Claybody CM- Coming Along...

 

One of my latest projects has been this Claybody Custom Callahan, which I've now dubbed "Morrissey," after an old family name.  Now that I'll have access to a kiln again, I'm jumping back into my preferred medium- although what I *really* need to do is to finish a new sculpture, so I'll have a new horse to produce for y'all!  But since BOYCC is coming up, I wanted to have something new and shiny to sell, and this guy is it.  He will be offered first to attendees of BOYCC, and if he doesn't sell there (after all- they will have an OF Callahan they can purchase there, amongst things!), I will offer him to my Yahoo Group.  That aside, I thought you all would enjoy pictures here of his in-progress, scritchy little self.  He is a dappled dark bay sabino.  Yes, I thought I'd double the fun with spots and dapples!  The dapples are a little hard to see in the state he's in- after he is glazed they should shine through a little more clearly:

 

The flash made the colors seem a little off- but you can kind of see the dapples.

Several layers went into his coat- after a priming layer of white, straight black was airbrushed on, and that layer was dappled.  Next came his base coat, a couple of layers of brown shades, and finally, more black on top.  His mane was hand-painted, and his tail will be a combo of hand-painting & airbrush work (I purposely left the tail out of the pic above, because it is 1/2 unpainted at this point!).  Speaking of the mane & tail, those were the two areas that received the most claybody-ing.  I'll post side by side pictures of Morrissey & the original Callahan when this fella is all done & shiny.  I've still a little ways to go on him (I want to add in some even finer sabino hair-detail, do his eyes, kissy spots, etc. and his tail of course!), but it shouldn't be too much longer.

And this is entirely non-horse related, but I thought I'd share with you these lovely sights from Washington State- my husband took these photos on one of our walks last month.  It is really nice to be living close enough to the ocean for a casual stroll!  (The dog always enjoys it too- so many neat smells!)  True that we have our share of gray days, but the beautiful scenery around here makes up for that, if I may say so. 

 

 

 :)