Inspirations - big and small! :) (photo fest!)

This past week I completed my 2nd full horse sculpture done in oil based modeling clay – Kipling! :)

(Full Album http://www.artbymorgen.com/galleries/kipling/album/ )

So Kipling was inspired by a little munchkin of a guy whom I met precisely a year ago this week (learned that from a FB module that cropped up saying “pictures from a year ago today” :) my memory isn’t that great..) ;) So in Aug 2010 I went with the neighbor & her son to a local “zoo” that actually impressed me with how many acres the various animals had to roam about on. Buffalo out on at least 20 or more acres – we could hardly see them. That and a camel were their most exotic critters really. But by the parking area they had a pasture that held among less pushy equids apparently – a mini (or a Shetland pony, I’ll never know because the owners don’t know) who shoved aside his horse and donkey pasturemates in hopes of getting treats. And thus that inspired me to start up Kipling the pony.

I spent some time this past week when I remembered to try to find the photos of that fellow but I just can’t seem to find them. Suffice to say however that he was a charmer.

Since that day they seem to be everywhere. These diminutive little equines. I’ve found more at a local gardening center – a stallion, mares and a foal who was cute as a button! At Breyerfest of course I found Patrick (!! talk about a charmer!! Check him out here; https://www.facebook.com/ipitombe/posts/700247730800?ref=notif&notif_t=feed_comment_reply#!/pages/Patrick-The-miniature-horse/158571254155212 )


and several of his stable mates who allowed me to take reference photo material as well.



This is great because honestly the horses I’d found in all of my books and magazines this time just did not quite fit the bill. They were a little too hairy or too distant to really get a feel for their build. And then in Kipling’s case, I wanted too to get the feel of a pony in someone’s backyard… hair a little long & overgrown… belly a bit big… not show ring perfect in other words!



Here we have the cutest baby horse in the world that I felt compelled to stalk...




He is uncertain of this...

He stands behind the (begging) adults and tries to decide if we're safe and what all the hubbub is about!

More scrutiny...

Lingering now... (we didn't hand feed these guys more than a few blades of grass so the adults wandered off in short order)..

Clearly though I am enchanted by this stuffed toy looking little guy eh! :)

ANHOW... so inspiration of course comes to artists from both the subject and the media and I've just felt immersed in refreshingly new varieties of both! To be clear, there are lots of new types of horses around me everywhere in North Carolina (we've only been here a little over a year). My native New England is home to the shades of brown english style horses.. Of course you'll see a little bit of everything but it's nothing to me like the variety that I see around here anytime I venture out - a plethora of colors and shapes that were not so common for me to see before as much at least! So new fodder for inspiration & working in soft, non-hardening clay is clearly lending me 'wings' so to speak. I suppose it's more a mindset of appreciating these things that move us and embracing it really.

What has been the most exciting for me about working in (very soft actually) clay so far is what I get for organic shapes when I’m finally spraying down the master prototype the final time. My goal mind you isn’t to get too lumpy… but there is a level somewhere of a more organic texture (“organic texture” like my thighs and love handles are body textured!), that imparts a horse who sure loves to get folks to give him all the apples!

His mane was just a blast to work on in clay with smoothing being soooooo much easier for me too. I’ve really found that the things I spent eons agonizing over in apoxie sculpt (not all sculptors get stuck in the same areas), just come easily to me in clay. So these latest works have reminded me of perhaps how it feels to jog with weights on your legs and in your hands & then do something without the handicapping. Well, that’s essentially what it is.

ANYHOW, enjoy the albums and some of these photos I’ve taken of some fun characters I’ve had the delight to meet!