Prepping

It's time again for short posts.  A filly is smaller than a stallion, and halfway through a prep job is worth only a few shots; yet I have too much to say to compress it to a FaceBook post -- as usual!

First a word on the ink wars.  After 18 days, and with no significant progress beyond those 2 plates, we called a halt in the hostilities, mostly to treat battle fatigue.  I am waiting for the arrival of 5 new pens, and new ink, before resuming.  (This is thanks to my in-house general and wargamer, who suggested a sweep flanking manuever and change of attack.  Even when I resume, the bulk of the book remains to be written and drawn, so these are mere skirmishes.)  In this interval, two things are happening:  my time in Tucson (1st wk of Feb) and NaMoPaiMo. 
You could say the pens won.  Or you could say that a certain Akhal Teke filly suddenly became very interesting!

She has divots that Brasenose did not, an assortment of air bubbles too big to treat with Gesso.  However, I do recall a great deal of prepping on him too.  Little has changed.  I've spent all day happily pursuing something I could succeed in.  With her leftover Apoxie, I started on the saddle tree for a future saddle, TSII #458 (another Goehring).  You can see it above, in front of her.

Her ears were filed into more shapeliness, just like her sire's.  She received a forelock like him too.

I decided to post this next picture un-Shopped, even though it is distorted from camera angle and out of focus.  Ambolena had a divot missing from the middle inside of her off hind canon tendon.  This shot makes it seem like my 'fill' is incomplete, with a sharp edge.  I'm planning to file it smooth after it's cured.  As ever thanks to A. Bilon who gave me my Apoxie.

Ambolena also needed various small fixes on her hooves.  I recall I hadn't been happy about some of the heel bulbs on Brasenose; lo, his daughter has the same problem.  But this was relatively easy to mend.
I am waiting for her to cure before the first primer coat.  Also just like last time, it snowed.  :)

Happy prepping to everybody!

Ambolena Arrives

Only in the kingdom of model horses can you have a stallion who produces a filly without any input from a mare.   The mare exists -- in my mind's eye at least -- but like the filly, she may have to wait a year or more for her debut.  It's NaMoPaiMo time, and visions that have simmered for a very long time on the back burner are finally heating up.  I warn you that this post grew with the telling!  and has a rant at the end.  I love stretching out...  :)

Readers may recall my first view of Brasenose:  He was seen on MH$P in October of 2017, and he had company.

photo by M. Malova

Who could forget the most adorable stretching filly?   My husband calls her ScreetchHalt.  (!)  I said at the end of NaMoPaiMo 2018 that I'd think about a wife and daughter for my completed Brasenose.  In the year that followed, four things happened.  The first was a glimpse of Gazyr's manufacturer's-suggested wife, whose name is Bahkrom.  It was clear to me she was another Gazyr, not unlike the Hartland POA's being another mold version of Breyer's Yearling.

Gazyr, Bahkrom, Magnolia.  photo by M. Malova

I played with the idea of Brasenose's family.  A palomino or perlino, a buckskin or a bay, were all good colors for Akhal Tekes.  I thought buckskins and perlinos were a little harder for me than his liver chestnut, but I wanted a wee challenge.  I liked the unusual poses of these horses.

The second happening was suddenly seeing Orion, Margarita's new grazing Arabian, late in 2018.  This sculpture was based on a photograph of a real horse.  I was astonished, sat up and took notice, and started falling in love!

photo by M. Malova

Here was an appropriate mold for my family!  Still a grazer, but so much more interesting and realistic.

photo by M. Malova

photo by Margarita Malova

Yes, Orion was a stallion, and yes, he was an Arabian (not an Akhal Teke), but this is cloud-cuckoo-land, where dreams come true, --- and the two breeds are close cousins if not siblings.  Filly without a mare?!  Mare instead of a stallion!  If I wanted him to be a mare nothing would be easier.  In my herd the rule emerged in the 70s:  Gender is determined by personality, not body.  (This policy was born in an era of way too many Original Finish stallions for the available mares and a total reluctance to actually change the OF-ness.)  If you can adapt the horse to your ideas so much the better.  It is a huge relief that Orion was a resincast, and not an untouchable OF.  (Untouchable?!  why don't you act your age and stop bothering assigning families to them?!... doesn't realism rule?!?... well... I did mention cloud-cuckoos...)

<Ahem>
Stepping down from that soapbox, let's get back to regular programming with some reminders of Brasenose:

The third thing that happened was a slow-growing realization that my inner muse was very clear about seeing the mare as a perlino and the filly as a buckskin... and not at all clear about seeing the mare as a buckskin and the filly as a perlino!  A great deal of fuss is spent, in the course of NMPM, trying to get hold of what the Muse is saying.  And here was mine being plain and simple.  It was a relief really.

The fourth happening was my purchasing Magnolia and Orion both at the same time, in late November, and paying postage for one box.  With memories of Brasenose I was an easy mark.  I left on my annual Christmas vacation after assuring her I could wait.

Upon return, problems started mounting up.  Orion was not a star customer; something to do with the molding didn't work right, was broken and could not be fixed easily.  I found out Russians celebrate Christmas January 7 (!) and holidays impact workers, hoh hah.  NMPM was approaching and I knew my first week of February would be spent in Tucson (just like last year), where prepping is impracticable.  Sad to say, I was getting antsy.  I had been told Magnolia was already cast.  With this knowledge I finally figured out how to solve for all the pieces:  Get my filly in time to prep her yet give Margarita time to fix the mold.  All I had to do was pay to ship two boxes instead of one.
So that's what I did.
Readers know how much fun it is to track a package.

Ambolena entered the US on the 15th, was delivered to my horse business mailbox the very next day, and was picked up on the 17th (Thursday).
Oh, Margarita, you make me ashamed of my shipping habits.  I am not so generous.  Look at what all came with my filly.  Thank you for such sweetness.

 The 17th was the date of my posting my entry for National Model Painting Month.  As usual I felt I had barely squeaked in, when in fact there was plenty of time.
Once again (this is who I am!) my husband took my official NMPM 'nudie selfie.'  In fact he took 13, not counting the rejects.  At the risk of appearing vain, here are the two best runners-up.

You may consider me pleased.

Ambolena was named after ragtime, and I can play her strain; but this post has gone on long enough.
 NaMoPaiMo's main sticking-point with me, as ever, is time management.  I shall have all I can do to finish her.

The fire and passion that was Brasenose's is, this time, going into a book and its plates (drafting drawings).  I will say right here & now that I've never been so challenged as I have been by the inking of the plates!!  Those Rapidographs (technical pens)!!  They would drive a saint crazy --- and I ain't no saint.  Two weeks now and all I've managed to ink is a couple of plates, and even those need more fiddling with.  I've bought two new pens ($36 ea.), 2 new bottles of ink (one turned out useless), carried out ink tests and cleaned and dried (thoroughly -- a 20-minute process) every pen multiple times (I'm not counting!!!).  I've tried over and over again to sense just what is going on, honing in with the sensitivity of a model tackmaker --  and still they don't work right.  They skip.  They scratch.  They work perfectly and then I change something and they dry up.  I've passed from sorrow through hilarity to stubbornness. When they are right they are so right... yet there are so many miles to go.

It's really turning into a contest between my ancient powers of tenacity ... and the incredible difficulty of working with those pens.  How much longer will I hold out?  Will I learn to use them?  (I did in the past!)  Will Ambolena get ink blots?!  Saints forbid!!  Stay tuned!  and thanks for reading.

Resolutions, FL and NMPM

This post is not just about my New Year's Resolutions but contains various catchings-ups and news bits.  Lastly it treats my NaMoPaiMo dreams - as of today, closer to reality!  It is illustrated with Florida pictures from our recent trip (mostly).  Thus it is a three-strand post, similar to but even more ambitious than my first venture into Stable Blankets: Three Strands at Once.  The plain truth is I've been so busy, since returning home, that I could not give inquiring model friends anything like what they deserved.  One demand piled onto another until I felt choked with frustration.  Only now, a week after return, do I feel reasonably able to blog... at the cost of some sleep, alas.

Great Blue Heron seen at Webb Lake

There are probably many blog posts in what we shot in FL this time.  Of 9 days canoeing and 8 days hiking/birding, a few days escaped without any pictures but 11 days were pretty well captured.  In trying to find a theme to start with, birds, reptiles and butterflies suggest themselves.  Mind you we didn't set out to document the fauna, only the flora!  Flower shots are George's specialty but I'm seldom interested in them; it's the animals I'm more likely to try for.  Today's frontispiece was photo'd while hiking:  Dry The Sea poses on a log along the Florida Trail in Green Swamp WMA.  If I can find the time (blogging is a reward of sorts), more FL posts will come.

Red bellied turtle (?) in Big Cypress WMA.

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS.  When I look at last year's, I see only one that got fulfilled ("Finish TSII #456.")  I did indeed reach a certain weight... but could not stay there.  Does that count?  (By the way my "Emerson" experiment, detailed in my Christmas letter, achieved 13 of 14 days and then was cut off by vacation.  Trying again, as of today I'm 3 of 7 days.)  Some of my resolutions I'll just roll over:  to clear out the old TIME magazines; to explore Print-on-Demand; to hang up the pile of collected fishing bobbers, making "Bobber Ristras," a specialty of our family canoeing.  Some resolutions go without saying:  to clean out the file drawers;  to enter more 5K races, as I enjoy these so much.  (By the way in my 5K race, Run Rudolph Run, mentioned in my Christmas letter, I finished second-fastest of all my races so far.  It was my second sub-forty-minute finish.)

Seen at Myakka Lake while napping in the canoe in a flooded oak forest.

Some of my resolutions are no-brainers.  A new belt.  A new watchband.  A mesh holder for the bird list in the canoe.  Moving on to the TSII, a pile of plates and a bunch of text for the next book, and a couple saddles if we can manage them.  It's still a tie between the one-hour-a-day approach and the Thursdays-and-Fridays for tack-only approach, for tackmaking.

Big Cypress Wildlife Management Area

Some resolutions are more personal experiments.  Every vacation brings home a list of desires.  This one asks if I cannot manage my FaceBook time a little better.  Could we go one day a week totally free of FB?  It is such a timesink!  There were whole years of my career without computer at all.  I get so much done in a web-free day!  Moving on, could we try not to boast about or promise something until it's a lot more done??  This really has been a problem with me throughout my career.  Unfortunately it runs smack up against advertising tack pieces, which is legit.  Perhaps there is a happy medium in there, a balance between keeping interest up and protecting the creative process.

George spotted this Red Shouldered Hawk in Big Cypress WMA.

In a general way, I need to be less hard on myself.  It seems to me I always expect too much, and try to do too much.  It's one thing to have accomplished miracles, but unrealistic to expect them to happen every time.  Allow for flub-ups.

That little lump in the center is a Great Horned Owl.  Babcock-Webb WMA.

Dry The Sea was the only horse to get himself shot this trip.  I brought 2 others, a buckskin Show Jumping Warmblood (factory name Jewel, personal name Corsair) and an ancient old Halla in fleabit grey from 1989, named Kalwari.  I realized later I had chosen 3 horses that spanned 30 years of Breyer.  I also discovered that 3 is too many for these trips.  Normally I use 2 Stone Tack Boxes to stow them in the car, back seat center between the food box and the trip box.  A few years ago we chose to try using only one box in an effort to save space.  (You have no idea of the premium on space on a road trip!)  This year I found stashing a second one next to the Stone Box, with only a pony pocket, was acceptable.  But a third under the seat did not work, being too difficult of easy access.  It's like a gypsy caravan in the car:  a space for everything and a routine to access it.

White Peacock Butterfly, Babcock-Webb WMA

NEWS.  Now that I'm home, I'm inking again!!  Last used who knows how many years ago, I cleaned up my Rapidograph technical pens (a 2-day job), bought some ink (my bottle was dated 1997 and is nearly empty!), and am happily inking plates for my next book.  Work must vary between writing, drawing and inking, but oh how I enjoy making those pens behave.  There were years around college [1978-1983] when I was doing this, and the year-plus spent on the Guide (1997).  Unlike model tackmaking in which I'm largely self-taught, drafting was my degree.  This activity is a direct link to my grandparents, who paid for my education, and to high school classes in drafting.  It all feels so homey, so true:  a pleasure once thoroughly known and gratefully returned to.

Big Cypress WMA.  There was a lot of rain, hence puddles.

And my other news is NaMoPaiMo.  I haven't entered yet because my horse isn't here, but as of today she's on her way!  all the way from Russia.  Thank you more than I can say Margarita!  The intended victim is a resin called Magnolia, not to be confused with Breyer's Magnolia the little Stablemate by Moody.  This stretching Ahkal Teke filly was sculpted by Margarita Malova.  Yes, she will be Brasenose's daughter.  I have visions of a sooty metallic buckskin.  On the same day as I bought ink, I purchased many more pastels and some Pearl-Ex.  All cheers for Uncle Eli's art store, which, unlike the University Book Store, carries waterproof drawing ink.

George wants to call this horse ScreetchHalt  :(  but I have named her out of the depths of my Ragtime life, a crossing of the beams of my life which strangely has never happened before.  In Zimmerman's Gems of Chicago Ragtime collection (2012) there is a Ragtime Medley No. 1., arranged by Adolph Schroeder (1899).  The second strain is called "Ambolena Snow."  It has become a favorite of mine.  This little filly went without a name for more than a year in my imagination before I realized this one was for her.

Kudos for those who hold NaMoPaiMo and who uphold its spirit.   And honor to those who manage wilderness areas.