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. 

 

 

 :)

A Shiny Dream Come True

Picture this:

A visit to Pour Horse Pottery where Joan Berkwitz herself, and I, help you paint your own CM Glaze horse.  With enough food to eat, and friends to visit with & work alongside, to fill the day. Then- a relaxing evening with more socializing, merriment, and (of course) chocolate, in a lakeside bungalow.

Sound pretty good?

How about spending the next day with even more ceramic equine artists?  Learning to china-paint on specially designed porcelain medallions with pro Karen Gerhart, having Joanie show you how to repair your beloved broken pieces, learning to sculpt your own medallion with English artist Kelly Savage, learning about European Chinas with Pauline Entin and Kathy Williams, or discovering more about Digital Photography and Photo Showing with Mel Miller? Oh- and having large buffets served at every meal?

Even better, huh?

But wait!  Why not, on Saturday, throw in a specialized ceramic horse show with some of the finest examples of earthenware, bone china and porcelain horses you'll ever see?  Oh, and a couple more buffet meals- plus a sit-down banquet dinner with awards galore:

 Joanie will be making 30 of the new Hoscars!

But we're not done yet!

How about more showing on Sunday, more food, and another trip to Pour Horse for more visiting & learning how to make molds with Margaret Olson?

Pretty darn cool!

Joanie & I are so thankful to all of those who have been supporting the convention.  You can learn about some of the projects they are working on for BOYCC, on their blogs.  Sarah Minkiewicz has been working on a super special centerpiece on her blog, Musings at Minkiewicz Studios, and Lesli Kathman has shared on her blog, the name-badges she is making for all of the entrants:

A lot of good stuff! And it is going to be a lot of fun.  We've got friends coming from far and wide- will you be amoung them?  There are still a few spots available, if you aren't signed up, and have been considering it.  To learn more about this fantastic weekend, please visit:

I almost forgot!  Joanie has been hard at work on producing a very limited edition Pour Horse OF Callahan run.  This run will be available only to BOYCC entrants.  Here is a pic of a couple of the tests- the exact color hasn't been quite decided to my knowledge, but will be something along these lines:

See you there!  :)

Spotty Goodness

I guess I am a sucker for spots.  I own a very spotty dog.  I keep finding myself painting spotty horses.  I guess it all began when I discovered that I could do a decent sabino, way back when.  I got excited and wanted to do more, so Joanie of Pour Horse let me paint a run of Black Sabino Clydesdale pins.  After that, I turned my sights on the tobiano pattern, and started practicing that more.  The VA Black Jack Davy run really helped me to polish my skills with tobiano, but also let me work more on my sabino patterns, as well as the other various overo patterns.  It wasn't until I did a CM run on Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig's Spinnaker that found out that I had a knack for the Appaloosa pattern as well.  I don't think I'd really tried it up until that point- but I was glad I waited, for the previous horses under my belt made it more attainable.  I was excited that Miniature Horses came in appy and pintaloosa, for that meant I could keep practicing with Jellibaby and Toot Sweet, which I delighted in doing.  And then of course, when I discovered that Irish Cobs/Gypsies came in appy- I just had to give Callahan a whirl!  Fun Stuff.

Now that I've finally sat down to paint a few Toot Sweet resins, it was an easy call to try to do an appy one.  But man, what a difference!  The choice was easy, the execution... well, it is proving to be a bit harder with this different medium.  Thankfully, some of my techniques are applicable.  But others- not so much.  With my ceramic appaloosas, there is the additive process in airbrushing the shading and hand painting the spots- but so much of it is subtractive- scritching, erasing and sanding.  Here I'm finding more, that I need to add in the little hairs to get the look I want, which is testing my skills & challenging my brain more.  But 'tis a good thing!  I'm always game to stretch and push myself.  I may even discover something that I can translate and apply to ceramics- who knows?!  In any case, I thought this Sweetie was coming along enough to share.  She still has a way to go, but I thought y'all would like to see her in-progress.  I'm kinda happy with the way some of the halo-ing on her spots came out. That was an interesting thing to play with- the halo effect is something I find challenging in ceramics, and I've never really been able to get it the way I want yet.  A few of these acrylic spots have hit the mark, in my mind (now to make them all do that!).  Anyways, I hope you enjoy the pictures.  I'm working on a resin Jellibaby to go with this mare- she's not quite as far along, but I will post pictures of the two of them together when they are both done!

:)

Callahan Resins to Delight and Please

The bisque Callahan master was sent off to my resin caster the other day! Yes indeed, there will be Callahan resins for sale in the future! I need to wait for my quotes to come in before I can give any idea of pricing, but as soon as it is all decided, I will pass that info on to the members of the Brightly Hude Yahoo Group, which will be the primary venue for selling the castings.

In other news, a big thank you to the many people who participated in the sculpting poll! It was looking pretty close there for a while, but a clear winner turned up in the end. Hmm... looks like I'm going to have to point my brain in a more American Indian Horse direction! I've got a few ideas already... now to flesh them out!

:)

And the Winners Are...

ArabsRule (who gets "C") & MAO (who gets "B")! Or, as the number generator from Random.org decided, #3 and #12 (I didn't count my one comment in the mix!). Handy thing, that random number generator. Thanks to everyone who played & made a comment! Thank you also, to those who've participated in the poll. The numbers are all pretty close right now! If you haven't voted and still want to, the poll will be open for 5 more days.

Thanks!

:)

To Sculpt, or Not to Sculpt...

Callahan needed his back lengthened, at one point...

Hey folks!

I thought I would try out the poll feature on this blog, just because I could! You will find it on the right hand side of the main page. I've been looking at reference pictures of breeds and poses over the past few weeks; I am hoping to hit the clay soon! Right now, I'm just wondering which of these ideas I should begin first- a couple of them have been floating in my brain for a while, and one of them is new. So, if you choose, you can voice your opinion & see if this helps to inspire me to get going on one or the other! I think I'd like to do all of these breeds at some point, but right now I've been going back & forth on which one to initially tackle. The breeds are: A Neapolitan Stallion in Levade (an extinct, historic, 'Baroque' breed), a Foundation Morgan Mare (probably running or trotting), or an American Indian Horse (a svelte stock breed that comes in every color!). So, what'll it be?

:)

Brightly Hude is Here!

Greetings to all of my friends who followed Velasquez Artistry, and a big welcome to all of the new folk! Finally, Brightly Hude Studio is in business- the paperwork's all squared away, the website has been re-vamped, fun new electronic media was created, and lo, even some art work was produced, in the midst of all that!

I am very proud to announce that this year marks my 10th Anniversary in business! Sure, the name has changed, but the shiny goodness continues on! In honor of that, and to kick-start all of this bright new stuff, I thought I'd begin with a few giveaways, and a couple things for sale! While I'm waiting for my kiln to be delivered up to my new home (via a pair of wonderful parents), I started on some Toot Sweet & Jellibaby resins, and I've begun to plot out upcoming sculptures. In addition to that, for a while now, I'd been wanting to produce some ACEO cards ("Art Card Editions & Originals); I figured that now would be the perfect time! Hence I give you these brightly hued, Art Nouveau inspired originals. They are done in pen, acrylic and colored pencil (click for a larger image):



Wanna win one of these? There are 2 ways! You can enter both of these ways, or pick the one that best suits you. One entry per person, per site. To enter this giveaway, you can:


1) Leave a comment on this blog post with all 3 cards listed in the order that you prefer (a,b,c, or b,c,a, or c,b,a, etc.).

-) Well, I was going to do something with my new Facebook Fan Page - but there were just too many restrictions on promotions there! Anyhow, I will just draw 2 names from this blog post. But you can still "like" my new fan page, if you want!

2) Sign up for my new Yahoo Group.


That's it! I will be drawing one name from each site via random number generator on Tuesday, March 15th, at 6 pm PST (which will mark the end of the giveaway). No purchase is required, and I will contact the winners for their mailing addresses, and mail the card won to their home; anywhere in the world! Neither Blogspot, Facebook, or Yahoo have any affiliation with this promotion.


But wait- there's more!

Today, up for sale are 2 more art cards! My first items to be offered under the moniker, Brightly Hude! These cards for sale at $32.50 each including postage, an acid-free protective sleeve, and hard-plastic display case. They are first come/first serve- email me at: sales (at) brightlyhude (dot) com if you are interested in one!


And just because I can, here are a few pictures of the cards in their cases, along with some in progress pics. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope to someday do more in the future (and you will see, I've a couple of designs did not get finished in time!).

Oh! Before I forget- it is easy to subscribe to this blog! Enter in your email address, and have it neatly delivered to your email in-box, whenever there are updates (and I will try to be better about posting! My last blog was woefully kept up with...).




:)