It just makes me so happy...

Anyone who knows me, knows that I passionately love my dogs. I love to talk about them, show them off, and spend most of each day with them. So, when I saw how talented Kelly Savage was with dog portraits, I approached her about doing my three furchildren.
She agreed, and I can't be more excited. Kelly has taken an amazing amount of time, gathering information and photos of the dogs. She has asked questions until she has a good image in her mind of, not only what they look like, but what their personalities and quirks are.
I've worked with some of the most talented artists in the model horse world, and I truly appreciate the professionalism and the seriousness with which Kelly has approached this project.
You can watch the progress on her blog, here. She also has some extraordinary sculptures and paint jobs, and is definitely a force in our world, but right now all I can think about is how pleased I am with the progress of the project, and how exciting it is to watch as the portraits will be taking shape. The composition of the photos is spot-on, her choice of each photo really does capture the inner essence of each dog. She's right that Casper has a 'glint of wisdom', indeed, he is something of an 'old soul'. Bear is just a rollicking goofball with a mane, and Yasha is, as always, alert and aware.

Don't worry, Kelly, that Boxing Shire will be yours.. and something else besides. I've done a lot of trades, for horses and tile work and molds, but this trade gives me more joy than I can describe.

Brownies in 2009

You wouldn't think that a cut apart rubber Brownie would make me so happy, but this one sure does. It is the goal that I worked all week for. This little rubber donkey is just perfect. The mold that made him is going to allow me to use him and make plaster production molds. His head, his forelegs, and his body will all be seperate molds and then will be attached in the greenware stage. The innovation that you see, which is really a breakthrough from past molds, is that I cut the RUBBER instead of the resin original. Cutting the resin was difficult and tricky, and because the dremel takes away a lot of material, it created castings that have to be given a great deal of extra attention to put back together. However, by cutting the rubber, I was able to get razor blade exactness, and when he is put together, he should fit like those giant stone bricks on a Mayan temple. Or something like that.

I did something else kind of strange. I poured him through his forehead!! Yikes! Well, I had a good reason to do so. You see, the ultimate goal was to pour the castings through the neck of the body, but I couldn't arrange that until the head was off. I couldn't cut the head off until I had a rubber casting. I couldn't get a rubber casting until I had a pour hole to pour the rubber through. So, I though to myself... "where can I put the pour hole that I can later re-pour right against the original, and not have a scar where the pour hole was?" Then it came to me... I could pour plaster right against his head! It should release just fine, because of the way the piece is engineered, and I can use the rubber head for the rest of the plaster pours. That is the best of both worlds. So, let's hope it works.

Aardvark Clay isn't open until tomorrow, they took the whole week off, so I will need to go up there for plaster before I can make the production molds. When the molds are made, I will then post an article on exactly how the mold was made, start to finish, because only when you see what I wanted to accomplish, can you understand the decisions I made. He is now a pretty straightforward mold to make, so thank goodness... there will be nice warm Brownies in 2009!

Joanie