Happy Independence Day America!!!

Ok, so this is hurried & for lack of anything better in AGES.. I’m so sorry to be so silent. I’ve been wrapping up a horse last month (& yes, I do believe he will be unveiled at Breyerfest, he’s casting now!)… and aside from that I’ve been amassing my own inventory to bring. I should be posting to my group/mailing list in a bit more on that. My first clinky is on his way to me as well & I do hope to unveil HIM as well at Breyerfest but he won’t be for sale then… I may take orders there. I need to really think how I’m going to approach that too so I’m just not ready to say yet.

Meanwhile, now for something completely unrelated & random!
I was looking for some close up photos here & came across something I’ve long known of via observation.. but oft not see done in horse art; FLOPPY TENDONS! Lol!

(my friends who know of my obsession/unexplained excitement in spotting this are just shaking their heads now)...
I think this is seen in older horses primarily but I know I've seen it on some young or at least middle aged (not in their 20s) jumpers etc as well. You can of course feel the softness when you pick up a leg but to see the tucked hoof deflection in action (occasionally) is just so .. interesting. Akin to my floppy arms I suppose now.. lol! Anyhow, that’s all. A photo of my own that clearly demonstrates it as a TRULY random non sequitur moment in lieu of anything really useful here. ;)

More soon though, promise!

 Adding later;

Just to be clear - this is a perfectly normal healthy horse.  I realized people might not have understood in my haste. The tendon flop :D is just what happens with flexion sometimes.  That is all (his legs are fine & don't normally look like that - the above picture taken a stride later). :)

For my dad's 70th..

I have been quiet - so sorry! I've been really working nose to the grindstone & hope to be able to share more soon of all that. Meanwhile, I had to take a little time to do some sketches & this watercolor for my dad. He turned 70 just after Father's Day.

This is Taco, his late dog that I gave him in 1998. Taco was a rescue dog I'd picked up in college. He was great dog but when my other dog died he was hard to keep happy suddenly. Very suddenly. He took to howling from separation anxiety. So not being one to dump my problems BUT also realizing that my dad was ready finally for a new dog & Taco would be VERY happy in the boatyard sidekick lifestyle... I gave him to dad "temporarily". For several years dad would always say he was "just keeping him for me for a little while". Eventually that charade stopped though.

Taco was an AmStaff. I got him an ILP # from the AKC because I was going to have him temperament tested. CT had breed specific legislation (bs!) biases in many towns. Taco once got out of my backyard & the pound picked him up before I managed to find him... the word had been given to the dog warden that "there was a pitbull on the loose near the beach!" (pandemonium & people locking up their children).... Anyhow, he'd wandered into a neighbor's yard & was laying in the sun (ours was shady). That's how the dog warden found him. He told me "I knew he wasn't a pitbull from the moment I saw him because he was laying there sniffing flowers". So I'd jokingly call him Ferdinand sometimes. ;)

The boating community of the CT shoreline towns was a lot more fun for Taco though. He was able to live life mostly off leash. He was able to socialize with people who typically didn't run screaming & lock up their children. ;) He had a lot of people and animal friends.

Ironically the worst thing about it for him were these feral boatyard cats that would come up to him when he was sleeping and attack him. Going so far as to go inside dad's car to attack him while he'd be sleeping inside.. Poor persecuted little PB Taco.

Taco developed a large lump that doesn't quite show in the 2nd image here/watercolor. It came on around 9 or 10 or so. It started as the size of a flattened football... eventually (after 1 or 2 removals) the fatty tumor filled out alongside all his ribcage up to his spine. Ferdinand had become a true Quasimodo. Still he was so low key he just shuffled around sideways & stoically dealt with it. His elbow was pushed out almost 90degrees at the very end by his otherwise benign tumor.

I'm not sure what precisely was his final malady. He had a few. But pretty much Dad would call me & gravely inform me that it was probably going to be "time" in the next few days. And then more months would pass & he'd be plugging along.. I'd ask up after him & get these (it's an old man thing I think?) bowel reports and descriptions of every little morsel he'd eaten & how he liked/didn't like things. ;) Eventually a day did come where Taco really did seem to say "man this is no longer worth trying to do". It was one of those things where you don't feel any remorse, the animal really picked his time and went out with as much dignity and yet gratitude they could muster. Of course I expected Dad to cry all over the place but he didn't. Yet years later he'll talk about Taco (a lot - he still talks about him quite a bit!).. and he'll get choked up. It was a pretty easy decision to decide he needed Taco portraits for Father's Day & the very big Seven Zero.

So it's not my best work maybe but it's certainly "significant" to me as portraits go. The first pencil sketch up there is of Taco when I'd owned him for a few years already & he was finally putting on weight after a full year of needing a rice based diet due to being a stray with tummy issues.

This 2nd portrait is from a series of photos my dad took and gave to me one year. It still hangs in my bedroom.



Both are approximately 4 x 6 in size.

I'm going to do some note cards of various things for sale in the local galleries I'm at & at a few in person events. Still not sure if I'm ever going to do the Etsy thing but along those lines. Taco is a "must have" for me in the "Dogs That I Have Loved" series. :)

Happy Birthday Dad! & Missing you Taco.

The world needs more…

Swimming horse sculptures.

Today I asked myself, “how do I make my horses look more buoyant”. I was looking at the fabulous work of the “MadSculptor” (link) and wondering how I might make a horse look as if it’s defying gravity. I looked through many photos of my bucking/leaping & otherwise generally cavorting horses & said… meh. It’s all so ORDINARY.

Then this little “ding” went off in my head. Well hells bells, I mean if I WANT to make ahorse look like it’s floating in water, I should simply sculpt a horse .. in the water, no? Floating (swimming).

The motion of a horse swimming just thoroughly captivates me. It’s a VERY unique quadrupedal movement; 1, 2, 3, 4 unlike the canter or the trot. It’s extremely punctuated and literally striking! :) Individual jabbing motions of each limb while the others return to a tucked position. If I were to animate a flying horse, I’d use these motions rather than land thrusting motions, the action of pushing against the fluidity of water is utterly unlike any other.

I’ve been lucky enough to go swimming with a horse. (& Interesting side note, DO NOT SIT on your horse, allow yourself to float. Otherwise you’ll drown him! It’s VERY hard for horses to keep even their little noses there up above the water!) Anyhow, it had been one of my “bucket list” items of my childhood’s “things I hope to do with horses someday”. Of course inspired by this scene above from The Black Stallion.


Which is frankly where my inspiration for this sculpture comes from. THAT said, I don’t think I want to go with Arabian. I am unsure what breed so far but I”m thinking more Warmblood in build. I want to have very clean chiseled legs… it will have to be smaller. To at least work in resin form. Small classic perhaps, much bigger than say my dinky duke sculpture was. I’ll have to investigate scales but I can see this working with a nominal attached base & bits of acrylic that would get glued on after the sculpture is finished! On my little sketch here I’ve done some notes on how to make a base that actually can hold up said sculpture.

I should really note too that in the end my “final vision” actually involves taking something like a cold cast bronze & encasing it in a block of Lucite/clear acrylic of sorts.. with bubbles throughout. That’s not exactly a hobby resin sculpture I can sell but sometimes making something with a goal of where it will sell is NOT the way to go with art. I have a vision. I hope I can figure out a way to fund it. And that’s that!

Off I go! Weeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Max Meets the Welcoming Committee

Kipling (the fearless mini) gets right up in the face of the new stallions on the block... giving a pushy little "gee hello, who are you?" sort of greeting.  I have my very own Pixar stories going on right here! ;)

Just taking a second to share before I leap into boxing & packing madness.   Mostly lately I've been thoroughly immersed in projects I can't share & may be for some time.  Aaaaand I've got a ton to do (just in general) today so I need to get back to it.  But here is a brief shot of life on the shelves for fun!

I Has a New Logo! :)

 And yet another domain name too…

Soooooooo this past week I finally stepped up and finalized a logo for myself.  This is what I shared with my yahoogroup and email subscription list about that;

Introducing “Kilbourn Studios”!

www.kilbournstudios.com 

Yes, it really is the same as artbymorgen.com and (because the man registering it for me made this very common ‘a’ in my name mistake!) artbymorgAn.com… lol!

Ah but see I do nooooow have a logo. (Ok, ok, anticlimactic – sorry!)  Finally after a decade I decided it was high time to get myself a logo. No no, in truth, you’ll see from my “coming soon” clinky page why I needed to get off my duff & finally make one…  and since I’ve signed all my sculpted works with this MK merged symbol it just seemed a natural transition to use that as a logo.  As for the studio incorporation into the name ->  Art By Morgen Studios didn't work so well (nor fit so well onto a decal).  But again, the logo & new name truly are more for consistency in the long term with the logo/shortened decal.  Nothing monumental.  Just formalizing it finally! :)

A little background here, I find this lack of logo for so long ironic due to my work in graphics design.  Of the 8 years I worked at that biotech company, for 4 of them my life seemed to be ALL about logos, (yes ok, well the first four in the labs BUT the last 4 years were as the web & print materials do-it-all gal for the marketing & investor relations and corporate communications department).  In that position, my job literally was all about implementing branding into everything and anything we could, from the wall street stuff down to company tee shirts and pens for picnics (they call this stuff “swag” in the industry – give aways with your logo all over them – something I can’t really do much though of course..).  However in honor of formalizing it for china maker’s marks, thusly, I have sashayed forth today & begun the branding process on my website and eventually will as well in my materials as I order new supplies. At least in the digital space it can happen in a flash! Woot! :) 

Some examples of it;

 I closed my notices with this thought.. Believe me this irony of having so many forms of websites/emails isn’t lost on me.  I will be keeping the website addresses of (yes another!) http://www.one-horse.net/  too, even though for years I’ve been phasing that out except for my email.  See that one is really only holding my email address there (and a couple of contacts) from my personal freelance graphics & web design business days.  It’s like moving &  doing address forwarding.  Somethings only come to you every few years & then the fwds are gone & you never hear from those again.  It’s that sort of dilemma for me.  Finding (remembering!) things from the 90’s that come to that email address every once in a while – on behalf of other businesses I did work for. You see there are a lot of other people’s sites tied in with that email as a contact (so in a nutshell that’s one big reason I can’t toss it easily).  I haven’t decided how to transition.  It’s really not all that monumental an issue -> ALL of my contacts come into the same inbox except the yahoo address.  So don’t worry about the best way to contact me.    And please don’t laugh too hard at me & my many many addresses…!  Cheers guys!

Chimera 2D Battle Ponies!!!

Right now I'm supposed to be getting ready to rush out the door & leave but then I got these most awesome (what a hoot!) screen shots.  Battle Ponies from the 2D version of the game Chimera..  http://chimeragame.com/

It's really rather addicting & not so hard at first.  I'm not particularly good at these sorts of game mind ya.  ANYHOW, the $19.95 special version is TOTALLY worth it imo AND it's a cool fundraiser for the 3D game licensing costs... so you're doing a good thing by buying it... NEVERMIND that you get your money back & then some with the discount coupons and specials offered.  I like the term "retro style" for the 2D aspect but it really makes me giggle to see names of people and works that I know.

I'll leave it at that... I'm late! But woohoo for battle ponies! (they're at a high level it'll probably take me a month to figure out how to get there.. I'm still trying to figure out what it means to "use a horse" as a weapon anyhow.  Too funny! :D

And if anyone else is interested in helping Sherry raise funds for the most cool 3D version definitely contact her. She's very awesome to work with! :)
(later Thurs evening)
Just got home to more, VIDEO showing how it works...   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08i_FY5IAYM&feature=youtu.be

Ok, now I still don't know how it works but for all those who play computer games I'm sure this must explain some... it's definitely more complicated than anything I would've thought (& especially more than I would have figured out) but it's SO FUNNY to me all the same!  I love Caroline & Sheri there in their studios..  too much fun! :)

Treasure hunt questions & answers up + thoughts & rambles..

Aside from releasing a new resin this weekend I also held a treasure hunt for my yahoogroup members! For ease of posterity I'm posting a link here to the rules & answers.

Congrats to the winner!! (1st place is getting a Little Man Mango resin!). The 2nd & 3rd place winners got medallions & discounts. The remaining 4 (there were 7 winners) got discount %s too.  Congrats to all really!  I can be so ambiguous I'm THRILLED people figured it out at all! :D

Happiest of all to me was that people figured it out a bit faster than the one over Thanksgiving weekend. That one took the first winner around 45minutes & the subsequent winners almost an hour. My goal was to have people really not wasting more than 15min searching around & the 1st place winner too around 10minutes & the remaining answers came in under half an hour so woot! I'm getting the hang of it I hope too!

I'm thinking Thanksgiving weekend is a good time again perhaps. We'll see. Now that we live away from where we grew up holiday weekends don't involve driving for hours around to see my family & his. Back in CT I also had my own boarding barn or a horse job where the work doesn't take holidays either. So holiday weekends were insanely busy typically. However... even if mine have really lightened up, other folks haven't I know SO.. we'll see.

Still.. I do kinda dig the idea of rewarding people who do NOT do the Black Friday madness. Haha!

Truly though input is always welcome, on the questions/instructions.. what have you. I use the yahoogroup for announcing the contest because I can't use the email sub service for contests like this (they really didn't want me to even try - in talking to tech support when I signed up for it). I'm on the fence about going with a forum for announcing/holding it. The problem there too, not everyone is registered as a user. So for now, yahoogroups seems to be the best bet for me. Other ideas welcome though! :) Email me at artbymorgen@yahoo.com; morgen@one-horse.net, I'm all ears! :D

Meanwhile, here are the results;
http://www.artbymorgen.com/april2012_hunt.htm
Here are the rules/questions;
http://www.artbymorgen.com/Hunt_guidelines.htm

Maxixe de Barrios - a bit about the breed & the name!

Hi sales information is online now here; http://www.artbymorgen.com/maxixe.htm

Max's gallery is here http://www.artbymorgen.com/galleries/maxixe/index.html.

& Now I'm excited to finally share more information about his inspirations and namesake!

First, the breed...
So some leads on learning more about the Criollo (aka Crioullo). As South America’s stock horse, these guys are of obvious Spanish decent.  http://www.justacriollo.com/pages_en/Criollocaracteristiques_en.htm   I was inspired to do this sculpture after coming across a good # at my first horse event here in North Carolina (here is a photo I shared earlier of one horse there https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEdYdrOXvSBE0lWwxPRo59txEoajYp4Rzi2vt3Nmc0C8ihdy3rMEWXe7ySrAEf_vVSNydfGklP5HXy8WaCVTJCv7UHX1e6RYw6RZXljJgd3tCRwdnIf0mHzkjIpS9DQpJ8ufnDEtvFvkw/s1600/criollo_bensonmuledays.jpg ) .  Where I was born/raised (CT) horses are predominately bay/brown & grey, appaloosa or pinto is a notable exception.  For instance I distinctly remember when I first saw a blue roan or a buckskin!   So of course I’m just charmed by what a wonderful variety of colors I stumbled into with these guys!  And for even more, please check out Martina  Vannelli’s flickr albums!!

That last cream (champagne?) fellow shows how they seem to like to leave ear hair there to protect from those flies even though many are quite meticulously groomed.

The build of these guys to me is this epitome of the notion of a “foot in every corner” stock horse look – crossed with the gorgeous Spanish body type (*check out this guy -> "Guapo" indeed eh! https://picasaweb.google.com/tiagodpoa/CrioulosABCCCVIII#5088448429188613538 )   There are many names for the breed in the various South American countries.  There are various ways they do the hair, more often now you’re seeing the completely roached forelocks too – but I opted for the more traditional look they often seem to be halter shown in; roached mane, hair at the wither & long forelock, banged tail.  I recently saw someone describe Andalusian’s as “hair growing machines” and these guys definitely have that going on for them as well!  Most I’ve found have exceptionally lush wavy tails.

This handsome Criollo shows that robust build and also, you can see they are very small! (Under 14.2hh very often I guess).  Used with permission of “LA PRESTANCIA - CABALLOS CRIOLLOS - TANDIL – ARGENTINA” (Facebook page; https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001062555671 )

Another album you REALLY might enjoy for both it’s historical value and all the variety of builds and colors these horses come in;
https://picasaweb.google.com/tiagodpoa
 

https://picasaweb.google.com/tiagodpoa/CrioulosABCCCVIII


https://picasaweb.google.com/tiagodpoa/CrioulosArgentinos


Next….the name...
My choice of this (crazy hard to pronounce!) :)  name is based on the so so typical Spanish breed movement.  I wanted an M name that related to the musical beat aspect of their gait.  They always seem to me as if they’re hearing their own internal rhythm!

Maxixe is a Brazilian tango – the name actually stems from the African influence which is why it’s a very unusual (hard to pronounce!) word.  Portuguese translators indicate it’s almost pronounced to rhyme with hasheesh.   However if you listen to the man at the beginning of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msVY6ysbyWk  performance you’ll hear him say “maxixe” and it’s as if he puts an extra “sheesh” in there. ... as in "mah-she-sheesh"… SHEESH huh? Lol! Sorry to pick another tough name gang!

To harken back to the fashion in which most Spanish horses seem to be named I created a rather arbitrary sounding bloodline by the “de Barrios”.  In part because of all the little maxixe pieces I found on youtube they lacked the right tempo except for a few, I especially like this one as the bongo (bongos right??) really tap out that beat you tend to associate with hoof beats! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lyLaASIjsU&feature=related    Some versions of Agustin Barrios Mangore’s maxixe are often played slower… but I give you these two to hear it as I do – with more staccato!

So there you have it!  Max represents a little folksy working & proudly parading stock horse from a country with rich traditions and beautiful and exceptionally athletic horses! (What a mouthful).

Today's Wild Hare... :)

I got a wild hare to put in some wilder hair! :D Just to the forelock. Just because I really should be doing anything but fiddling around over there (including taking the time to take the dogs to the park instead of a run around inside the garage - for both of our health). Ah well though, sometimes you just gotta take a few minutes to do something when the mood strikes ya! :)

Here I've only really added a tiny tad onto both sides of his forelock giving it taper & fringe. But I think it really helps from various angles a lot more. Especially to complete the "flare" feeling of his swishing tail - these are reminiscent to me of a flamenca dancer's dress motion... constantly whirling and so very full and heavy looking yet somehow light all the same!

Enough waxing philosophical... I have to hit the showers now. Got pretty grimy today (not doing this 20min add on)..

Btw, in case it's not really clear -> this is just the base & I'll be blending/grooving it one these tendrils firm up. Sunday! :D

What a different feel it has to me than this view I took yesterday..

Watching paint dry...

No no, not quite that bad. In fact it's probably for the best that I'm giving it days to dry here before putting in veins/details. Saturday I'll be at the races (vending in my tent again)... events where I tote everything out always seem to me like "oh I don't have much to do for that" .. and then I really do. I'm always packing my stuff at midnight or later the night before ANY kind of show. When will I learn??!

Sooooo seriously though, I'd LIKE to believe now that I'm all prepared here. That I've gotten my booth stuff ready to go & tomorrow will be a simple matter of packing my stuff into the vehicle for an early Saturday send off? That said, I doubt it. Tomorrow I'll be scrambling around with some big project I remembered.

Picture of my wares out at an Open House at Artist Gallery in downtown Southern Pines last week - so they're all ready to go already for this upcoming weekend for the Saturday races at the Carolina Horse Park in Raeford! :)

My fiance is really doing the major stuff - he is making mini jump standards for hanging those paintings on. Here they are at an open house in the "Artist Gallery" open house last week. It truly messes with me, this name... every year (except this year probably) in the summer I've participated in something called "Artist's Gallery" at the Holiday Inn (now Clarion) in Lexington - a ball room of artists hosted by Breyer during their Breyerfest event. This year I hope to be doing a booth around the arena... so those jump standards will be helpful then somehow too! :) (You know I just want them SO BADLY to play with the dogs with, right? I've wanted mini jump standards since I was like .. 5... I've even had real jump standards but I don't care -> the mini ones are the cutest thing since .... cute things.. I dunno! They ROCK!). :)

Go me with the artsy shot here... :-P I'm really just being silly but it was fun to try!

Pictures are so heavy so I'm hoping the mini jump standards can take it!

He's also slapped together some lovely pedestals for me and I was just out sanding & painting them. While doing so I realized/remembered that the pictures I've been taking here (for another purpose/submission actually), were done with the wrong camera settings for my set up. So DOH... & Thus, here's a slightly better lit photo of my dude that's not all grainy! :D