Brasenose Layers 6, 7 & 8

Layer 8 Near side

When I started this project I knew I had bitten off a mighty hunk to chew.  Pastelling a full 3D Trad is a lot different than a medallion!!  How to get the spray in the right places, not too heavy, not too light?  How to do shading?  How to not muddy things up??  I'm making this color up, I didn't record specific amounts, I'm doing everything by eye... Up to now liver chestnut has never been one of my favorites---

But then...
But then... I got used to walking outside to the barn, rain or snow or dark, to spray him.
But then...  After 3 coats of Pearl Ex a golden glow appeared and hasn't gone away.
But then...  Following my test piece,  altering only in minor ways (plus the Pearl Ex), his ugly stage has been short.
I now know my test medallion came into my possession in March of 2016.  That Jypsi was a bonus from ordering the Mini Rose Khan.  How interesting:  the Khan has been my only Mini Rose to be painted, so far.  O ho, what breed was he?
-- an Akhal Teke.

Layer 8  Off side

Faster and faster this horse, Brasenose, has gone for me.  The test Jypsi went fast, yes.  I was surprised;  the swiftness of her completion was one of the aspects that surprised me.  It shouldn't've but it did.  She was done before I left Tucson.  (I'd love to put her in the Also-Painted of 2018, but she was started in January.)  Brasenose was started on the 10th and already, in 8 days, he's past Layer 8.  I'm doing these posts in short bursts in an attempt to catch some of the magic as it bolts by.  The speed of it, once I finally got down to having a day and a half clear, is as the speed of a racing Akhal Teke.  He's galloping.

Here is Layer 4, in case you're wondering:

Layer 4  Off side

In this shot you can see the rump patches which have caused me some wondering grief.  Somehow I did not get any photos of Layer 5.
This is Layer 6, what I started with today (Saturday the 17th).   I only have 2 shots of 6 and they were both taken outside.  It was a dull overcast day (this is Pennsylvania, what did you expect!) and shows the red effect of the copper Pearl Ex. 

Layer 6 Near, Shot outside

Jypsi the test medallion had only one small test coat of Pearl Ex (on her face), and, as you painters probably know, it all but vanished under the matte sealant.

Always in the back of my mind is the idea of Brasenose under tack.  Naturally I was unable to resist; this is the traditional tack-shooting spot.  He has worn stuff preivously:  a hackamore, a blanket, parts of the Parade Set under restoration on the other space in the room...

Layer 6 Off, Shot outside

After much cogitation I am pretty sure this halter was made by Renee Foust.  But I am not completely certain.  As if I didn't have enough backlogged blog subjects, Brasenose in Tack is another.

Here's Layer 7, back inside again (it is snowing):

Layer 7, Near side

Layers 6, 7 & 8 are building up the middle ranges of his color.  They were mixes of dark brown, red, and what I call fox cinnamon.  I'm currently following Rachel Mitchell's advice about adding Pearl Ex to every layer, but I'm also putting on Pearl Ex by itself on the lighter parts:  the gaskin area, the neck, the end of the tail, parts of the face etc.
The face is the hardest, by far.  It's clear that there are simply years involved in learning to paint a Trad scale face.  The only thing I knew was that I wanted a bronze nose, but until today I didn't know how much of one.

Layer 7  Off side

As I write this, Layer 9 is drying, with its darker saddle areas.  He's going like the wind.  I feel that another dark layer will see me to such details as stockings and eyes.  That's for another, fresher time.

Layer 8 Near side

Right now I'm so astounded I've made it this far on this exquisite creature it will be a wonder if I get to sleep tonight.

Brasenose Layer 3

Layer 3 Near side

This NaMoPaiMo has been the most fun.  I just sprayed his third layer - in the rain!!  Hurray for ponchos!!  Yes, it was raining, but that wasn't going to stop me.  I picked him up using a sheet of plastic wrap.  This is what contributed to Jypsi's drop:  I hadn't figured out how to carry a freshly-pastelled model right before spraying.  Cuddled the flashlight (it was after dark) and the horse under my poncho, went outside (purple light:  my poncho is purple) and opened the storage barn.  Stood him up and went back for the Krylon.  (Another hard lesson:  don't carry everything at once!)  I wear gloves and a mask for this operation.  I wound up leaving the flashlight in one place and holding the horse in my left hand.  Experience helps but I have SO far to go.
In case you're wondering how he'll dry, I bring him back inside after about 15 or 20 minutes and let him rise to room temperature and humidity.  So far there hasn't been any problem with the sealant...

Layer 3 Off side

This is not to say he hasn't had problems.  He has, and rather big ones.  Reaching Layer 3 has been a process of realizing I'm an impatient cuss and that my test piece had by no means used up my mistakes!!  Hah, hah, hahh!!  How right I was in thinking this horse would teach me some more... 
Just one of my issues is working with the Pearl Ex.  It mixes in the color and goes on easily enough, but my spray seems to mute it back out.  I've got a few ideas...

Yesterday (the 10th) I accepted the gracious invitation of Kristian Beverly and her mother to spend a few hours in their home at my very first NaMoPaiMo painting party!  I can hardly tell you what an honor that was.  I had never been in their home before and only knew Kristian a little.  I'd sold her a horse and some lace and bought one of her saddles (and read her blog), but that was about it -!   Other attendees were Zoe Hatgi whom I was delighted to meet (at last, a body to the name of a Guide customer), Maddie Klein who had visited me once, and Lizzy Mace, a friend of Kristian's.  Like myself, Zoe had driven for an hour+ to be there.  For me that distance was 85 miles.

Kristian Beverly; Lizzy Mace behind lamp

The Beverlys have a room just for craft projects, and this was it.  I was impressed.  My own tack room is not big enough for more than 2 people.
 Everyone was painting in different ways, but we all had one thing in common:  tack!!  Four of these 5 were tackmakers and the table was soon covered with "the glorious mess" (Jennifer Buxton's phrase) of tack.  There are a couple of very talented English saddle makers here, Kristian and Zoe.  I was enchanted.  These girls are zooming ahead with their skills and experience.  They're already at the stage where their English saddles are better than mine.  I had brought some of the saddles I'd taken to Tucson just last week (and shown to Rachel Mitchell).  Fact is, I hadn't had time to unpack them.

Maddie Klein; Zoe Hatgi with glove

The painting party was my first opportunity to put color on Brasenose.  It's true I'd planned on starting him the day before, Friday the 9th, the day after I was supposed to get back from Tucson.  But Chicago O'Hare Airport (ORD) had other ideas!!  For one of the few times in my life, my flight was cancelled.  I had successfully made the Tucson to Chicago hop and was quite confident (veteran weather radar reader) that my flight from Chicago to State College could easily evade the coming storm.  NOPE!!!  For more than 24 hours I was delayed - and a flight that was supposed to leave at 6:50pm didn't make it out until after 9.  And that was with seven (7) gate changes.  If you're going to break a record, you might as well smash it to pieces.  All that fuss for what turned out to be a mere 3 inches of snow!!!  

In their defense, afterwards, Geo told me that just a few miles to the south there had been 8 inches and more of snow.  If that had fallen on O'Hare their extreme measures would've been more defensible.  As it was I was nobly trying to reserve judgement, and having a blast exploring O'Hare.  I found a garden, a yoga room, and pet relief stations (which were very uninteresting).  I rode the tram to the International Terminal (and had to wait while snow was cleared from the tram tracks).  I put in a tremendous amount of work on my next cross stitch saddle blanket.  Eerily, I saw absolutely no one else doing any kind of stitchery or handicraft at the airport, all day.

Layer 1 showing *Bask scar

Applying Layer 1 to Brasenose was both satisfying and mortifying.  Progress at last!!!   When I was nearly done (using Q-tips to pastel with, something learned from my test medallion), I discovered I had done a much poorer job of prepping than I'd thought.  Several pinholes appeared (acceptable).  Several rough surfaces came up (barely acceptable).  The places on his rump where Margarita had patched him turned out not to be smooth (yikes).  But worst of all -- how had I missed it? -- he had a scar.

Layer 1 showing *Bask scar

There was a molding discontinuity along his off side, a double straight line from neck to haunch.  When I first saw it I thought of *Bask's scar from his sea voyage, mentioned in Marian Carpenter's book Arabian Legends.  (I've never seen this scar.)  From then on I was calling it his *Bask scar.  I hated to stop painting, but this was serious.  After a tense time I knew I could not just accept it, --- and started sanding.  At first with my own sandpaper, later with sanding sticks borrowed from Zoe and sandpaper borrowed from Kristian (where would we be without friends?), I made progress.

Layer 1 post scar

I was actually able to remove 90% of that scar.  In places I got down to the resin.

Layer 1 post scar

But then I just pastelled him up again.

Layer 1 Off side

 I couldn't see how to re-prime on top of Layer 1.   Let's face it, I was way too pent-up not to paint and I was at my first painting party.  I couldn't not paint.  I confess, too, that my strongest excuse was that he was headed for a liver chestnut and these patches would become so dark as to hide anything out of the ordinary.  There just comes a time when my own bullheaded stubbornness carries me forward.  I guess I'm not a Taurean for nothing.
This is what Brasenose looked like at the end of the painting party.
Mrs Beverly literally sent me home with a supper -- thank you!!

Layer 2, end of painting party

The next day was Sunday the 11th, and we stayed home.  We both very much wanted to stay home AND it was raining.  Progress was made:  my camera captured two more layers on my little Teke.   My memory also tells me 2 layers were done this day.  Mysteriously my notes depicted only one more, making a total of 3.  I dealt with this discrepancy by labelling the first Sunday one "Layer 2.5."

Layer 2.5 Near side

On this layer, inspired by the party, I abandoned the Q-tips and went back to a brush, but this time a short wide thick brush.  It really helped.
Also, entirely on my own, I added the blue tape boots.  They are to be his stockings as well as handholds.  He also has a star, not visible in these shots.

Layer 2.5 Off side

Here we see the patches on the off side slowly becoming less of a blemish.  It's not perfect, heaven knows.  I am struggling with several aspects of this paintjob and that's merely the most obvious.
On Layer 3 I started putting gray shading on his face, mane & tail and knees & hocks.  I was using a microbrush for this, yet another giftie from the painting party.

Layer 3 Off side

 You can see that as of Layer 3, his rump patches are turning out "somewhat" successful.  I wouldn't exactly recommend it. 

Layer 3 Near side

 My pastels are named Jack Richeson Fine Oil.  They were on sale at Uncle Eli's, the specialty art store that's been in State College since before I got here.  It's grand to live in a University town.  It's not grand to be such a beginner on such a beautiful model and have so many mistakes to work through.  I guess I'm just like any other artist.

Thanks to Jennifer for thinking up this wild idea.  I'm having the most fun.

Jypsi Layers 8 & 9: a Drop

Layer 9

This has been the most fun! but also the most shocking.  An accident happened this morning:  I dropped her!!  Never try to open 4 door locks while carrying a medallion on a paper towel AND a spray can...

The wisdom of doing a test piece has been well and truly proven.  Today I did the last two layers.  I have done all I can whilst at my folk's house in Tucson -- no Pearl Ex, no gesso. As it is, I feel I'm skirting dangerously close to muddy.  All that remains is the eye and a blaze:  the mythical Layer 10.  When I started, I honestly thought 10 would not be enough.  Live and learn!

Here she is right after the drop:

Broke, Layer 8

Eartip gone, divot on the offside top butt, other scratches and marks.  After I was done whimpering, I took her back inside (unsprayed) and repastelled the white places.  The smaller scratches were no trouble but the large rump nick suffered, mostly because I didn't think.  I proceeded to paint it with today's color, which happened to be the darkest layer of all - the 'saddle' area on the back of a liver chestnut.  Of course, that made the nick into a permanent dark spot.

Layer 8

With no real options, I decided she'd sustained an injury from a rambunctious pasturemate.  These things happen.  The eartip could be explained by frostbite (!).  The rest of the layer was a success.

I've learned to lighten things with a clean Q-tip.  I've learned that a layer of red (technically 109 Earth Red Ochre) can do interesting things to a liver chestnut; I'm inventing this color as I go, and I wanted a coppery tone without sacrificing the essential not-a-bay brown.

Such a sweet little mare.  She has taught me a ton and considerably eased my pent-up frustration at not being able to start my NaMoPaiMo horse until after the 8th.  In tack parlance, I have "used up my mistakes."

Layer 9

But do I think that Brasenose won't be doing the same thing?!  Hah!

Jypsi Layer 7

Jypsi in Repose by Sarah Rose x SBY

In keeping with my brief posts, this is a one shot.  Since she's not my NaMoPaiMo horse proper, I don't feel she belongs on the FB group feed... and she's not in focus to boot!  I'm on a strange computer with no PhotoShop and I really shouldn't bore you with how hard it was to get my recalcitrant and unfamiliar cell phone to disgorge this shot.  It was taken on an aluminum table in a Tucson back yard.

The visit with Rachel [Trails End Studio] was wildly successful and greatly appreciated, but it contained no painting.  Only one critical ingredient was missing at my folks', so I jogged 15 mins to Ace Hardware (only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun...) for Krylon Matte.  I am not going to try to re-supply stuff like Pearl Ex and brushes... not with just 4 days to go and an airplane ride home.  As of tonight I have done Layers 6 and 7.  She's gone from a medium claybank dun to what seems to me to be an incredible chestnut shading towards liver.  Alas no other pix were taken. Success!!  Success!!  I've been chuffed all afternoon.

Lessons learnt in these 2 layers include painting just a small area per brushful, something I knew from leather dyeing but was forgetting.  I also switched to using Q tips instead of brushes, simply because I'd brought none and Mom had only one she was willing to sacrifice.  (Who cares if it looks motheaten; it's a perfect dusting brush!  Thanks Mom!)  Surprisingly Q tips worked very well, once I learned to truly powder the pastels... and not scrub with the stem.  An earlier lesson was enforced:  Unlike leather dye, which lightens as it dries, the sealant darkens the pastel powder.  Since I'm going for liver chestnut -- and was despairing she'd ever get there! -- this is an entirely welcome effect.

Tackwise, I am working on another saddle blanket and dinking with the Carousel Set.  Thanks for reading!

Prepping

 

With this post I temporarily abandon the long form and take up the short notices appropriate to Works-In-Progress.  I have too much to say to fit onto FB but too little for my usual chapters, so what's an incorrigibly show-off artist to do??  Squeezing all this down to something I believe appropriate for my FB just isn't happening. 

      On the other hand, I have a trip to Tucson coming up that will last a week (if all goes as planned).  During that week no progress can be made on Brasenose.  (Truly he is too tender to survive a flight stuffed into my backpack, even packaged.  I know how tough I am on a horse.  This is the root of my OF collecting...)  And so right when the universe of National Model Painting Month explodes into action, I am forced to sit on the sidelines for a week.  However, there is Jypsi the Test Medallion;  I'm going to try and transport her across state lines...

I'm sorry I haven't taken earlier pictures of this lovely medallion.  This is 'Jypsi in Repose' by the incomparable Sarah Rose.  The medallion came into my hands when Sarah, for whatever reason, was late filling an order for me (I don't even remember which one) and threw in a sweetener.  As if she needed to do that.  (As if I minded waiting for a Rose horse... me, the TSII!!)   Anyhow, I had this beautiful bas-relief lying around when the decision was made to enter NaMoPaiMo.   It dawned on me I really, really needed a practice piece.

Medallion by Sarah Rose

What you see is Layer 3 of what I'm hoping will eventually be a liver chestnut.  Right now it sure looks like a perfect claybank dun, except for the legs.  In my defense, I'm not exactly clear on which parts are legs.  In my defense, I've never pasteled in my life.  But that's what this is about eh?  The only surprise so far has been how long it takes... how transparent each layer has been.  I'm on step 3 of 10 of my tutorial and already I've deviated from the instructions.

(Not clear why there's a white spot on her nearside butt.  Hoping it's just lighting; it's not intentional.)

The other story is, of course, Brasenose.  He too is surprising me with how long it's taking.  Again thanks to NaMoPaiMo, I was warned there would be a lot of work in prepping.  It seems like forever although it's only been about 3 days.  The place where the tail touches the leg has been worst.  As I write this he's in the barn drying after his second coat of primer.

Gazyr by Malova with  mane by SBY

From the start my approach to NMPM was that I could only do it my way.  As a tackmaker the tools I felt most comfy with for prepping were jeweler's files.  That is what I've been using:  220-grit sandpaper, my two smallest files (left), the needle awl (braided handle), the Precista for cleaning the files, a paintbrush for dusting, and my X-Acto knife.  The awl is for testing pinhole depth, and, later, for smearing glue.  The Precista is a stainless-steel-wire brush originally designed for cleaning archeology specimens (the things you can find at the Gem Show!).  It works perfectly to take primer and resin out of my little files.  The drawback to using files for this job is you have to clean them constantly.  What's not shown is an old toothbrush to do the first steps of that same cleaning job.  The Precista is only for the final step of file-cleaning.

 Scrape, sand, file, brush off horse, repeat until file is completely white and clogged.  Put down everything, use the toothbrush on the file(s) and then the Precista.  Repeat...  Three times now I've cleaned off everything and then dusted off the workboard itself (with a large feather)...  I started out using Elmer's for his pinholes, something that worked beautifully for tack but somehow wasn't quite right for Brasenose.  It did work on one of his fetlock holes but on the bigger ones the glue didn't fill them.  Last night I gave up and switched to gesso.  This has done better, though it seems very soft.

I know my dusting paintbrush is wildly too small.  Just now I found a bigger one.  A miniature tackshop does not need large brushes, but this one was hanging around for large-scale dyeing.

Good luck everyone in NaMoPaiMo!

Me and NaMoPaiMo

I wish I'd kept a copy of what I wrote in the comments for my NaMoPaiMo entry.  It was downright funny! along the lines of:  Although following the crowd is anathema to me, this horse of all my 13 unfinisheds is talking to me most strongly.  "Flame mane copper liver chestnut," he says, "that's as close as you'll get, Akhal Tekes don't come in silver bay."  "But you don't have a mane," I say.  "Sculpt some," he says, "thirty-nine years in the hobby has given you the skills."  "I'll call you Brasenose," I say.

It was surely one of my best paragraphs.  Brasenose, incidentally, means bronze nose:  rather appropriate for a metallic-copper-tinted horse, don't you think?  It's the name of a college in Oxford England, a building actually, and I got it reading Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (one of my favorite Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries) at the time I was buying this horse.  I found out that the bronze doorknocker of the building, in the shape of a dog's head, gives it its name.  It's a very English name for a very Russian horse.  This contrast, like the mane/no mane, perfectly represents my ambivalence towards the project.

Of course the horse was talking to me.  In the NaMoPaiMo FaceBook group I see posts from people asking what color to paint their horses.  Use your imagination and give it time.  Eventually even  tack may speak to you.  Tack certainly speaks to me!

My story begins with an MH$P ad, but the roots go back to becoming interested in jogging and race-running for health reasons.  Of the many breeds I've identified with in my life, the current one is clearly solidifying: the Akhal Teke and its ancestor the Turkmene (E.H.Edwards' Horse Type 3).  Who'd'a thunk it!!  since I was raised on Quarter Horses and went through Belgians and Paso Finos...  whose favorite color was black bay tobiano and favorite breed, if you'd asked, was the Moroccan Pinto... (all right, let's go off the rails for a moment and confess my real favorite breed, the Zalar:  a carousel horse carved by John Zalar!!)  Anyway I'd been focusing on Akhal Tekes for a couple years, such as Breyer's Lonesome Glory and the CollectAs.  Then I started noticing resincasts.

Last year I'd had my Mini Rose Khan painted by Jennifer (Danza) O'Donnell.  I asked for the "Golden Horse" coffee table book for Christmas, and got it!!  (Thank you Janet!)  When I saw Margarita Malova's Gazyr and Magnolia on MH$P last October, I was smitten.

Photo by Margarita Malova

As cute as that foal was, the stallion was what grabbed me.  I could find very little wrong with his conformation.  Every other Ahkal Teke resin was either unaffordable or just didn't look right to me.  This one, though of very limited production (the ad promised a mere 10 copies) was within my range.  The fact that he was part of the Russian wave just added to his allure.  My husband and I had great fun following the postal tracking of his box.
(I don't think he's really limited to 10 copies, by the way.)

Notice the Cyrillic characters on the box.

 At the same time I was trying to decide whether to join NaMoPaiMo.  I had extremely complicated feelings about it.  My observations are part of this blog (Thoughts on NaMoPaiMo) but my actual participation centered around a saddle blanket.  How's that again?  A saddle blanket for a silver parade set:  a black-and-white corona.

Of all the participants in the first National Model Painting Month, I'll wager I was the only one doing a piece of tack.  And I must have been the record-holder in confused feelings, because I was trying to keep the saddle under wraps (command of the owner) while viscerally responding to the trumpetcall of a FaceBook group passionately involved in something I cared about.  Not the horse-painting so much as the group dynamics were what called me.  I was new to FaceBook still, and here was history being made, right in front of me.  I read most posts.  I stubbornly clung to what had been true for decades:  I was a tackmaker, not a painter.  What I needed from this huge and wonderful push was to get that corona done.  It had the benefit of truth.  I did finish.

Arrow shows white band.  TSII #456 'Star Wars'

I look back now and credit myself with an original and perfectly acceptable solution to my situation, but at the time I was so shy I only managed squeaks of comments on other people's horses.  (It takes time to form new habits of gabbing in public when one's decades-long hobby history was carried out by handwritten letter.)  Plus, this organization was NEW, and no one really knew how it would turn out.  I was, and still am, very strongly trained not to post anything on FaceBook that could possibly be construed as a criticism.

Starting to sculpt the mane

Well, it turned out fine.  I don't think I could go so far as to credit politics with inspiring a spirit of supporting inclusiveness in defense against hard times, but those times were right for NaMoPaiMo's attitude of helpfulness.  Even professional tackmakers need psychic support, as it turns out.
Of course the next thing that happened was NaMoTackMo.  You'd think that would be a natural for me.  It was.  My habits of reticence proved too strong for me to take a hostess position (plus I honestly didn't have the time), yet I enjoyed it very much.  Many good pieces were born and many good posts written.  Tackmaking is different than horse-painting, and there was a far higher rate of 'failures' or non-completions; still, I used the energies of NaMoTackMo to help finish my monster silver parade saddle,  TSII #456, 'Star Wars.'

What a fantastic idea my hobby had come up with!  This was worth joining FaceBook after all.  For all its time-wasting, it had merit.  But paint a horse??  I hadn't painted a horse since 1983...!!!

Not true.  I had painted the mane and tail on the Moody Minuet seen in my last blog post (Silver Acorn) in 1996.  I had painted any number of figures on my saddles.  I had etched something like 6 horses.  Painting was, if not directly used, at least in my toolbox of skills.  Brasenose had been perfectly right.

Other hobbyists, particularly Lisa and Bobbie, encouraged me.  It will be these few, I am sure, who will see me through.  I haven't got a crowd personality; perversely, I interpret heaps of people leaping on something as a sure sign I should run.  I suppose it is related to my husband's hatred of traffic jams and big cities.  I'm not just afraid of a crowd; when people do something just because others are doing it, I lose my respect for them.  It's a narrow path to tread:  sovereign independence versus the connectivity FaceBook gives in spades, and which I find I need after all.  If I can keep my courage (and of course manage the time!), I just might succeed.

As for the mane part:  I had sculpted several saddle trees, particularly that of the Clyde Goehring set (Tree Fun) and I still had the Apoxie that Ann Bilon had gifted me.  Brasenose was right again.  There was no stopping this skinny Russian horse.  He might not have a partner or wife, he didn't even have eyes yet, but he sure had ideas!

Today I finally set aside time to make a mane for him.  I wanted it to be sparse and thin, yet long enough to show a flaxen color shading to bright at the tips.  One hard part was creating it so as to allow for future tack wearing: "tack friendly."  I'd seen enough Akhal Tekes to know where the necklaces go.  For all my grumping that I wasn't interested in Akhal Teke tack making (truth:  I've never made a set, never bought one and never been tempted), that mane speaks more truly of my intentions.

Grenendere, PAS in the background, is for the carousel saddle restoration.

We come now to a mystery.  How did I happen to choose to try pastels?  I think it was by elimination.  I didn't want acrylics, which I somehow equated with enamels and didn't like the finish-feel of.  I didn't want oils, which would smell too much and besides had a cachet of professionalism I wasn't ready for.  I didn't want to use an airbrush, although I had one; I wanted the handheld tactile control of a paintbrush, something I'd known from tack for 30 years.  My mother had dabbled in pastels when I was growing up.  The thought of slowly layering on powders was strangely akin, in my mind, to dyeing leather, which happens by layers.  The only sticking point was the sealant spraying.  I could not do that in the house, for reasons familial, medical and historical.  Somehow I had to get around that.

Customizing the ears: a bit smaller, with curved tips

So that's how it happened that I can blame a model horse for causing me to clean out the storage barn.  It's a long chain, but it does connect. 

The offside ear is now done too.

Some Akhal Tekes have ears that curve inwards.  The Golden Horse book claims they may be the ancestral stock of the Marwari and Kathiawari.  Gazyr has very long, big ears.

As of now, the barn is not cleaned out.  Finding the time has been my main sticking point; unlike some young participants, I have a house and a husband and a career to take care of.  Plus, what is not obvious:  documenting a project just adds to the time it takes.  I don't have a percentage but it must be considerable: say about 30%.
But the vision is clear:  I know what color I want.  In a purely personal fashion, my goal is not so much a real horse (though I do have photos) as another model.  I want the copper-enhanced liver chestnut of Stone's Ragtime and Jazz.  I started out wanting a copper Wedgewood -- how simple that would've been!  There's nothing in the rules saying it has to be realistic --  then switched to silver bay.  Then, realizing (thanks Lesli) that Akhal Tekes don't come in silver bay, I made up a color.  Brasenose started talking, and he's been talking ever since.

Wish me luck.  And come join us.

It was Bob

Since the subject of this post is metaphysical and paranormal, I originally planned few illustrations.  That was before I looked up how many canoe pictures I had of one of the rivers we had done this trip, the great St Johns.  Now you get all the best shots from when we did the St Johns in December 2014.  Current shots exist but aren't yet available  : (  in any case they would be similar.

Over the [2017-2018] holidays a haunting thing happened, something that's only happened to me once before.  In essence it is a Message from Beyond.  I say "is" because these things happen outside of time, yet they are the essence of instantaneous.  They go a far way towards convincing me Not of everlasting life or communication with the dead, but rather evidence that there is a Connection, on a level I am barely aware of and can't explain, with what can only be described as a Web or Network of all living beings and creatures, past, present and probably future, in a timeless and simultaneous presence.

Sound familiar?

I have wanted all my life to have some sort of paranormal experience -- me, the daughter of an engineer and the wife of a science professor! -- so I am proud of my two instances.

Each one has arrived in the form of a thought, a subliminal sense, a suspicion of a change in the status of someone I knew.  The first time the someone was an author I'd never met, but read a lot.  The second time it was a fellow model horse hobbyist whom I'd seldom met, but knew and had worked with.

Out on safari, canoeing in Florida, I don't always know what day it is.  I can only guess that this latest occurrence happened a couple days before the New Year.  I and my husband have done these trips for almost a decade now, paddling the rivers and lakes of central Florida, hiking and birdwatching all the while.  With a mind full of species counts, bird identification questions, canoeing gear, navigation, weather, the state of one's muscles and dealing with river currents (not to mention attention paid to one's partner), I was days away from anything online.  Only books are read on safari.  It was with some surprise that I found myself wondering about one particular hobbyist.  Out of hundreds that I knew, why would one old lady (not THAT old!), with whom I had no current business dealings, now be on my mind so???
The awareness was one of sadness, as though she had suddenly been smitten:  as though she had died.

I found myself, then, while intently focusing on canoeing (a slow-motion sport which, like fishing, demands constant alertness while in a trance state), wondering whether Jane Wagner had died.
Jane Wagner?  She's not old enough, man!  Though accidents happen, Lor' knows; I know enough people, I suppose some of them are going to start kicking off, but I never thought it would be her.
Did Jane Wagner die??

The sense of awareness was quite specific.  I promised myself I'd check out her FaceBook next chance I got.  But safari is safari and it was 3 or 4 days before I could do so.  We have a tablet that can be used in hotels, and so occasionally I check out my online life, with difficulty I confess.  I know, I know, I'm dreadfully oldfashioned in my technology but we have known such success in our ways it's hard to change...

The awareness-of-sadness -- no, not really sadness so much as Connectedness -- lasted for 2 or 3 days and then faded out ... or perhaps I should say, I stopped thinking about Jane at odd moments after 2 days.

The same thing happened to me in 2011 on a March morning during spring break, when I was strolling along an East Coast beach.  Out of nowhere, out of the sea it seemed, it occurred to me to wonder if Farley Mowat had died.  A great sense of something came up over the horizon at me;  the feeling of a distant, if very real, friend's passing (or awareness) was quite strong.  In this case it was almost a week before I realized that my moment on the beach coincided with the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, that killed so many and did so much damage.  It had not been Farley after all (he died 3 years later, and 1 year before I found out).  It had been, instead, a whole world of oceanic and northern interests that had been affected.

How had I known???

In the case of Jane Wagner I discovered that at the very same time I had first thought of her, her dog Bob had passed away.

"It was Bob!"  I said out loud several times, wonderingly, hunched over the tablet in a hotel room, no doubt confusing my watersport partner.

"It was Bob!"

The more I think about it the more amazed I am by the power and presence of a single Jack Russell.  Those who knew Bob, however, would not be surprised.

Is it going to be like this with everybody I know??  There's hundreds...  Or does this only happen while on safari, when I'm out in the wild for weeks, tuned only to the birds, the boat, the waters of the river and my partner?
A Sorrow and yet so much a Connectedness that the sorrow is almost drowned out.

What have we lost, that this is so rare?

hailing frequencies open...