Blog Day!

Yay it's friday! Which is starting to become blog day!

To the left is my first attempt to cut a horse head out of 18 gague copper. I did this in my metalsmithing class that I have started to take!

The first day was very encouraging and the instructor is interested in helping me work in miniature! I'm so excited about this!! I learned so much even in the first two hours!

As a side product of the metalsmithing class, it's dawned on me that I won't practice drawing here in the house on my own. Too many other things to do!! So I think I may pursue taking a basic drawing class this year as well. All of these skills can only make my miniatures better as I use metalsmithing and drawing both when I make them.

I have dyed the finished mochilla of my second Californio saddle and I'm working on the seat piece. The tooling is going a lot faster for me this time around. I guess I feel like I have a clue as to what I'm doing so I'm moving ahead more quickly.

Lately, my health has been decent although I've been tired. Course I'm always tired. Not sure what thats about but I'm sure I'm one of millions of folks that don't sleep well.

Next weekend, April 21, there is another Model Horse Show in Lexington, Ky. Funny how one doesn't plan on going to these things and then suddenly one gets a "fever" to compete and wants to go. Happily it's close to home so It would be an opportunity wasted if I didn't.

Wish me luck!

More Photos from the Show

Everyone Sing the blog song!

This past weekend I went to the Model Horse Mania Model Horse Show in Nicholasville, Ky. I really had a wonderful time! I Caravaned/Carpooled with two friends and I knew most of the folks at the show so it made for a very wonderful day! I also came home with some championships for my collection. I also took a TON o pictures.. about 900 in all!

The two friends of mine showed my tack at the show and they both took firsts and seconds in their class, then firsts in their divisions as well as taking an over all champ in Performance using my tack.

I have started my second Californio Style Mother Hubbard Set for the Museum of the West. This one will be mostly chocolate brown. It will have more tooling on it than the first one and the tooling pattern has been changed somewhat. I don't care for doing the same thing twice when it comes to tooling and saddles.

Needless to say, this saddle is going a bit quicker than the last one because I don't have to develop many patterns. I am going to cover the seat, front and back, and the horn this time. I'm also going to teach myself to do two color knots if I find that I have the time.

WISH ME LUCK!!!!

Onward..

I have rolled through my Arabian Show Halter making phase and moved onto mentally making plans for my next "Californio" style mother hubbard saddle. This one will be a chocolate brown. I'm hoping to teach myself how to put a second color in my knots for this saddle. I'm also going to be taking a silversmithing class in April to hopefully further my silver working skills.

This Californio set will be a tad fancier than the last and contain a bit more leather on the seat and on the horn... More places for tooling!

The Other californio Saddle is at the Autry Museum of the American West's Giftshop. I don't know any other details yet but I'm hoping that pricing info and availability info will be forthcoming this week or next.

Der flu

I think that I have come down with the flu. I have a spectacular 24 hour migraine, stomach cramps and the beginnings of a sore throat... Thank goodness for modern medicine that makes some of this stuff not quite so bad to deal with. Happily I can work from bed so that I'm still making money for bills!

I am thrilled to be able to say that I did hear from the museum on Monday! I wrote using my Gmail account instead of my desertnightcreations.com account and received a resounding reply of YES! we want your work! I'm so freaking happy! hA! I was really bummed there for a while and questioning what I was going to do next. I now need to figure out pricing and get the saddle on it's way! Thank you universe for giving me this opportunity!!!

Exhausted... Mentally

I'm exhausted mentally this week. I think it's because my regular job has been more demanding than usual. It's just worn me out this week. Last night, after making yet ANOTHER dang cinch for my mother hubbard/californio saddle, I decided to clean out the studio. I have materials that I always "thought" I would use but never have. I have a VERY bad habit of buying things that LOOK useful. I think thats the earth sign portion of my personality. I very much like useful, practical things. The things that I have accumulated over time sort of mark when I was in my art when I bought them. Some of them are no longer useful to me because I've moved past the point of needing them, or some of the things were bought for a certain idea that now no longer holds interest to me.

I"m going to photograph it and sell anything that my close friends don't want. This should be even more exhausting but will be "Free-ing" to get out of the studio!

The picture I have up is the finished picture of the Mother Hubbard/Californio set. People that understand what I was trying to do really like it, and that makes me happy :-)

Well.. that wasn't THAT hard..

HA!

I'm coming down the home stretch so to speak for finishing my Mother Hubbard Saddle Set! Just the Cinch, the stirrups and the tapaderos to go! My good friend, Robin P is making the stirrups out of real wood for me. I'm pretty excited about it!

The pictures shown are of the bridle and bosilla finished. The bridle has a hand made, hand etched bit that I made myself out of real silver. The buckes on the bridle are made out of real silver as well. Then I hand braided the reins and put turks head and spanish ring knots on the reins.

The bosilla is also hand braided and has a six part, seven bight knot on the heel of it. The mecate (The long rope) was also hand braided and has a turks head knot on each head of the tassel on each end.

I think that this saddle set really shows the range of my capabilities and I'm very proud of it!

I friggin did it!

To the left, you will see a miniature buckle made out of solid silver, that I have FINALLY figured out how to make! I'm so excited! Now to make more tonight!

This week has stunk..

Lets just throw that out there now. This week has been really stressful! Thank gawd it's the weekend now!

I've been having a horrible time working out how to make buckles for my bridle. I don't know if its the stress of life or if I've just reached the edge of my creativity, but I've had a really hard time.

I also think that the bits I made might be a smidge out of scale. (too large). At least the bits can be fixed in the future but Oh goodness have I despised making buckles!

I haven't heard anything from the museum I was making the saddle set for and thats a bit stressful and disappointing as well.

I totally took last night off of working on tack. I don't do that often but I thought that by taking some time off, I could distance myself from the stress and disappointment. TIme off that might refuel my drive.... I also went shopping today with my husband and we found some fantastic bargains (which makes us both happy) HE really is great company and was wonderful for making me laugh..

So no new pictures today but I hope to have some this coming week! WISH ME LUCK!

it goes.. A, B THEN C...

I have spent this weekend working on making a connector bar for the bit shanks that I made. I should have known that poking holes on those little tiny teardrop pieces at the end of the bit shanks would be disastrous - in fact the night before I actually thought about it and warned myself that they would break. They did. So After successfully completing a simple connector bar, I then had to go back and completely redo the bit shanks. This proved to be a good thing because now they are more true to real spade bits. The Hole in the middle is smaller and more in keeping with the design. Ya live and you learn.. and as I've heard on a TV show "Every problem is an opportunity in disguise".

Status Quo..

Another Wednesday and I'm not much farther along on my "Mother Hubbard" project. I have been working on the Vaquero Reins, the Bosilla and the saddle tree. I've finally come to understand better the Turks Head knots and the spanish ring knots that I've been making. Previously I was making the knots by using a diagram in a book but
not really understanding the terms and what they really meant. I think I'm really getting it now though and I hope to be able to do two color knots in the near future. (Thank you goes to Susan bensema young who helps me keep my interest in knots and braiding alive with her stunning work!)

I am posting a picture of the Bosilla in progress.. I still have two more spanish ring knots to put on the nose.

The saddle tree that I'm painting is far too yellow so I'm going to have to tone it wayyyy back down with a lot of white.

I have heard from the museum gift shop that I was working with and I need to re-sell myself to them. This is making me a bit nervous but with my husband's help, I think I can come up with a decent email illustrating my accomplishments and my miniatures work. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I am finding myself hopelessly addicted to the TV Show on Discovery called "How
it's made". Every time I See something manufactured I get more ideas as to how to make my miniatures or I get ideas on what classes I need to take to push myself to making the kind of work that I want to be making.

I want to quickly mention the Kentucky Derby Winner Barbaro that was put down on Monday. I think that he showed a lot of folks what horses are truly capable of, and what they're not capable of. I also think that his owners and trainers and Dr's did absolutely the best things for him at the right time. I admire them both for their commitment to their horse and in the end, their strength to know when to let him go. I'm hoping that his owners will allow his remains to either come to Churchill Downs or to the Kentucky Horsepark so that I can go visit him.

I still haven't heard from the museum folks that I had been talking with. I'm sure with staff changes, things are chaotic so I'm being patient.

In the meantime, I'm hurtling forward with my miniature "mother hubbard" project. (as I've so labeled it in my head). The first picture is of the miniature bit shanks that I hand made and etched out of silver. I've found that even with the fine gague silver that I"m working with, I can still use jewelers rouge to buff it out to a high shene. I'm fairly delighted with the progress that I've made so far. I'm also going to work on hand made silver buckles for the matching bridle as well as braided vaquero reins and a bosilla. (and then paint the tree and and and and and...)

I REALLY wanted to be finished with this by the end of January, but I don't think thats going to happen. I should've started earlier but for some reason The time I took on the roping set got away from me. I regret how long that took but I don't regret the end
product.

I can see that these mother hubbard saddles can get addicting for me. I REALLY want to do another one in a different color like Mahogany.

Today when I woke up (today is a "late day" for me because I usually work out in the mornings but I take wednesday's off) I found that it had SNOWED! I know this isn't a rare occurance for most places in the US in the winter, but the Ohio Valley here where Louisville, KY Is situated is a strange place. We sit in a bowl of sorts. Weather tends to go AROUND us. Literally. I live on the very outskirts of Louisville so we were treated to some lovely snow. Just enough to blanket the ground in white but not enough to cause too many issues. I think the temp is going to get up to 38 degrees today so there isn't a lot of chance for freezing roads.

Anyway, I got a nice shot (second picture) of our backyard right before the sun came up. Everything was black and white.. it was very serene and lovely. I'll attach it.

Little steps

This is a prototype for a silver spade bit that I'm trying to develop. This was cut from real silver and then etched using a dremel etcher. I am really pleased with how this turned out. I was going to leave the bit shank simple but I believe that I can do better, relatively easily. I wish that I had taken drafting or some other
kind of class that would teach me better about centering and designing things.
It's frustrating to have to wing it and then it not come out as perfect as I'd like. I also think I should take a jewelry class on cutting silver. I have no idea what folks who cut filgaree designs out of silver use in the way of equipment. SO MANY IDEAS! SO LITTLE TIME IN LIFE!

Apprehension....

I found out some Poetentially bad news this past friday. Seems as though there has been some staff changing at the museum that I was making tack for. I don't know yet what this means for my project. It's very scary for me, but then I have a really bad habit of always thinking the worst.. (just ask my husband! HA!).



This is a picture of it in progress. That back part is just laid underneath the Mochilla. I haven't put in the rigging yet because I can't primer the tree. It's been too wet here!!



I am lucky enough to have some very talented friends. My friend robin agreed to attempt to make the wooden stirrups that I would need for this set. I think it would be SO cool and authentic if that came about!!

 

A new start in a new year!

Ok.. I decided that my previous pattern was way too complicated.
Susan Young tells me that this is because of my fine art training. I think she's right. I continually have to "un-detail" my miniature patterns. ("But I can fit all of these lines in one little space!")

I've learned a tremendous amount about the old west/old california era between about 1820-1860. Well, at least I've learned a lot about the saddles used. Big thanks to Bruce Johnson and James Nottage!

This is my revised pattern. It will allow me to move forward faster because it's not so complicated.

This past weekend, I was SO sick. Too much time spent in bed and not enough time spent making miniatures! I am now really grateful for my job because if I'm sick, I can work anyway and I don't have to see other people.