Clikies Done!

Hey guys,
Gonna be short and sweet cuz I gotta get these guys delivered :)


AA Mule- he'll be for sale. High gloss, very cute.


AA Gypsy Cob- This is probably my fav. AA mold, so be ready to see lots more in the future. I'm not 100% happy with this guy, but happy enough to send him to Breakables lol. He's much darker in person than these pix show.


Loza Arab Grey- This guy will be for sale in the Artisan Gallery at BF!!


Loza Arabian Pinto- This guy will also be for sale at the AG, probably for a reduced price, as there's a couple things about him that I'm not happy with how they turned out.

Thanks guys! More to come after BF!!

Sleepy Shire All Done!!

I just wanted to post some pix of this pretty boy for you all to see. I'm pretty happy with the horse, but I don't like how the kitty turned out. He was supposed to be orange tabby, but apparently I was watching the movie more than the glaze color, and he's dark brown with a pink nose, black white, and a white tail. The shire, tho the pix don't show, has 3 colored eyes, cream off white main/tail/leg feathers, and kissy spots. He'll be showing at Breakables, along with 4 others if I can get them done in time!!



Here's a size comparative next to a Breyer Stablemate.


Til next time!

Dances with Kiln

After e-mailing Lesli, and reading her awesome post this morning about the exact problems I've encountered, I just had to post. First, her most recent blog if you want to read it (warning, you can get sucked into her blog for hours...days...) is Blackberry Lane, over to the right in the links.

Now, here's how I started writing to her. Check these bad boys out....

You can imagine my surprise when I opened my kiln, and instead of seeing two neat experiments, I got this mess. I didn't realize my glaze would have such an angry reaction with the masking (which Lesli was talking about in her blog). Basically, you see all those little dots all through the pattern? That's a big glob of glaze, sticking off the body. What a mess! And, to get it off (because I did get some off) you literally have to break the bisque. This is why I try out new stuff on my burro's, for speedbumps like this..
It's not really fixable, tho I was tempted to finish and glaze one just to see what happens lol.

On to some fun stuff. I'm hoping these guys will be done in time. The arab is the sorrel from previous posts, however, he had some weirdness that I didn't like, so he went black and white. I think he'll be sharper this way :) Concepts are hard to cover, I expect he'll be fired 4-5 more times before he's BLACK.
The other three are Animal Artistry, and have the BEST detail. Seriously, I was blown away how nice these guys are. I love the Cob (large grey appaloosa). He's going to have a black m/t, and black spots added. I haven't decided what I'm doing with him yet, but the other two will probably be for sale to fund more bisque.



This is the Lakeshore that I was working on. I masked off a big blanket, and airbrushed him black. While he turned out pretty much just like I had planned...his markings that WERE white (his two pinto marks and his face marking) turned a weird yellow color. So, I learned not to use pre-exisisting marked models, good tip for BEFORE Breyerfest lol. I'll be making his blanket quite a bit smaller to get around those pesky markings. I am, however, quite pleased with his leg markings, which I etched.



Til next time!! Breyerfest is right around the corner, are YOU ready!?

Sand Blasting

Sometimes called "air erasing", sand blasting is, for lack of better works, using sand at high pressures to remove things like rust, paint, or in my case, glaze. I bought my sand blaster probably 6 months ago, but due to this, that, and every other thing, tonight is the first night it's been fired up.

Why did I want to learn to sandblast? To me, it opens a huge door to doing neat things with china horses. Take, for example, the horse below. I am, as usual, sorry about the picture quality (really, what's the point of having a phone that is smarter than I am in so many ways, and yet it can't focus or adjust lighting lol).

Our two victoms:

A legless Hagen Renaker horse (I was told what would happen, but I'm just kind of a nut who has to see it for myself). I know it's hard to see, but you see that grey area around the tail and the rump? That's where the sand blaster literally blew chunks of the underlying HORSE off. There's large chunk of horse missing now. I was told that bisque (ceramic) horses are much softer than porcelain, and, they are porous, so they actually bond with the finish.



A Lakeshore horse I think called Touch of Sky. Regardless, I am going to just call her Sky. The horse to the right is what Sky looked like before she went into the sand blaster. I started out thinking I'd blast the whole horse white, but she sort of ended up with an appy pattern, so I switched to plan B. I am going to go over her black area's with the black that I have, so that it matches what I will be using. I'm thinking maybe very low or no front socks, and adding some black to the back legs but I need to find a picture first. I'm also going to change her face marking, so I made a blaze to start with. And of course, she'll get some spots. Neat thing about sand blasting, she's roaned all over the edges of her blanket.




So there you have it. Plan is to have her done in time for the Breakables show. We'll see. Hubby's leaving in a couple hours for his military 3 week romping, so I'll have the evenings to myself to work. So here's hoping. I have a few other horses I'm trying to get finished to raise some quick Breyerfest bucks, just a few weeks away!!

Til next time!

First off, sorry, all the pix were taken with my IPhone. Handy, but lacking in quality :)

Flower accessories: keep the kids happy for 10 min. lol. Our neighbor was trimming their hosta's (I think), and the kids kept dragging these flower stems home, so I made crowns and bracelets for them. Amused them for about 10, maybe 15 min. But it was fun.


So, I've been pretty active about looking for new molds to work with, not that I don't love the Doc Holiday wonk, but you know. Call it fate, but I picked up these two new molds, shortly before I went into the hospital. They are small, light, and easy to work with, I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of these guys over the summer while my back heals. Aren't they cute? I don't really like the drafter in harness, I think I'll do that one as is, but probably will carve off the harness (the collar casts separately) and leave the bridle on. I really like the little calf, I'm not sure if he's an HR knockoff, but the two cows defiantly look like they are.


And speaking of Doc Holiday, I haven't forgotten them :) Alfred has no pictures, because he's in a bag, drying slowly. He got lots of lovin' today. I also worked on these other two, which I really should name so I know what I'm talking about. Now, don't let them scare you, Frankenhorses lol, because after they are fired, ceramics can be dremeled. I'm just trying to get arab's head attached to her body, so I have something to work with. It's *very* important that there is an air hole from her body, to her head, or else her head will just explode (man do I know what that's like...). The little head is Ichy mare, I'm going to fire her head attached to her neck, then attach her neck to her body. Seemed easier that way.


And, lastly, I'm not sure if it was all the drug induced sleeping, or being so relaxed the last few days, but I wasn't sleeping more than a couple hours a night (no worries, the kids are home, I'm ready for bed before they are lol). But, one night when I was bouncing off the walls at 3am, I started sculpting this. I only worked on it for about an hour before I decided I should at least go bounce around in bed, so it needs a lot of work. But here is my first sculpture attempt. I didn't have anything to scale it with, but it's BIG. Like, probably 5 inches long? maybe 6. Plus a backround. But I thought, if I finish it, I'd make it and market it as a wall hanging. I think it'd be fun to do as bisque. I was trying to make it a "generic" horse instead of real typie like an Arab. The eye is a little freaky. Actually, it started out as a forlock, because I wanted to practice sculpting hair. It looks a little more 3D in real life, this picture actually makes it look creep lol


I hope everyone has a safe and fun 4th of July!!