Mayhem is a gathering that happens most every May, and involves a great deal of eating. In between eating (since you can't eat ALL day, no matter how hard you try!) we sit and make shiny horses.

The story starts a few weeks before Mayhem, as I worked feverishly to finish the Taboo mold. Lesli Kathman had done the molds on Imp and Vixen, but she turned the stallion over to me, since she'd had enough rubber pouring and plaster scraping for a while. I decided that I wanted the Taboos to be done in time for Mayhem, so that Lesli and Sarah and Lynn and I would all have one or two to play with. Lesli was bringing Imps and Vixens, and how could the family be incomplete? So, the moldmaking was rushed but the molds turned out all right (except for his left ear, which has to be hand formed each time from these molds) I also finished enough Brownies to bring each gal one.
I arrived at Mayhem with bisques, as did Lesli, and we started painting and working on them. I decided to strive to finish two... one Taboo and one Brownie, for sale when I got home to pay for the trip. I also painted my Imp. Then, I could finish my Vixen at home when I wouldn't be rushed or distracted. Since Lesli has allowed me to make extra Taboos in exchange for having made the mold, I didn't mind selling the first one... in fact, I was highly looking forward to it. (My first mistake)
You have to understand about Boise, and Mayhem, and the way it works. We sit in Sarah's garage, beautifully laid out as a work space, and it increasingly fills with boxes, paints, food items, bubble wrap, tools, randomly placed items, and our ever expanding girths as we go out at least twice a day... usually three times... for meals in the excellent restaurants surrounding the area. This time, we initiated our visit with Thai food from the Sa-Wa-Dee, and I was delighted to drink tea from the Elephant teapot again. So, we begin working and filling up space, and eating and digesting, and talking and laughing, and I'm trying hard to finish those two little shiny beasties in time to bring them home finished. And, being small, they don't take as much work as... say, a Stormwatch... so I actually did pretty well. The Brownie served double duty, as he allowed me to show the girls how I freehand airbrush and then clean up the edges with an eraser, for a softer but still defined pattern. I have that process down pat, and did him fairly quickly. He was given an undercoat of a yellow-beige, that was rubbed away from the high areas, so that it sunk into his coat and gave it depth. The Taboo took more time... masking off the teeeeny tiiiiiny mane took forever...but I painted him a bright "Voltage" chestnut with a lighter mane and tail. He has a darling nose marking too, and I was pleased with his detailing. It's a good color on him, shows off his musculature and detail, without being too fancy. Soooo..... it came time to glaze them. I decided to do something different. (My second mistake) Matte or satin glazes are harder to do than glossy, and Lynn Fraley has been getting such good results with her matte/satins, that I decided that the crowning touch would be a nice matte glaze on these beasties. So, I asked Lynn for the tips for success on the Laguna matte, of which Sarah had an unopened jar. "Don't apply too heavily, and don't overcook".... okay, no problem. I tend to apply glazes lightly anyway, and it's no big deal to run them through twice, rather than getting them too heavy. So, I sprayed the Taboo and the Brownie with the Laguna clear matte. I also sprayed a little wonderful plaque that Sarah had donated to the glazing chaos, and that Lesli had painted.
We started the kiln, and probably went out to eat, and the next morning....




Oh DAMN!!!



We opened the kiln, and just stared at the Brownie and Taboo. The Taboo didn't look too bad on first glance, since he was chestnut. But the Brownie looked like... well...like he had rolled in urine. He was bright translucent matte yellow, with his grey pattern showing underneath! I thought for a few minutes that I had just over-hit him with the yellow undercoat, but I realized that even if I had, the high parts of his coat would still be white, since they were rubbed off thoroughly. Nope, he was varying shades of yellow all over. Even over his eyes, like he was blind or something. YUCK!!! The Taboo, close up, had the same problem... especially his forehand. His facial shading that had really been gorgeous, was overlaid with yellow. And his blaze was yellow!
Here I had been, all happy about finishing early, bragging on how I had done my work and could just coast for the last day of the visit, and the Glaze Gods had heard me and jerked the rug out from under me. They do that, every once in a while. The unopened jar of glaze had been mis-marked. I looked at it again, several times, and it was clearly marked "clear matte" with no mention of "pee-yellow"!

So, I applied some gloss glaze over the top and ran them through again, and while it did help, it didn't make them good enough to sell. I plan to run them through again, a few times maybe, and also apply some paint over the top to see if they can be fixed. The Brownie might turn out all right, but the Taboo is probably never going to leave my case. I won't sell a substandard piece, and would rather keep him as a reminder of what happens when you get over confident. His name? Hubris.
Of course.


The other parts of Mayhem were great, we had a lot of fun, and the visit to Lynn and Barry was way too short! Lynn made us up boxes of china paints, mixing mediums, and glazed pieces to play with, and gave us a tutorial on airbrushing china paints, which was something that I am anxious to try. And, in keeping with the eating theme, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Lynn makes the tastiest spicy pecans that the world has ever seen.

So, that's the story of my Mayhem (and see Lesli's blog for her post-Mayhem misfortunes, poor Lesli!) I came home and had to make something quick, to pay the incoming bills, so I did another Taboo in a satin dapple grey and sold him immediately. (photos below)


































Here is the Imp, done in a glossy highlighted buckskin. Good gracious, he is tiny! You can't believe all the little detail. My camera just isn't able to take pictures that show him off properly, but you get the idea.

Happy April Fools Day!

Well, apparently April Fools Day is upon us. I put up a long post but can't seem to get the pictures to resize correctly, and it's time to go out and work. So, here is just the end of the post, with the one picture that seems to fit properly into the frame of the blog! I'll try again tonight...

When you do ceramics, you find that little silly ideas can actually be realized. If you can mold it or sculpt it, you can make it shiny! I did this little Casper the Circus Dog for Sarah M as a present a few years ago. He's the standard Casper ornament, but I lopped off his head and inserted a frilly Circus collar. Then I opened his mouth and sculpted a tongue and teeth, and finally put a hat on him. He stands on a custom made circus drum. Fun!



Joanie

End of an Era

When I started Pour Horse, I had no idea where it would lead. That was, what, fourteen years ago? Fourteen years. So many ups and downs, so many triumphs and tragedies. Learning processes, changing technologies, and just plain nose-to-the-grindstone working. Day in and day out, clay on my clothes, plaster all over the counter. Greenware piled on shelves, cushioned with random torn off pieces of foam rubber. The smell of the kiln, hot metal and brick, click and buzz as it heats, snapping as it cools. From making my own clay slip, to making the molds, to casting, cleaning, painting, glazing and shipping... all of it, here, has been woven into my life tapestry and become part of my identity.

So, having announced the end of Original Finish production runs when Otto is finished, it is with mixed feelings that I look toward the future. For the first time in fourteen years, I'm finishing a run and not already working on another one. No mailing to go out, no updating of the name list, no molds to frantically make, no production photo to take out on the cliff. I've done over *three thousand* horses in those fourteen years, most of them Original Finish limited production pieces. Otto was by far the hardest, being the most detailed and complicated of the sculptures. Otto is cast in four molds and his head and forelegs are attached during the cleaning process. His paint job is also quite complex, and the color has varied greatly over the time span of his production. It took three years to finish Otto. But I did it, by golly. I did it. To have a visual representation of what kind of work that entails, Lesli Kathman kindly helped my by doing this graphic:
(click on it for a bigger photo)



Now remember that for every fifteen or so of these, I had to make a new set of molds, which took one or two days to do. And this doesn't represent the broken ones, the bisques, the goofs, or the customs. This is only the OF pieces. It's rather startling, isn't it? But somehow, I still feel a little sad at the thought that I won't be doing another run. Like my family says, "it's like hitting yourself on the head with a hammer, because it feels so good when you stop". I need to put the hammer down now.

There are so many fantastic horses still to make, sculptures to bring to life, and fun projects to do. My studio is full of customs and new ideas. The airbrush is beckoning, to try out new ways of painting, new ways of dappling, roaning, or glazing. With the moldmaking techniques that we can now bring to bear on new sculptures, we can make almost any horse. We are limited only by our dreams. My dream was Pour Horse, and I am grateful for everyone who has been a customer and a friend. We've seen a lot of changes together, haven't we? And now we go into a new phase, where more possibilities open up for going down artistic pathways and exploring new trends and ideas.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a Brownie

The Brownie mold is successful, and here are the clinkies to prove it... some of the first Brownies are out of the kiln and looking good! Nappe sold immediately, and is going to live in the Pacific Northwest for a while. Kaibito is at auction right now, the auction ends Monday, Feb. 8th, so go and visit him at MyAuctionBarn.

It's incredible how much detail this little guy has, with his really deep hair whorls and fuzzy fuzzy-wozzieness. His little eyes are peeking out from under his donkey bangs, and his little hooves are twinkling in a caper. He's a joy to paint!

I've been naming them after geological formations and Grand Canyon locations, the geological formations came from a search for "brownies, imps, pixies" which lead to a website with the names of all of the Little Folk in every language. One name caught my eye, it was Norwegian for a water feature, and another was some sort of geological formation. They seemed to be apt, and the geological names lead me to the Grand Canyon, which is of course one of the most interesting of geological artifacts. Since a donkey was found on Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon, abandoned by the miner who must have perished in the Canyon... the donkey was later named "Brighty", as you probably know... the Grand Canyon names seemed to suit. So, here are the first of the Brownies and their names. There will eventually be a page on the Pour Horse site with all of the glazed Brownies. (clicking on these photos will give you bigger ones)

Klippe:



Nappe:




Kaibito:


Coconino:




There will be many more Brownies later, but now that these are done, I have to get back to the LAST EIGHT OTTOS!!!! WHOO HOO!!! And a backlog of customs that need to be finished. Have to get caught up a bit before I can feel good about playing with Brownies again, so look for them in the future!

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

Christmas moldmaking

It's been a hectic month, I tried to fit too much into a small time frame, but I'm glad to report that much of it actually got done! Thanks to my loving hubby, who pitched in and spent days painting and moving furniture.

Bob, our son, graduated from Wyotech on December 19th. It was an intensive nine month program, and he switched his specialty to Light Diesel, but he was third in his class and received an Honorable Mention for Outstanding Student! Before he came back home, I wanted to paint the front bedroom so that once the furniture was moved, it could stay. The front bedroom had last been decorated for Allison... the walls were mustard yellow, the doors were burgandy, and the door frames and closet were midnight blue. It was Passage to India themed, and was charming when it was new, and all of the furniture and accessories matched. However, without the burgandy mosquito netting draped over the bed, or the elephant carvings and candle sconces on the wall, it was really ugly! So, we dragged everything out and painted it a pleasant, light minty green with white trim. Which we could have done in a day... except that I decided to paint the awful popcorn ceiling.




Which was a terrible idea.

Three GALLONS of white paint later, and two days of arm-aching rolling, we finally had a white ceiling instead of a dingy grey one. Then we painted the walls, finally, and it was so damp and humid and cold... and we were in such a rush... that the paint began oozing down the wall because it wasn't drying before we tried to put another coat on. We cranked up the heater, washed out the brushes, and fell into bed. Just in time to pack up the truck next morning and head up to Sacramento for Bob's graduation. The Grapevine (mountain pass) was closed due to snow, and opened up just before we arrived, thank goodness. The graduation ceremony, the next afternoon, was lovely, and I cried of course. So proud! Then, we packed up his apartment, loaded everything in the truck and the car, and headed home. Over the icy pass. With a fully loaded truck. Through an incredible amount of traffic because of accidents and overturns on the freeway. Eleven hours later, we arrived home. (three hours longer than usual)

So, the Christmas tree is finally up, the presents are being wrapped, some are being sent, and things are beginning to settle down.

If you've been watching Lesli's blog, you will have gotten a taste for what moldmaking is like. She is much more patient and organized than I am, and her blog gives the best step by step ever!! Now you can see what goes into the process...it's slow, tedious, and demanding. Just the thing for a holiday week, eh? Well, I like to make molds over the holidays, because in the past when the kids were at school, I didn't have to drive them to school and back over the holiday weeks. It became a habit, to do molds at this time of year. Sort of a ritual, almost. Readying for the New Year. Of course, it really is a bad time to do molds, it's so cold and the mold rubber and plaster like to be room temperature. Oh well! I've ordered mold rubber, because new rubber is always the least bubbly when poured, and Brownie should be arriving from Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig any day. I'm going to take my time and play with some ideas for making better molds, ideas that a few of us have been pondering and working with for a while.



This is Brownie, next to a resin Pixie. This will give you a sense of scale on the two pieces. Pixie is a traditional scale foal, so Brownie is a traditional scale donkey foal. My plan of action is similar to Lesli's tactics with her Imp mold... make a good rubber mold, a couple of good rubber Brownies, and then make the cuts necessary to cast the piece by cutting apart the rubber instead of the resin. I plan to use her bubble-free method of getting the mold rubber into the mold, also, which will make life a lot easier with the fuzzy beastie!

Brownie, like Pixie and Dafydd, will be done as custom glazes and bisques only. The molds will be done (with any luck!) in January, but don't look for any Brownies to be made until the Ottos are all gone.

Here's wishing you a happy, healthy, safe Christmas and holiday season, and a secure and prosperous New Year.

Joanie