A Bevy of Burros

I haven't done any mustang paintings in awhile, so recently I visited the online adoption gallery of available horses on the Bureau of Land Management's website. I go through a lot of photos to find the few that 'speak' to me. I look for lighting, for emotion, movement, color, something that will work well in the formats I like to paint in. I went through all the horses, saving a few aside, and then.....there were burros! Lots and lots of burros. Unfortunately most had their photos taken in flat light (either a cloudy day or after the sun went down, so no shadows, nothing to suggest form). That is fine for potential burro adopters, but not so great for me, the painter.  I did find a few, though. Their cute furry burro faces lend themselves well to paintings, don't you agree?

The first, a jenny. Photo reference for this and the next one are courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management. Their description of her is "#4558 - 6 yr old gray jenny, captured 10/2011, from outside an HMA, California". Outside of an HMA-Herd Management Area means technically she is not protected by the Wild Horse and Burro Act, but she has found her way to a facility anyway. I am not sure exactly how that works, though. 

The second painting, this time a jack. His description is "#3952 - 4 yr old gray gelded jack, captured 11/2010, from Cibola-Trigo HMA, Arizona".  Both these, and many other burros, are available for adoption throughout the Bureau of Land Management's Wild Horse and Burro program

Both of these paintings are 8X8 in soft pastel and are not currently for sale, I am building up inventory for a show at the end of July. After the show any that are not sold will be made available here and elsewhere.

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

Belgian painting

Here's my latest painting, a Belgian draft horse: 

Pastel on Uart professional heavyweight sanded  paper 8 X 10. 

                                                 SOLD!




I was able to send out my first donation today from the sales of mustang prints, it felt really good. This time the donation went to our local mustang group that helps with the Spring Creek Basin Mustangs. Next time I am considering donating to Canon City's prison training program where inmates train mustangs for adoption. What a great thing, to allow prisoners to help both themselves and the horses. 

The mustang paintings now have their own shop on Etsy. Called "The Mustang Project" all the mustang paintings and related items will be put in the store as they are ready to sell. A portion of all proceeds from this shop are donated. I'll probably be setting up another shop for the non-mustang paintings at some point, but for now my focus is really on the wild ones :)


With the recent completion of the "Tiny" project I find myself in need of the next sculpting venture. I am struggling a bit as to what to do next. Admittedly I am recently a little out of touch with the model horse world, since the mustang painting craze took over my mind. I'm considering repositioning and finishing Andre the large Traditional scale heavy drafter, but has the economy improved enough that he would be a decent seller for me? Should I stick with Stablemates? If so, what should be next? I have been adding to my Akhal Teke reference file, and have no problem finding inspiration there. What about another mustang, since I'm so into them right now? So many breeds, so many. If you have an idea for me please let me know in the comments section.

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 :)