Scenes from a soggy event today

The soggy event was the Southern Pines Horse Trials II. These were taken from our vehicle! It was pouring and I got out and walked the dog around and talked to some folks but my fiance was having none of it. I wasn't about to bring my studio camera out into the rain however so towards the end he drove across the park and found this water combination where I could actually capture the last few riders going through. In better weather I really would've gotten some fabulous reference pictures from up close. I have some good ones at least. I share these just to show the place a little. My most reference worthy pics have cars in the background and such! :)

I've gotten so much feedback about the foal too. I'm very happy to know it wasn't "just me" thinking he's the cat's jammies! :) I'm plugging along on him & "Kipling" (the pony on the stick from a few more posts back). They'll both be released in resin soon enough, I promise. In the meantime I'm trying not to post photos each and every time I make some changes, keeping a bit more diverse for the reader here. Mind you my life usually (bad pun coming up warning!!!).. is normally pretty unEVENTful... sorry. Had to do it. :D Anyhow, perhaps after the fact I'll share the clay-mation to hard prototype stories. I'm rather anxious about that though and would prefer not to jinx myself. One way or another I'll share more soon but I simply don't know yet what I want to do. I'd said to my yahoo group tentative plans for selling the pony as a very limited time frame. I'll have to see how that works out. I'm overall shooting for being more prolific as a sculptor in general, and thus (out of necessity!), limiting edition sizes a bit more. So this is my generalized goal and we'll see how it works out. You can probably bank on being able to totally laugh at me later this year and say "gee Morgen, how's that working out for ya?". ;)

Foal's first 24 hours...

Man sometimes the germination of artistic idea is just like a little lifeform, you can not stop it from growing. For better or worse. In the euphoric state that is the true creative high of course I hope it's for the best, I know at least his neck is a shade more proportionate & his limbs are the matching lengths now at least... so here's Little Man Mango at just 24hrs old (in real clay life, in representation I'd call this foal a few weeks at least)..
















I was up until 2pm last night and right back down to it this morning, couldn't slurp down the coffee fast enough & get back in there… didn’t even want to stop for lunch. He’s now in the freezer again chillin out. The studio thermometer says 85 in here but the breezes/fans are cooler. Still, clay gets pretty soft at that temp (sun heats this place up, yesterday's highs were mid-80's I think but todays was also almost 10degrees less too)... all the same, time for the ACs in here already... I have armature toothpicks in his ears even!

In the photos the tools are for showing “in progress” for another purpose… but I know you guys know that he’s just starting out here. Still – I’m sooo aching to be putting in all those awesome fun baby details!

Foal born while on the phone today :)

Babies popping out of nowhere!!! Spring must be in the air! He just sprang out of my imagination while on the phone today at lunchtime. Normally I like to keep my hands busy now by working on a relief sculpture... I've been doing these on hard flat easy to hold surfaces like this CD case. This particular clay doodle sprang into life in full dimension pretty fast however! :)

He's vewy vewy sweeeeeeepy and is trying to stay awake but is falling backwards sloooooowly.... zzzzzzzzz....













PS to this I should mention too that I do need to work on proportions some.... like his neck needs to be shortened a tad I'm sure (haven't measured yet). He's currently being popsiclized in the freezer (it's 90 in here so btwn the fast work up & heat he's goooooey & got hard to work on so I snapped some pics & went to go get references).

Old things & new things! :)

First off, the option of resin in black I will mention once more today here (I posted to my group as well), however I won’t put a button for it on the web page here http://www.artbymorgen.com/johann.htm because I’ll only be ordering 1 more batch of this edition so after I do that the option to special order black ones won’t be available.

I know I’m posting it everywhere too, (forgive the redundancy!) but the dark (dyed) resin is really nice for both prepping and handling down the road. Painted white resin can show white rubs (I’m always being asked at shows to touch up someone’s horse or if I had this or that color paint…), whereas at least black rubs and scratches are a little less glaring and noticable. It’s not for everyone, many folks like to do their finish work over white primer or gesso and this may still show white around a scratch or rub. Me well, I paint over rust colored primer usually myself because it’s the thinnest primer leaving the most detail – but maybe that’s why those eartips rub easier? Grins!

Ok, quick weekend wrap up… I love meeting new customers in new areas…! I went to Carolina Gold Classic, it was an exceptionally big show – 50 entrants! I’m used to shows with around 30 so this was fun, but I was probably zombified… I get excited the night before shows and events and tend not to fall asleep so easily. I’ve tried everything but sleeping pills and I just refuse.. it’s been a lifelong issue (as in I can remember field trips in elementary school where I would be so jazzed up I’d get no sleep the night before too). The real solution is to get out and do these more often! ;)

I brought along a small truckload of miniature tack (this is thus far the only thing I really collect and obsess over)... all because I simply didn’t take the time to sort through it for the 4 classes I’d hoped to dress up one particular horse in a set of classes I hadn’t put her in yet (English). Anyhow, well, I messed up and wound up not showing her after all! HA! But I’m glad I did because I got to lend out tack and meet some new folks that way too. It was good day all in all!

Now to prepare for the Stoneybrook Steeplechase where I’ll have a tent. In the meantime I’ll be out there at the Carolina Horse park taking reference photos in 2 weeks at their first big 3 day event. Looking forward to sharing some photos of this soon.

This one is for Lauren.. ;)

.. while I'm on a roll here today I give you "Gleep" in progress!

He's a massive rock of a table weight really. Actually, he can serve as a bookend nearly (has 2 flat sides). More soon on him as well. A gal named Lauren and I are scheming on this one! :)

New faces and new stories to share :)

I've been typing too much today and need to get back to work now..! :) I posted these to my site however and will try to have some as magnets this weekend... aaaaaaannnd...





I shared the low down on my relief sculpture online finally. I hope to get him cast soon;


I put more info here; http://www.artbymorgen.com/joe_reed_page.htm and hope you'll read it - I think it's a cool story but I can't vouch for the storyteller in this case (blushes).

PS. I guess I should add that my dad (who is currently living out there with Dorothy in AZ) reported yesterday that Dorothy seemed very pleased with the likeness in her gift here. I honestly was pretty worried about that - she doesn't exactly hold back her opinions at 94 (not sure if she ever did but she sure doesn't now). Whew! :)

Pins and Magnet making finally!

My customer there (my last post) ;) finally prompted me to make up a few of these after talking about it since last year. Literally I have no idea how I'll "display" them at the coming events I'm attending. They are fun though, widget madness! I have more designs I hope to have the time to mold/cast before my next few events.. and back to that now.. blabbing too much over here! :D

Customer sent me this pic :)

Thought it was neat to see a widget in use (aside from the ones on our fridge - lol!).

I'm just posting things daily now to make my photos go away to the next page... ;)

An alert little herd of soldiers!

A row of Johann's awaiting their time payments with baited breath!! lol! Sorta looking a bit like the Queen's Guard all in white.

Really didn't have much beyond that silly pic to share, just that had the camera out here again today & snapped that. I never remember to show the "conga" scenes of the studio and they can be kind of fun sometimes. This little conga just seems to exaggerate the "Attention!" look. More time payment castings are coming in though and it's going to get a lot more crowded on that shelf.. plus I have stickers that go on their headdresses so it'll look much more cluttered in short order.

I'm really looking forward to seeing folks this Saturday at Julia's show! Gettin' the spring cabin fever thing here! All the same, getting a lot of work done too, so no worries. ;)

Pony is very worried...

Worried about the tick I seem to have developed in my face? He's saying "omg! are you ok Morgen??!!!"


I was just laughing too hard at this not to share. Now you all know what I look like... sorta... when I'm making faces which, sadly, is what I do best on camera. :/


Editing to add this on later that day (Friday)... this is what I'm going with though as my "This is what I look like in this century" bio pic now;


So there ya go too Jenn on the pony.. you know there was a photo Jenn had of me holding a weeeeeeee tiny hat from a show in Colorado that I almost wanted to ask her for. But I sucked it up and had these done instead. Painful! Ok, moving on...

There's a long story here...

More in a few days! For now I'll just let folks wonder... :)