Introducing.....

I thought it was about time that I introduce you all to the newest member of our family:
Lilia Ann !

She was born on December 25th, 2007 - a Christmas Baby! Lilia was 7 lbs 4 oz at birth, and 21 1/2 inches long. She's now over 5 weeks old, 10 lbs 3 oz and 23 3/4 inches long and growing daily! We've been enjoying every moment with our little blessing, even the sleepless ones.

I have a few photos of her online if you'd like a peek.
http://picasaweb.google.com/deeannkjelshus/Lilia45WeeksOld
http://picasaweb.google.com/deeannkjelshus/Lilia3Weeks
http://picasaweb.google.com/deeannkjelshus/LiliaAnn2Weeks

Lilia has been keeping me very busy which is why I haven't posted here for awhile. I hope to get back to work on some horses in a month or two and post something new then.

New photos

Thought I'd put up a some quick shots I took of Jazira a few weeks ago. I haven't been able to work on her for about 6 weeks, but you can see that I made some progress in getting her pieced back together. She still needs a lot of work, and any critiques are welcome. Please do note she's far from complete. The color differences you see are due to the fact that I used Apoxie to resculpt those areas I dremeled away.

Baby = Sale

With our new little one on the way we've been having to take inventory of a lot of things. Space, closet space, time etc. I've realized that I just won't have the time to do as much horse work as in the past. Therefore I've decided to part with a few of the pieces I've been saving to paint for myself. These are top LSQ unpainted Resins. If your interested check out my sales page:
http://www.artbydeeann.com/sales/

Preparing in Pink

I haven't had much time to work on horses lately. Instead I've been enjoying spending some time visiting family and getting prepared for our babies arrival.

We are still shooting for a December 22nd due date for the arrival of our baby girl! Needless to say we've been immersed in lots of cute pink things! You can see the colors we choose for the nursery in the photo to the left. My husbands mother made us the beautiful hand made quilt in the colors we chose for her nursery (pinks and greens), and just by coincidence my mother chose fabric in almost the exact same colors to create her quilts (they are not put together in this photo).

As for my equine art, I have done some work to my Arabian Sculpture recently and hope to get photos up and posted of her soon. Until then I'll leave you with a link to a website I enjoy. Lots of great eye candy of real horses, and equine artwork as well. Check it out : http://www.ponycity.com/

Arabian Mare Available

I finally found time to list this lovely dapple grey Arabian Mare for sale. You can find more info and photos on my website here: http://www.artbydeeann.com/sales/

My kind of Therapy

I’d like to introduce you to a couple of new pieces I've been working on. They are bas relief sculptures, better known by the hobby as "Medallions" or "Cookies". They are often used as rewards, or just as collector items.

I love working on these pieces. I feel free to just sculpt without too much care as to how correct the piece is. I'm more interested in the feelings these pieces evoke. Not that I disregard feeling when I create a full 3-D sculpture. My pieces always start out with feeling in mind. However, there are so many concerns as to how correct the 3-D sculptures are in hopes that they will look like a horse, and also show well that, sometimes the intent goes by the wayside in order to make the horse 'correct'.

With the bas relief sculptures it's just easier for me to sit down and sketch out what I'm inspired by and dive into the piece. They are a nice break from the norm, and allow me to just sculpt. There are many pieces I've created that never see the light of day. They are more a way to free up my mind and soul for other projects.

I guess, in a way, you could say they are ‘artists therapy’.

Two steps Back...

Sometimes we have to go backwards in order to move forwards. I was so stuck with how Jazira was looking. There were little things that were bothering me keeping me from moving forward with her. After hashing some ideas around with another artist I have taken out my dremel tool and basically removed most of her hindquarters, and parts of her two hind legs. I also moved her hind right leg, so it is more correctly placed under her for support. Lastly, I've shaved her back down a bit so I can resculpt it with a little more shape. (Sadly, her ears broke during the last move from San Francisco to Houston)

She looks pretty bare bones again, but the plan is to correct those flaws and annoyances. Hopefully this will all make for a better sculpture. This is typical of my sculpting process. If possible, I'd love to be working in a plastilina (or non-hardening clay) so I could just scrape away what I don't like. However, since we are traveling I have to use a medium that hardens and sets up so I can wrap up the sculpture each week and travel to our next destination.

So far I've been using Super Sculpey as my medium of choice. Personally, I love it because it doesn't set up until you bake it in the oven. So you do have hours, days, or weeks to work on the piece. However, I'm finding not all of our hotels have ovens. We have kitchenettes in many of them, but they usually have stove tops/ranges, but no oven. Therefore, I have some Apoxie sculpt on order to continue my work on Jazira. Apoxie is wonderful, and I used it almost entirely to finish my Let's Roll and Raja Sculptures. However, it sets up in an hour or two so you have to work quickly. More often than not I end up doing a lot of dremeling because I like to step back after working on a sculpture and take a day or so to look at it before committing to what I've sculpted and firing/baking that section. With Apoxie you have to commit to it right away, so if I change my mind, I then have to dremel the offending piece. I love the dremel, but it's just not great for Carpel Tunnel Syndrome (which I suffer from) so I try to avoid it as much as possible. Thus the reason I've avoided it so far on this piece.

The goal with all these changes is that it will keep me moving forward with this piece from this point on. Wish me luck!