) I fail - BUT - I have a valid excuse this week, as I can now reveal a secret I've been (very badly) keeping for a while now, as the show it was for is this weekend!

Here is the model that has had me working through nights, cutting my fingers to pieces, going to work with resin under my fingernails, up my arms and once even in my hair! This is Snowflake Frodo, a variation on the minified Frodo model I sculpted a year or two ago.

He was commissioned by Shannon Southard for her A Midwinter's Night Ball Live Show which is being held today and tomorrow in Fort Worth, Texas in the US.
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I "met" Shannon over a model horse sale back in early Spring, and we got to discussing the possibilities of my supplying her with a large number of medallions for her to use a prizes at the show. Originally she asked for 240 but that quickly went up to over 260. She loved the Frodo medallion and asked if I coud add that pony to a snowflake or something wintry.
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So, in August I thought it was time to get to work on this project and set to work creating a snowflake, I was pleasanty surprised to find that I was able to create a unique snowflake design - actually creating a snowflake with 6 identical points was tricky, involving several rounds of casting and re-casting to get the shape right. After that I added the Frodo to the front, using a carefully trimmed part-cast of Mini Frodo and an obscene amount of Apoxie-Sculpt! Shannon approved the design and I got casting, she wanted mainly wintry colours but I did stray a little from the brief and cast a few warmer colours, some of which Shannon liked and added to the models going to Texas and some of which I kept (to become a SR next winter). Here is a Sky Blue copy, still a little untidy (each copy had to be trimmed with a scalpel to get those edges crisp; a job that took as long as the casting process for each, and resulted in several cut fingers!) but you get the general idea.

Here is another copy, this time a black model with a red interference colour added - I had an absolute ball (no pun intended) casting all the different colours!

I didn't think I'd taken any photos of the whole lot of them, but I came across this pic today taken just before I packed tem all up:

This photo shows the 272 (I think, give or take a couple) of models that were sent to Shannon. It's rotated on my screen (should be landscape, not portrait) but the models along the bottom (or left, viewing it portrait) are split finish copies. I didn't get nice clear pics like those above of all the models, but here's a less-than-glamorous photo of one of the split finish copies, which were to be for the higher-placing winners.

Interestingly, a by-product of casting all these fabulous colours is this:

This is a ball sat on a mold. Slightly random...
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I had a stone ball lying about, one of those decorative things, I've had them for years, I just like how they feel in your hand. Anyway, whilst making one of the 20 (yipes!) or so molds for the snowflakes (the snowflake proved quite harsh on the molds), I had some rubber left over and I really hate waste, so was dashing around trying to find something to make a mold of before it cured and was wasted, and found the stone ball. I had a little circular plastic clip (not sure where that was from) which kept the ball stable and still in the mould-casing (mold/mould, it's a US/UK thing, I tend to waver between the two modes), so I whacked in the rubber and hey presto! A mold to play with! I found that I consistently mixed a little over the amount required for each Snowflake Frodo (much better to mix too much than too little and need to top up the mix), so each time this happened I first cast the Lego (trademark) brick (something that helps me re-create a model previously cast and sold, I write the "recipe" on the brick and this works a treat), which I do with every new colour, and then I put the remaining resin into the ball mould. This created, during the creation of the 270+ copies (actually 350+ as I received a dodgy batch of rein and it took a while before I got confirmation of this, sigh!) over 30 "Random Balls", which is how they've now been christened.
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If you'd like a random ball, get in touch, they didn't cost much in materials considering they're a by-product, but I really like them, in fact, I keep a few at work and randomly change them, just to see if anyone notices, hehe!
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Ok, moving on! I revisited the mold for the Little Ones this week. I was in the mood to experiment with resin pigments and needed to play with a mold, and chose the Little One mold. I had a bit of resin that needed using up (it comes in large gallon containers, so if there'sonly a few hundred ml left, it won't last too long in such large bottles so is best used up). The models came out in an array of fun colours, all of which I think are nice baby colours, and to my surprise they are good enough castings, tha, with a bit of cleaning up, will be the same quality as the ones I cast last August! I don't want to just list them for sale, so will be running a bit of a fun sale on them. I will randomly (random is my favourite word, which is good fun but a pain for anyone relying on me! Hehe!) post a blog over the next few weeks, and the first person to email me will get the model. This is based on the model still being popular of course, so if they don't sell they'll eventually go on MH$P, but I like the idea of a little fun blog-sale, so will go this way for now.

The blue/purple one will be sold last, the white ones are already sold, and one blue copy is a gift for a friend, but watch this space, as if you missed out on the original issue for Little One, these colourful copies will be made available soon (they are almost raw in the pic, so a little untidy).

Happy New Year

2010-01-09T00:21:00.000Z

Happy New Year!!

Ok, in true Kelly fashion I'm about a week late, but I hope you and yours had a lovely holiday season. Ours was manic as ever, zipping between Northampton and Birmingham, seeing all the family and having lots of fun along the way.

I made one New Years Resolution; to stay more up to date with my blog. My job is evolving and has already turned from a 3-day week to a 4-day week. I am due to go permanent shortly, when I'll be back to a full 5 day week. Until then though, I still have my one day a week for all things creative so my intention is to blog each week until I go full time again. It's a small resolution, but one I hope I can keep.

So, here's my first post for 2010!

Here's Jasper - yep, he's headless again! I have to admit I'm beginning to feel more satisfied with him lately, I even look at some parts and feel they're ready for the waste mold! I don't think I'll ever be fully happy with him, but I am determined to finish him this year.

Amber and Deeley got realy close today, they even touched noses!

Today I also finished the Bear portrait, I'm not positive I'm done yet so emailed a photo over to Joanie, I'll post a pic when I know it's finished.
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One thing I'm going to miss horribly when I go full time, are the daytime walks I have with Bruno. I do walk him lunchtimes on other days but on my day off work, we just have lots of fun. He's really enjoying the snow, and he loves eating the snowballs off his paws when we get home too!

One last off-topic shot from today, this one just makes me giggle! Wheeeeeeeeee!!!

Hey Joanie!

2009-11-14T18:15:00.004Z

Does this look like anyone you know? This work-in-progress is the second in a trio of portraits I've taken on in a trade deal with Joanie Berkwitz, the uber-amazing custom glaze specialist (she is happy for me to talk about her here - Hi Joanie!). I just looked through my previous blogs and can't find the post showing the first portrait, so here is a pic of that one (the scanner makes it look more contrast-ey than it is, but you get the idea). I've made a lifestyle change recently; going part time with my "day-job" means I am able to dedicate two solid days a week to my artwork, sculpture and casting. I've had to learn to see things slightly differently as I now HAVE to earn at least a small amount each month in order to top up my income, but so far so good.... (she says confidently! hehe!). This does mean that I'll be taking on more and more portrait commissions over the next few months, I spent a few hours Thursday designing my fliers, they're ordered now so we'll have to see how well that bit of advertising goes. I'm totally new to this type of business so it'll be quite the eye-opener seeing how much publicity is needed to get an order.

In he mean-time, I'm enjoying working on this second portrait a bit more than I expected - after the first I developed quite a phobia towards my white pencils for a little while, hehe! It's likely I'll take on a paid commission next, before tackling the third in the series, partly as this is a trade deal I need to get funds too, but also to avoid that phobia returning!

Latest news

2009-11-09T21:41:00.002Z

Lots of new things have been happening recently! Bruno is growing like a weed, we went to visit the family in Birmingham last weekend and took him for a walk up at the Lickey Hills, it was pretty misty and with all the fun he was having playing with the other dogs there he was absolutely soaking when we got back to the car. Bruno is my first dog, I can't help but wish I'd made it happen sooner, he is everything I wished for and I am thoroughly enjoying having him in the family! Amber is pretty confident around him now, but Deeley is still very timid. We'll get there though - I just thought, in our house now there are 14 legs!!! Hehe!

I started by new job last week too, I was quite entertained when I saw my "office". We're in the middle of an office move so I'm just working at a spare desk, it's lost in the massive room. I'm enjoying the peace and quiet though, at my old job it was very open plan and echo-ey, here I have perfect peace and am working so much faster, it's lovely! The job itself is mind-blowing, using cutting edge technology and state of the art equipment. I can't put too much here yet (it seems some people at my old place have grudges to bear, sigh) but this job could be the making of me, and at the same time it may well bring my high-tech employment and my low-tech hobby together in a most exciting way (ooh, I wish I could say now, but...)

Here's a happy photo. I LOVE colour, so when I knew I'd be making a number of molds for the Snowflake Frodo run, I needed to keep track of them so colour-coded them. I actually have a brown mold complete now to add to this selection and next up will be a white and a black. Unfortunately the snowflake combined with the texture of the pony are pretty tough on mold rubber, I got over 50 models out of each of my Little One molds, but I don't think these will be anywhere near that many, so I'm planning about 25-30 per mold this time round. The molds have all come out well, apart from the blue one - the model moved while the rubber was curing, so I put that mold onto a little stack of wooden tongue depressors (large lollipop sticks) to make sure the model still casts perfectly flat.

I caught myself having a bit of a moment a few days ago, when I was tidying all my mold-making kit away to make room for the casting stuff. I was looking at my rubber mixing bucket and admiring all the little bits of coloured rubber that have survived my attempts to clean it. Somehow I just felt it had a story to tell. Apologies if the picture is sideways, I'm still working out the kinks in Blogger and Picasa.

I found out some exciting news today, it's to do with my "Little One" sculpture - I've had a cool idea - more details on that when I know more myself! Til next time...

Little Ones all Painted Up

2009-10-26T09:29:00.002Z

Finally, here are some photos of Little Ones painted by artists from all over the globe.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Madrabbitwoman/LittleOne

I've been quietly working away throughout the Summer on a few projects. Jasper is progressing at his usual leisurely pace, here's a link to his latest photos.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Madrabbitwoman/Jasper02

Earlier this year I donated a new variation on the Lawrence/Claude/Baldy medallions; called Romeo, to be turned into clinky gifts for the NAN Donation artists. Barb Ness took the medallion and turned it into these lovely clinky models, click the photo below to see all the copies that Barb sent me as a lovely thank you gift.

From Romeo

I am also currently working on a project commissioned for the Midwinter's Night Ball show in January, run by Shannon Southard. It's not publicly known about just yet, so Please do not link or copy any of the photos from this album, but I'm having a "ball" myself working on it. I love colour and really enjoy experimenting and discovering new shades and techniques, so this project is right up my street. I will be casting over 250 of these medallions, in various cold and Wintry shades, but as I am experimenting I'm getting colours of all shades, types and effects.

From Snowflake Frodo

Finally, I would like to introduce you to the newest member of our family, Bruno. He came to us mid-August and is a real character. There are loads of photos of him in his album, there is a link below.

From Bruno and Friends

Many Many Little Ones!

2009-08-03T17:42:00.002+01:00

Well, I've been casting away like fury this week and am pleased to say that the 100 copies of Little One will be achieved. Moreso, the mold is holding out exceptionally well (considering I had orginially hoped for just 35 copies from each!) and I think I may have a few more copies available by the time the mold finally gives in. Here's a photo of where I'm at so far (these are all RAW casts, I have to tidy them up yet so if they look a little rough it's because I've not got them ready to go just yet).

In the above photo, there are 87 copies of Little One, also there is the original (on the right hand side, next to the dark grey copy), three seconds which is (thankfully) all I've had, and one copy I decided to pigment in grey (which I'll keep): and a bunch of models I've been casting alongside Little One to use up any surplus resin I mix (I hate wasting materials!). 10 copies of Little One have already sold and been given to their new owners at the Live Show I went to a couple of weeks ago, which means I have already cast 97 good copies of the model! The mold is still looking as good as new so I'm really confident I'll be able to increase the edition from the 100 I've currently limited it to, though I don't know by how many.

If you'd like to be informed when any additional casts become available, drop me an email to savagebyname @ hotmail.com (remove spaces) as I'm keeping a no obligation reservation list and will be informing the people on the list first, should any additional casts come after the 100.

You may have noticed in the above photo that one of the models appears slightly different to the rest, if you look to the left hand side of the photo you might be able to see that one is a very slightly different colour...

This is what I call an "Opel" model. It is made from the same resin as all of the others, but due to a combination of (for want of a better word) "errors", I find that about one copy out of 100 comes out this intriguing colour. I won't sell this copy, I'll hang on to this one as I don't know if the resin will go a bit odd over time, but also because I regard them as a bit of a lucky charm. The model truly comes out an opel colour, translucent with lots of diffuse colours mixed in there. You never know when an Opel model will pop up, this is only the third I've cast (one Fly Fishing and One Pickle V2 came out opel) and I have to admit there's something a little magical about discovering one!

Quick Update

2009-07-25T01:10:00.002+01:00

Hi all!

Just a quick update as I sneak five minutes in-between castings. The response to "Little One" has exceeded my expectations in many ways - it's now about 90% sold out even though the first mold has given me over 50 crisp casts (I expected about 35, so am confident for an edition of over 100 now)!

I've just poured the second mold, I'm using a firmer rubber for this one so with a bit of luck it should hold out even longer (I'm classing L.O. as sold out when orders hit 100, I daren't take any more than that until they are all cast). Since changing my materials supplier (half way through production of Fly Fishing) I've notice a huge difference in the reliability and durability of my molds and casts - so far I have managed a 100% good-cast rate with Little One, which I thought was impossible!!

Interestingly, and huge proportion of the Little One models will be off to their new homes...in Germany. I've not sold a great deal of medallions to European countries before now, but Little One seems to really appeal. Perhaps medallions are unfashionable in Europe? Dunno, but thank you to all my German, Swiss and Worldwide customers :o)

A new development has occurred with Little One, something that I have only dreamt about before now. I won't say anything more about it yet as it needs to stay a secret for now, but I'm very excited about it and can't wait to tell everyone!!

A little personal info now; I was made redundant this month. I wasn't enjoying my job too much so when the opportunity arose to take an enhanced voluntary redundancy I decided to go for it. Being on Garden Leave this month allowed me to complete Little One and get it released, which is fabulous! The success of Little One now means that when I finish Jasper, I can pay for his casting up front, so no pre-orders or long waits for buyers wanting a copy! Jasper is a HUGE job to get finished but I'm hoping to make good progress on him in the coming weeks; but he has to wait for now while I spend my days (and nights, hehe) casting and cleaning Little Ones. I'm looking forward to going to the Post Office with dozens of boxes containing little foals ready to embark on their journeys!

Right, Little One number 50-something should be about cured by now, time to go make some babies (yey!).

New Resin release - "Little One"

2009-07-16T23:37:00.005+01:00

...And here it is, please allow me to introduce...

Little One

Little one is a Traditional scale foal. Just a few days old the foal is all curled up, contemplating the world.

The model pictured is actually the original model; once the mold was taken, it was sent to the talented Emily Prouse (also known as ChaChaCrazy) for this beautiful soft baby bay paintjob.

Emily met my (rather unreasonable) challenge and had this one finished in an amazing 24 hours! She interpretted my demands on colour and shading perfectly, and I am so pleased with the results!

Little One is a two mold run, so the edition may be anywhere between 50 and 100 copies but once the molds are cast out, the edition will close.

Pricing details are as follows:

£30 - UK - £4 p+p

€40 - Europe - €7 p+p

$50 - US - $8 p+p

Any other country - please contact me.

Little One is making it's debut at the Shropshire Live show this weekend. I am travelling tomorrow and away until Sunday. I may not be able to reply to emails until then so please be patient.

All comments are welcome, I'd love to hear what you think of the model, and all comments on the finishwowk will be forwarded to Emily.

Upcoming announcement

2009-07-16T00:40:00.002+01:00

Welcome to all new members of this blog!

* * *

At some point over the next 48 hours I will be announcing a new resin release. To hear about this release when I do, you need to either subscribe to this blog (using the box above, no spam), or check back here regularly!

* * * This is all I'm saying about the release for now apart from that it will be a 2 mold limited edition and is priced to be affordable to most. * * * Watch this space ;o)

I appear to have lost a few months!

2009-04-30T17:08:00.002+01:00

Wowsa, doesn't time fly - my last blog was about the snow and suddenly Spring has sprung and the BBQ season is in full swing!

This is only a quick update to let you guys know I'm still ticking, life has been busy lately and work has been hard, things won't be calming down for a week or two yet so for now here's just a quick summary of what I've been working on:

Jasper: progress has been made, I've been educating myself on equine anatomy which has really been more theroy work than practical, but as I've been putting a couple of things into practice I've found the theory work has really helped! It's just a matter of finding enough time to get to work on the big guy, but also having the space to work on him - see below bullet about the foal...

Little One: more progress has been made on this model than with Jasper, due to the fact that this model is far more portable. I've spent a lot of time on trains lately and this little foal can be carried about along with all the tools and reference materials I need all in one bag, so I have been making far more progress on this one. I am starting to get to the point where I need to know more about anatomy - ah. Learning about horse anatomy is one thing, but it seems foals are far more than just taking the nrmal anatomy and making the legs longer! They are funny little creatures with near-impossible joints and muscles that can bend in surprising ways! I'm enlisting the help of my fellow RESS members, so fingers crossed this is one model that may well make it into resin form in the foreseeable future!

Medallions: I received a rather enormous commission (we're talking hundreds rather than donzens) for one of my medallions. It will be adapted for the purpose in-mind and will make a great project! Once things have settled down soon, progress will be made on this one. I feel it could also make a great Christmas special too, watch this space!

Another medallion has already been created (another adaptation sadly, I just haven't had enough time to dedicate to new ones which is really starting to bug me now, I feel a fresh new one bubbling up and wanting me to create it!), this medallion has gone off to be cast in clinky form! The lady I've been working with has been very kind (with my terrible time-keeping tendencies) to me and has also agreed to send me a couple of glazed copies of the finished article, which is very exciting, especially as one of those with be a realistic glazed one!! As a collector of medallions and a fan of clinkies, but as I've rarely got much moneyto put towards custom-glazed beauties, this is great news!

Little Girl: from my earlier post you saw I had made a start on casting the little girl I had been working on as a companion for Jasper. I'm afraid there's been no progress with that recently, but she'll be "finding her legs" and also having her hair finished (she has no fringe) at some point. I don't feel rushed to finish her as Jasper still has a way to go yet.

One of the reasons for my pitiful lack of posts recently has been the Grand Designs Exhibition at Excel, in London. My company has a stand there and I am playing "expert" for people using my day-job skills as a Designer (architectural type stuff) to help with thteir designs. I was there all last weekend, and am there again all this weekend (including Bank holiday Monday), whilst still working full time 5 days a week (plus overtime). I don't want to moan as I love my job, but it has left me with very little spare time recently, and really cramped my creative style!

So there we are, a quick roundup of the last few months.

I hope to blog again in a couple of weeks once work has calmed down and I've had some sleep with a much better (photo-packed) blog!!

Kelly

It worked!!!!

2009-02-02T22:34:00.002Z

THANK YOU to GJ Berg for the advice - it worked - I could just HUG you right now!!! :o)

Snow, Secrets, and New beginnings (and an ending)

2009-02-02T21:28:00.007Z

Ok, today I'm trying out HTML style paragraphs, lets see if I can nail this thing! (thank you for the comments :o)

Today it snowed!! The heaviest snowfall the UK has seen for 18 years so we're told, I think they mean in the whole country in just in one day, it's deep, but not too horrible (here, anyway!). Just enough to play in, I got some great pics at work (forgot to bring my SD card home though, doh! They'll have to wait). Here's a pic of Adam - snow means RC truck!!!

I had to include this photo - it looks like "Lost in Space", its just a pic looking up into the snow though, with flash - pretty cool I thought!

So, on to New Beginnings!

After my unfortunate email embarrassment earlier this week (for non-blog subscribers - I accidentally sent a private email to the entire subscription group this week, with details of this...) I should share the details on my most recent creation. I'll be keeping this to the blog though, as I don't want to advertise it just yet.

Meet... well she has no name yet - but this is my sculpture (unfinished) of a little girl, she is a companion model to go with Jasper when he finally gets finished. I thought he was such a friendly looking guy that he needed a little pal to go with him. My plan (not sure if it will come to fruition yet though) is to create three companions for Jasper, so those who'd like one have a choice, as I know not everyone likes human sculptures.

I'm told she looks like she is fly fishing, which is quite ironic, really!

As the little girl is a bit of an awkward shape for casting, she will be cast in two halves - top and bottom. This is why the photo shows the three poor legless copies, and it should go some way to explain the unusual photo (showing a pair of legs sticking out of a piece of runner) my subscribers were accidentally sent! You will probably also notice she's got a bit of a big forehead - this is because I'm not done with her hair yet, but I want to be able to experiment without ruining the face, so will try out a few styles on the resin copies.

Now, the ending I mentioned in the title - this is to do with Frodo (the big one) - here is his mold. That's it, no more! I think I got 30 copies in all, all of them cast in different colours and materials - no unpainted resin ones! Jessica Fry cast the resin ones, I know she was closing her edition soon too, so if you want one, get in touch with Jessica asap!

The mold is very speckly - this is because the final cast was a metal one, and the residue left on the mold went rusty! Seemed like a good time to stop the edition.

And finally... another New Beginning! This is a rather dd photo showing another recent project - this is a Pickle V2 resin, but cast in the magic GROWING resin. You have to soak it for a week or so to grow fully, and as you can see it grows at different rates depending on the thickness of the part - this photo illustrates how quirky these thing look part-way through the process. I think she looks like a charicature version of Pickle.

Aha - I have just given a clue as to what Pickle V3 may turn out to be...

So, I can't tell whether the paragraphs have worked in this post until I publish it, so here goes (wish me luck!)....

A busy week!

2009-01-29T13:44:00.003Z

Sorry, I'm bulletting again, I tried to avoid it by working in Html code last time, but even THAT didn't work! Sigh, I wish I knew what was going wrong with my paragraphs!
So, I apologise that my last blog came through as a single, jumbled paragraph, please know I did all I could to avoid that! (grumblegrumble!) So, on Sunday I held a sort of mini-Workshop at my home, for two young up-and-coming artists. We had a blast and the time flew by, BUT I can't actually share photos of what we made until I receive some copyright permissions from Breyer, soooo, that report will have to wait.
In the mean-time I've been busying myself with quite a lot of new projects!
Firstly, I have to show this off - it's my new camera! I was quite happy with my old camera, I discovered this week it had taken over 27000 photos for me (wowsa!) but it was still going strong... however, new technology waits for no man (or woman!) so the new camera, which is effectively an up-to-date version of the last one, has even more bells and whistles!

Next up is a work in progress, you may remember this blog, well I've been pretty slow in getting started with this one (partly due to the unplanned Workshop at the weekend, the preparation for that took me a week!). Well I finally got cracking last night and have got this far with the portrait of "Casper".

This is only a very early photo, the intention was to get everything into the correct position and block in the colours very crudely. I used the white pastel from a new Sennelier set I got last month, and the difference between that and the hard, square pastels I like is incredible. The only way I can describe the softer pastel is "buttery"! I'm very pleased, as although I will use the harder pastels later on, geing able to get the foundation colour down in the softer pastel made for much faster, more enjoyable work.
Poor Casper looks a bit like a Terrier at this stage, but once his nose and mouth are blocked in more he should begin to take shape.
Casper's owner tells me she likes beach type colours, so I've chosen this Sandy colour, a pale grey and a light brown. This paper is 12"x16"

Another little project I've been working on - this is my "secret" project, though I'm pretty awful at keeping secrets so most people who know me know what I'm up to, hehe!
I couldn't help but post this shot, it's just rather funny!

More little projects - this bunch of ugly looking things are all potential future models. Pickle is due for a V3 version, and for a long while I've been wanting to make her a tad bigger, to make her a perfect model for Arabian tack-makers. Sadly V1 and V2 were just a touch too small, so, armed with my magic growing resin (the green coloured stuff) I took a cast of Pickle V2 and am now watching it slowly grow.
I also took a cast of just one side of her face (the other green blob), which I'm wondering about turning into some kind of medallion.

The cream coloured blobs are casts made from the magic shrinking resin. I took a cast from the Pickle mold and also from the Fly Fishing mold. You can see how the two kinds of resin work when you consider that all three Pickle casts in the photo are from the same original mold! The effect will be very noticable when the two cream models are fully shrunk; then they will be a brown colour, like the Halfling Frodo was after fully shrinking which takes about 2-3 weeks, but as it's winter could be as long as a month.

More to come!

My First Artist's Retreat

2009-01-22T17:13:00.002Z

Well, I didn't know I'd be doing this last week, but this Sunday, I'm holding a little Artist's Retreat! A young sculptor hobbyist contacted me last week; she is working on a SM size sculpture and wanted to know about resins, rubbers, mold-making and so on. We got chatting about the different types of materials and their characteristics and I said "wouldn't it be great to meet up and go through all these things as an experiment together"... So, this Sunday that's exactly what we're going to do! I've asked along another friend of mine so it's turning into a group event. I'm really looking forward to it now; I've ordered a good selection of materials (that I'd have ended up buying at some point anyway, so no cost implications there) to add to those I already have and given how I love to experiment, that's quite a few! I'm now doing a little research into Health and Safety, just to make sure everything is legal and safe for the girls who are visiting, as they are both 16. Just in case I've ordered some water-based non-toxic resin, so at the very least they'll be able to do a spot of casting. I hate to have to think this way, but I would hate it more if there was an accident! I shall report back after the event, and will try to remember to take lots of photos so you can see what we got up to, whatever it will be, I think it will be colourful!!

Happy 2009!!! Time to get creative!

2009-01-16T22:42:00.004Z

Hi all,
Well, we're careering into 2009 at one heck of a rate, aren't we?! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a fun New Year! Mine was one for family and as always it was extremely manic! I think I'm about recovered from it all (now we're nearing the end of January!), so it's now time to get back to all things creative!
Below are details on my current project; it is for a fellow member of the Model Horse community, Joan Berkwitz. Joanie is a ceramic artist who not only creates some of the most incredible glazed pieces, but also casts china models (a subject which mystifies me!). In particular, she has control over the edition of these models. More photos of this model glazed by Joanie and other artists can be found on Donna Chaney's Animal Artistry website here and here.
I am quite an avid Animal Artistry collector, and have more recently begun to collect bone China and Earthenware pieces. This particular model has been on my grail-list, as due to the cancelled Pour-Horse run it has technically never been released! There are a number that have been sold, but those people who have them must really love them, as they very VERY rarely come up for sale!
The reason I'm talking so much about china models and not drawings, is that Joanie has VERY kindly agreed to glaze a copy of this model for me, in exchange for a set of portraits of her three German Mittle-Spitz dogs; Casper, Bear and Yasha.
I'm being very lucky with the portraits I've been asked to do, in that they've all been of incredibly gorgeous animals! These dogs continue that pleasant trend, so I would like to introduce you to:

Casper

Bear and Yasha

These images show how I begin the portraits. As you can see they aren't perfect, but for the purposes I need them for, that's ok. What I've been trying to work out is the composition. I've always struggled with getting the elements in my drawings into a good composition, so taking this step saves me an awful lot of time and mistakes! So, I put the chosen photographs into a photo editing software, and then remove the background, add in a coloured background which I can easily change (these probably won't be on brown, but I usually start with this colour) and then I remove bits, add bits and generally "fiddle" with the images until I'm happy with the overall balance, and in this case, the harmony between all three images. As you can see, we've chosen three photos that can be displayed side by side, and as one dog looks slightly left, one slightly right and one mostly front-on, they should make for a nice arrangement whilst still looking balanced alone (should Joanie decide to display in separate places).
I also get to play with the brief I was given, and with any effects or styles. If I mess up at this point it's easy to press UNDO, so now is a good time to play! The information I'm aiming to convey (in addition to as accurate a portrait as possible, and some other points) is as follows:

Casper is an "old-style" American Eskimo dog. He is smaller than the two younger dogs and his features are more pointed. Casper has tear-stains by his eyes, which although undesirable in the breed (they are hereditery), they are a part of him so these will remain and just be slightly reduced as this photo was taken at a time when they were quite strong.
Bear is the biggest dog, he is masculine and strong, but laid back. He has a more pronounced "ruff"(mane) than the other two dogs.
Yasha is a "new-style" Eskie, like Bear. She has more dainty features, and has very, very soft fur.
Casper is thirteen years old, whilst the two youngsers (brother and sister) are both about two and a half. I don't want Casper to look really old in his portrait, but he does have a glint of wisdom in his eyes that I really hope I can portray.

I avoid making any changes to the details of the dogs; it's vitally important to make sure that I draw "Casper, Bear and Yasha", not just "three white dogs". Saying that though, at this point it is really handy to be able to remove any undesirable elements. I get terribly distracted by bits I don't want to draw and can get quite frustrated , so being able to clean up any little flecs on the picture, or unwanted tangles in the fur can really help me.
So, this is where I'm at now. I have to admit this project has me quite worried as white fur is so very difficult to portray well. I just hope I am able to master it, or that precious little clinky horse always will remain a grail!

More on this project to come, and also more on recent sculpting endeavours including the revealing of my "secret model"!