mini Marwari released!

The official release date of the mini Marwari was August 7th, but I only now have time to update the blog. All his ordering info is here on his webpage, but to sum it up he's available for a year and is $75.00 ppd within the US, $65.00 for raw casts. Here's a few pics:

I had a heck of a time getting good photos of him, I swear white resin is the hardest thing to photograph ever! I can't wait to see some painted up, with the first raw castings getting shipped this week sometime, yay!  You can't see by my wonderful photos (!) that he has tiny veins on his face, rump, belly, shoulder, and tiny whisker bumps on his muzzle and eyebrows. He's very detailed, one of my most detailed minis to date. 

In non-model horse news my painting of a roan mustang awaiting adoption won the People's Choice Award at the La Plata County fair this past weekend:

 
This painting along with three other mustang paintings are now available as fine art giclee prints in my Etsy shop. A portion of all proceeds benefits our local mustang herd in Spring Creek Basin. There are now a total of 7 different mustang portraits, with more to come.

Also now available as a print is the draft horse portrait "Hairy". Since he isn't a mustang he isn't in my Etsy shop, for now I am trying to keep the mustangs as a separate thing. "Hairy" is available in 9 X 12 for $35.00 + $5.25 shipping ($8.25 overseas) and 11 X 14 for $50.00, shipping the same. 

I want a Hairy!

Sizes

9 X 12 with US shipping $40.25 USD 11 X 14 with US shipping $55.25 USD 9 X 12 with overseas shipping $43.25 USD 11 X 14 with overseas shipping $58.25 USD

Marwari anyone?

It's finally starting to feel like spring around here, with that comes a much more challenging to-do list. Winter has it's drawbacks, but there is quite a bit more 'free' time to pursue other things like the pastel painting. That will have to be set aside for awhile while I try to figure out how to squeeze more time out of a day. Here's the last one, I will probably have prints made at some point:

Speaking of prints, all the current orders are shipping today! Yay! They turned out gorgeous, and are on heavy archival paper. Fine Print was very patient with me and all my beginner issues. This also means I now have prints on hand for quick shipment. To see what's available visit my Etsy shop. Since I am taking delivery of the prints and doing the shipping I decided to go ahead and sign and number each print, with the edition sizes being set at 200. 

On to other news, I am going to be releasing at least one more mini in the next few months, and possibly another in the fall. Minis work out better for me in several ways, so that is where my focus is going to be for awhile. There may be a shrinky of an older edition, too, but I have not yet decided. While shrinkies of older popular editions are well liked, people seem to LOVE new sculpts! Here is my current project, a Marwari, and I am totally open to comments as usual:

 

The Akhal Teke sheen

For a challenge I thought I'd try an Akhal Teke with their infamous metallic sheen. This is a 9 X 12 on Wallis Professional sanded pastel paper. Photo reference provided by Heather Abounader:

$100.00 + $10.00 s&h

SOLD!

Tiny has been shipping for a few weeks now, and a few painted ones are popping up. I am especially fond of pintos, and here is a really nice one by Tammy Myrold:

 

More information on purchasing unpainted Tinys is available here on his webpage.

Fat Tuesday

Fat Tuesday (February 12th) will be the day of Tiny's release, finally! It seemed appropriate that such a large little guy have his big day on Fat Tuesday. My idea for the mold worked and he will be cast all in one piece with the resin being poured into the mold via his left hind leg/tail, so he will be super easy to clean up for shipping with no need to fit the base and deal with hoof pegs or a belly vent. I'm passing this time savings on to my customers by keeping the price at $75.00, even though he is larger than the average stablemate scale horse. He's in scale, he's just a big horse! 

There are a few new mustang paintings, too. I have found a few photographers willing to allow paintings to be done from their photos, as well as BLM photos which are public domain. The more paintings of mustangs I do the more I want to help, even though it will only be in a small way, it all adds up right? A portion of each mustang painting sale will go to mustang charites, starting with a local group that advocates for our local mustangs by raising awareness, purchasing and setting up safe mustang handling corrals and chutes, and working with the Forest Service to eradicate noxious weeds, maintain fences, and keep the watering holes cleaned out. The first three mustang paintings are in the giclee print process pipeline as I type, with my goal being a 2014 calendar this fall, as well as various sizes of prints and possibly other items like note cards being available.

This guy is not quite finished, I need to add his auction tag, but he's one of my favorites. Photo reference provided by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM):

Branching out to 'on the range' paintings with this one titled "On the Edge". Photo reference provided by TJ Holmes who has a wonderful blog about our local mustangs. This is the stallion "David":

 

Here's the most recent painting, finished just yesterday, "Aspen of Spring Creek Basin" from another one of TJ's great photos:

Obviously this painting thing is becoming an obsession. Painting AND horses AND the west...I think I'm doomed.

Playtime!

Work on the new mini "Tiny" continues, and today he was allowed to play with his pal Doodlebug:

I'm guesstimating it will be two weeks before he is ready to sell.  He still needs veins, some more wrinkles, and other small details added, plus the production mold has to be sorted out. I'd like to cast him as one piece, since his big drafty legs are sturdy and it would be so much easier to not have to fit each casting to the base. He will have steel reinforced back legs just in case. Doodlebug's skinny legs could never have handled that!

The third mustang in my series is mostly finished and I've started a fourth. I've got this wild hair to do 12 of them and have a 2014 calendar. 

This little guy is titled as the BLM described him "#1861 - 1 yr old sorrel gelding, captured August 2011, from Heath Creek HMA, Oregon":

  
Here is the fourth, a work in progress, a saddle trained horse from a prison work program:

  

Winter's Arrival and the Mustang Paintings

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated the happenings here at Rose Studios. Winter finally arrived on Friday, hard to believe we were still riding up until a few weeks ago:

The new mini “Tiny” was *supposed* to be finished in November, but that didn’t happen. Somehow I blocked out that almost nothing gets done in the studio in November, because it’s hunting season and then there’s Thanksgiving. Tiny has gone from clay to resin master, but I am going to hold off on his release until January, possibly mid-January, when the holidays are well over and everyone can breath easy again. I’ll have photos soon of him on his base, and with Doodlebug his playmate so you can see what size he is. I have a Sarah Mink “Spinnaker” on hand and he is the same size. Here’s “Tiny” right before he went into the waste mold:

Todd is whittling away at the shipping list, and is hoping to catch up by the first of the year. If you are near the top of the shipping list and do NOT want your order shipped during the holidays, please let me know! You can view the shipping list here.


I have also been doing some painting, no, not models, but paintings! I am very lucky that former model horse artist Sonya Johnson is a friend of mine and I was able to observe her doing some of her wonderful pastel landscapes. It looked so enjoyable I asked her one day if I could sit alongside and give it a try, and that was it, I’m hooked! It’s rejuvenated my creative world by giving me an outlet for non-equine subjects and getting to finish a project in a few hours/days, as opposed to months. When I’m tired of painting I sculpt, and vice-versa. I’ve been doing some landscapes and horses (can’t stay away from the horses!) and decided to do a small series of mustang portraits, depicting horses waiting for adoption in BLM holding facilities and adoption centers. Here are the first two, and while I may fuss around with them a bit more they are 90% done:

I may make prints available, but having never done that it might take me awhile to research it and decide what I want to do. I’m working on a third mustang right now.

That’s about it :)


Hope you all are warm and well :)