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!