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!

Happiness is smooth revisions!.:)

This fella is drying in my kitchen – the first layer of primer is to check that my chop in half (previous post) worked out, And to check that I didn’t have so many pin holes (I do actually… sadly but they are easy enough to address). My red apoxie sculpt for patching those up is a lot more easy to work with than the white (white is like toothpaste – my red is like silly putty). So while I tried to get “nearly done” I didn’t sweat it.

It’s drying in the kitchen because storms are sprouting up! It just go dark & the wind is howling! Eek! Good time to get offline…

This week has been a whirlwind. A lot of busy work on the computer and in the studio: wrapping up this pony sculpture and a medallion.. AND actually starting another medallion even! I don’t want to discuss the medallions yet – it’s too soon. I definitely won’t be offering another until 2012’s “open edition” though soooooo it’s almost safe to say that these are likely to be nothing that is coming soon – even if I do release them myself.

So with that… back to work!. Hopefully I’ll be sharing a sales page for “Kipling” very soon. I may do 1 month rather than 4 weeks this time. My group will definitely get first dibs on all that info. :) Ack… I need to double check what the casting queue is like at MVS… see? Never enough time! :)

We’re going to have a COOL weekend! It might get below 90 even to 89 degrees. I will be SO excited. Fall feel man! :D (you have to joke when it’s this crazy hot all the time… it’s kinda scary to be honest.) Hope everyone is having a good end to the summer out there though!

Opps! There’s the thunder – gotta shut down! :D

IceRyder.net! :)

The last post's comments/questions suddenly reminded me of a site (yes iceryder.net lol!).

Now I know how much folks like to learn from blog posts! Aaaaaaaaaand I'm just terrible about that because I'm simply not the best teacher, I cannot seem to easily explain what I'm doing - even if it's making scrambled eggs? (I'll say to just swish it around some? Oh right! Break the egg first - oops!!!) There was one painting technique that was easy enough for me to explain (fleabites - see RESS TBIII article). But painting a color, how to move the brush to achieve a certain effect? No way.. Sculpting an eye even? Not so easy for me to say beyond the most basic aspects (which is why I'd teach Sculpting 101 in a 2hr format... well maybe even a more advanced workshop, but not an auditorium sized class probably without a MASSIVE amount of planning.. years of planning I think to figure out ways to explain things... lol!). ;) I'm not trying to hide any great secrets either (contrary to popular belief I'm happy to share - I just don't have good skills at explaining). I'm a lefty & I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. Things are not a, b, c steps in my head. They are "make it smile, make it frown".... When I step back and focus on critiquing myself THEN I can get very left-brained (right handed) and think about where in relation to this or that something should go. Maybe that's right brained? Can't remember but THEN at least I can verbalize somewhat things I "see". Buuuuut being able to critique does not often translate into being a good teacher - giving positives is easy too - yes! But saying "start here & do this ...or that" is ... wow ...hard for me! I couldnt' tell you how to go about getting up from your chair and taking a step easily either in words. It's a skill and I envy it! :D

Anyhow, here's a site I haven't visited since I sculpted my kiger mustang "Bosco" back in 2005. It's going strong - I see many new revisions of articles up there on my favorite subject, biomechanics (this was something I actually pursued for a while in college as a subject to major in postgrad.. I was a bio major & didn't happen mind you. ) ANYHOW, I've been an avid follower in advances in biomechanics -> there's been HUGE leaps and bounds in this field wtih all the new imaging and graphic rendering abilities we now have .. Soooo there's this page I invite you to start at; http://iceryder.net/biomechanics/index.html But the whole site is full of fun & informative material I'll bet (internet slow can't get through it easily)...

I lost a lot of good bookmarked sites years back with the loss of one computer. Fortunately I've got tons of printed out stuff here. Again though, when folks want direction I don't even always know where a chart was printed out from! Like I said... not a good teacher. The irony is there are some GREAT teachers in my family. Oh well & sorry again to those I've lost who were looking for better answers. Sorry guys! :(

Measure twice cut once…

I know like I know like I know that this **SHOULD** be my motto but often (unfortunately) it’s not when a wild hare gets me..! SO, when I redid this pony to sculpt him in clay I measured very quickly and the first version (in brown Apoxie Sculpt) was already suffering from too short of a back length... and I just had to cross my eyes while I worked on the rest of him knowing that when he was cast I'd have access to that area to fix it finally …

Today I cast him & was FINALLY able to do something about that!

There are two castings there because the first was really icky, even had some uncured resin spots because I mixed very very badly. I'm pleased to say though that the 2nd casting had almost no bubbles AND almost no seams despite that I cut out 2 sections, making a 3 part mold (and those are tricky enough to lock up tight when doing production molds... nevermind a hand cut one! (And my hand cutting is rough - I've had a lot of anatomy classes where this whole scalpel technique for clearing off fascia is an artform.. you would think, since I master that over the years, that I would be more careful... ! Really it's actually upsetting to my engineer fiance for him to watch me work & eyeball & wing this stuff. You can train precision all you like but.. it's art in the end! Sooooo yeah, I'm REALLY tickled that it worked like magic!). :D

I wanted to do a diagram showing how tricky it is to lengthen from the point of origin of an armature but well.. I just can’t sit still here at the computer long enough.. ;) Suffice it to say? It just wasn't worth the time/ruination of the extremeties to tackle it before casting the prototype.

The body lengthening issue is one I repeatedly have, I know & use many proportion charts and tables in addition to real measurement conversions but somehow so many of my horses have literally grown larger than their starting size. You can look back on this blog & see that just from past works being chopped in half. It's a common issue in horse sculpture in general, interestingly (well ok, maybe only to me but I really do find it interesting that we all tend to exaggerate similar features/points of reference). :)

Off I go! Real pics soon - some spots to smooth & areas to detail out more precisely & WOOT!!! (I am bouncing off hte walls SOOO excited about this guy!).

Just waiting for my molding supplies order...

This guy is getting his last spit and polish details before I mold him up. After that it's just a matter of a week or so before I release him. The Mango sculpture actually only took a week to clean up and there I had much more to do - sculpting whole other halves to the legs! If you look back the legs were sort of submerged into the surface I was sculpting on & it seemed easier to cast it and recreate the rest of them rather than try to life him off the surface - piano wire like a pot might be lifted ... and then do it in clay. Here with Kipling I've only got some spots to touch up where the armature wire is too close to the surface - hey! - it's HARD the smaller they get! :D

Meanwhile, I really hate to show you clay in progress because it looks lumpier than it is due to darkened spots -> color variations. But I'm getting impatient waiting for my order over here so I'm going to share anyhow.

And here's where I left off on the Friesian foal (see last post - and my novel in the comments! - for full details).

I really need to catch up on bookeeping. I've hit some confusion and that makes me want to run away and hide in something I *can* do easily. Ugh though. Time to face the music & figure this out tho. This is why the molding rubber is delayed -> I'm meant to be doing something else here, clearly! ;)

When I grow up...

I'm only an hour old here but when I grow up I'm going to become a life sized Friesian foal! .. stay tuned to watch some welding action! (Ok, so seriously though, that's all I'm sharing for now.. this project is going to obviously take a little longer) :)

Adding on b/c I just checked my mail and see that the NSS member gallery from yesterday's post is now up - these are the images I ran with; http://nationalsculpture.org/nssN/index.cfm/fa/cMemb.associates

Joined the National Sculpture Society yesterday

Images above are exceptionally large if you click on them!

There are an infinite # of guilds and associations an artist can join and the annual due fees can significantly add up. Granted the dues don’t quite compare to annual dues for belonging to a horse association per say, however an artist who is even remotely diverse in their media or subject matter will find they could easily spend thousands on annual fees.

That said, I’m very excited to have found the National Sculpture Society. Currently I belong to; ARTS North Carolina, International Equine Artists Group and formerly I belonged to the Realistic Equine Sculpture Society (RESS) briefly before they closed shop. I feel like I’m forgetting something big here! Anyhow, there are of course many professional bulletin boards and groups I’ve joined too. Maybe that’s it – maybe all my lurking on these sculpting & art forums(I don’t have time to gab believe it or not!) – after years of being really active on some horse boards I’ve learned it was just time I didn’t have anymore when I was boarding horses.

Anyhow, these have basically “job” and “contest” listings very often. And after a while you start to see the same “Call to Artist” postings on most of these forums. One of the things that prompted me to join the National Sculpture Society was that their bulletin was one of the most comprehensive in its call to artist listings – and also the most advanced. Sure I won’t get some animal entry listings there – this is why as a horse sculptor I’m so glad there are horse artist societies! I’m sad to report that often when I get my ARTS North Carolina newsletter the competitions and bid deadlines are literally the same day as or expired. I haven’t found anywhere on their website/members info that shows me these listings earlier… it takes a while to pour over and research competitions and you could enter willy nilly all over as well but those costs add up quite fast too. Nevermind that often you have to physically mail out material too so you need to prepare it - not just filling out a form. So a day is usually just not enough time!

Speaking of costs, with my NSS membership fee aside from their hefty bulletin I also will get a magazine that I like quite a bit and am excited about getting regularly! I like these things but I stopped subscribing to magazines regularly years ago and I’m still swamped in back issues (mostly horse ones and mostly used for reference material of course!).

There are others that I’m considering joining. I have to confess I am a skeptic. I remember with horse registries how for a while (maybe still) there were so many springing up overnight that would call your horse all kinds of elite new terms, and provide grading and more. And yet they really didn’t offer the same reputability as the big associations in any way and many are gone now – not even lasting a decade. Some require teaching or taking workshops or competing in some way that isn’t quite a fit too. Basically I’m not ready for those I think. We’ll see. Just some random thoughts on the matter here! :)

Anyhow, so for some competitions I was compiling better photos of my works for some competitions and this gallery now, and here are my final choices. I think I know which ones I’ll be putting on my NSS associate member gallery (I get 3). It was hard to leave out some of my other works. But exhausting just picking out the images and photographing retakes of a couple. Some, like the Johann on that green marble base are gone to private collections now and I've had to make my own display copies again. All of these are available to order in bronze at this time although I'm going to do riders for the top two ("Deputed Duke" and "Hazel"). It will significantly increase the bronze cost (double it) and add quite a bit more time to the process. I hope to get a chance to sculpt those this winter and I don't have a date set for casting them. If a buyer came along interested in them in bronze that would speed me up a bit I suppose - lol! :) Meanwhile, I'm happy to plug along with my display copies. Mango is likely to be the first to be cast in bronze due to his smaller size and thus ease in shipping to the juried shows.

Wow, I could really go on but I must get going here!!! Anyhow, hope all are staying cool out there!! :)

YAY! I cast something else! :D

It's a major triumph for me over the elements to cast something - the humidity being what it is here.

Many folks who were in Lexington last week may remember this... gal??? ;) (fellow? I will not say!!!) :D

Anyhow, it's a clay medallion I got a chance this week to touch up. I need to (fix a few tiny bubbles I spotted in these pics) add some facial veins and check to see if any areas need smoothing up tonight when I can work with a lamp and see details best.

My favorite story from last week's viewing of him was this little kid who was mischievously trailing mom and really wasn't having the best time. Yes, I put the clay medallion within reach of kids (it's a good "letting go" to realize you can do it all over again should something get ruined - imo it frees your artistic soul up tremendously to realize you should just do it and not invest too much emotion into the consequences!). Sooooo this little boy was watching mom and then when she looked the other way he suddenly poked it and exclaims "OH! It's made of clay!"... hahaha - I was so chuckling to myself picturing a big finger dent in this one's eyeball or something. I waited for mom to blanch and drag him out of there. I didn't want to embarrass her - it's a temptation and truly, it was a quicky fix (t'was a nostril smush,not an eye). Truly the act of transporting is where the damage risk is most anyhow.OR (and this has happened - because I'm a klutz)... me simply dropping the finished clay and having it land face down. SMUSH!

(as you can see the nostril is just fine now - but you can enlarge to see bits of clay and hair trapped in the resin - this is another of the many reasons why I don't do final production molding typically...!)

Anyhow, but here is my molding and it's just curing up outside before I bring it in and wrap it up tonight.

Can you feel the heat??? 94°F (34°C) Humidity: 52% Heat Index: 104°F and it's only going up out there... mind you yesterday the humidity was 70+++ percent at it's very lowest so today is parched by comparison!... ;) I really should've photographed the clear resin kicking this time - it really looks so neat. If I do another (maybe very soon if I don't like this casting!), I'll try to remember that..

Sooooo I'm not certain of my plans for this medallion for now but I had to share the happy result (just in case any particular mom out there was worried too - hahaha!). Gotta be brave to do this. Someone said to me a while back (in regard to sales things) "I don't know how you artists do it, you must have nerves of steel". I never thought much about it about producing the art, or being crushed if anyone didn't like it (we all have our likes and dislikes). .. sales wise though, gads, I could use steel there (or someone else to do it - lol!). But gambling with invested time like this? Meh - no biggie! (poke on little guy - it's all just an idea subject to change anyhow!!!) ;)
________________________________
Addendum!!! Adding on an hour later:
So I decided to use my less preferred resin - the slower cure one - and take advantage of the desert-like conditions here (ha!) and do one more since the rain is holding off and humidity keeps dropping. You can see the bubbles in this series - pin hole (very frustrating) bubbles... this is why I've learned the fast cure is better. You try to give it as little time as possible to collect water molecules after it leaves the container. ANYhow... sooooo for those who wonder how it works, here is resin kicking over. I really think it looks SO cool! (I wore a painter's respirator mask - not a dusk mask but one of those ones with the big screw on filter cartridges.. wore it the whole time I poured & photographed this - I really would like to avoid getting asthma soooo just fyi!).




k

and then I went inside because my face was sweating off.. with Smooth On 305 that whole curing sequence here took like 10min to take place and it still was taking a while. If you click on some of those you can see the bubbles taking over too. This didn't happen with the first one (which was Smooth On 300 - fast cure and that takes only 2-3minutes but was just too tricky for me to photograph).

I'll pick the best of these two though probably - both seem to be good enough to make into a master & wrap up. :) YAY I'm so tickled that mother nature went easy on me today! :D

Something I haven't shared in a while...

This small (~4" x 4" tall so far) bust will hopefully become a trophy or standalone bust (I'm working on the options to have it be either), quite soon. I'm just balancing up the other side of his face. In order to do so I take photos of one side and reverse them... so why not share today quickly.

I didn't bring him to Lexington to share because, well, there was only so much I was going to risk bringing & having get smushed in this clay state! ;) (I had brought a medallion and a Criollo sculpture that each only had a day or two invested into them... and they sustained a little damage of course. I use soft clay so it's unavoidable nearly if you travel with them).

Little larger than life here! Click to really enlarge! :)

Next (after the off side gets these facial details,) I've got some neat (equally greco-roman style) ideas for the base - perhaps I can get to them this weekend. It's exceptionally humid here and I have some other works molded and ready for resin casting but the weather is .. not cooperating to say the least. (85% humidity when I woke up - it's almost down to 60% now but moisture is not your friend in resin casting). :/ Anyhow, hope everyone is staying cool!!! :)
_____________________________
& Later.. still waiting on something soooooo I'll share my mock up sketch here as well;


I'm thinking little horse shoe wreaths & chariot images around the first or second base. I'm getting help from my most skilled fellow here on both parts of the base (the upper disk[s] that I'll sculpt more on and then drilling the marble or granite bottom sections.). The dotted box around him is showing where I'll be doing my first rubber mold (and then I'd like to do some veins since this is like 1:8 scale and I really think the lots of little capillary neck veins will look appropriate ... but I'm not willing to mess up what I've done in the clay just to find out!) ;)

Also, I remembered when I last shared him here; http://mksculpt.blogspot.com/2010/10/boogity-boo-d.html Halloween of last year! Easy enough to remember! ;)

Some real pictures quickly...

Something a customer said to me today reminded me to go get (& share!) these photos.... speaking of big foals! Soooo here is "Little Man" Mango [Jam] as he was not such a little man anymore... at 5 months nearly the same height as mom,

And then a few weeks later he was weaned (yes a little early, for his mom's health actually),

And while I'm sharing - Mango with his first girlfriend, "Baby Sondae" (yup! the same one I sculpted bucking almost a decade ago there). He's telling her how much he loves her. We didn't keep them together long but he was already a gelding by then (for quite some time actually - just to be clear!). He still worshiped the ground she walked on. His very own Ginger (from Black Beauty - not South Park). ;)

Editing to add this in.. If I recall correctly she was like a whole year older - or at least 6 months or something... anyhow, he ultimately grew to only 16.2hh (or 17.3+hh when pumped up).. No but seriously, he was a bigun at first!

Just for fun I had to share those. You can see though how that lanky TB build really comes into play pretty quick with those babies though, huh. :)