Field of Dolls Photo Show

 I wasn't sure if I going to be able to enter Anne Field's photo show.

I did, however, donate a few homemade props - I will write a post about those later.

But in the end, I was able to put together some entries and enter the show.

The results came in today.

Anne live streamed the door prizes (which were done by randomly pulling a name out of a cauldron - great idea!) and the Grand and Reserve Champions. She later emailed out the full results a few hours later. The show was triple judged.

I mostly entered in the Speciality classes, but I did have some for Other Performance as well. Here are all the entries I did:

Other Performance:

Brighty Trick Training

No, this one didn't place 

(though, this photo still does pretty well in other photo shows lately).

This one didn't either - in-fact, none of the Other Performance entries placed. The doll's the problem, but it was good to test out the Bribe Your Horse Speed Game. This one is of an eager Paint Me A Pepto whipping around the cone in pursuit of the corn in the bucket!

In that same speed game, there are horses who are food motivated....and then there's the ones who are not - like Mato Ska, in this case.

Speciality/Scene

Food

Judged by Anne Field

I knew that Anne would like this one!

Unsupervised Ponies and Foals received 4th place!

Miniatures

This one I had taken for Jennifer Buxton's Pandemic Performance Panorama.

None of my entries for Miniatures placed.

My original plan was to have one of my dolls pulling the wagon, but only crop part of her in the photo and centering on the models.

What happened?

I couldn't get her to stand, the handle wasn't long enough, and it was cold and a little breezy.

Funny

I was going to have this one in Food, but I realized that Arrow is already the star of my other Food entry. It could have been better - I was having trouble with angle.

He did not place.

Other Scene

(my specialty!)

Partly Cloudy and Emerald Isle

Did not place

Xavier

(his forelock is reflecting my hot pink jacket)

Did not place

Mato Ska

Did not place

Encore

Did not place

Aurelius

Did not place

(that makes sense, a judge had told me that they would rather see the horse from the light side - but, I entered it anyway)

This photo is from a few years ago, for a Breyer Photo Contest (it placed 3rd). I thought I'd pull it out and put it in a scene class since performance photos need to be from the side.

Judged by Marisa Spence

Paint Me A Pepto

6th place

Buster Baxter

Did not place

Kyla

Did not place

Drizzle

Did not place

Santiago

Did not place

Sgt. Reckless

Did not place

That was a lot of fun!

Anne is going to do another show in April, so I better start prepping!

River Walk

 

I honestly don't know why Blogger can't get the photos in order when uploading in larger numbers. But I don't care at the moment since I have a splitting tension headache that started while running errands on Saturday...which is actually from breathing in my own carbon dioxide while wearing the dumb mask that is still mandatory in Utah. If it continues on to a third day, I'll be asking my mom to do cranial sacral therapy on me - it's similar to chiropractic stuff.

Anyways, Mom was wanting to get out. The boys were further up the canyon hiking in snow. Jasper (the dog) goes crazy with cabin fever in winter because he has limited access to the outdoors due to keeping the back door closed to keep out the cold. Victoria, my little sister (red jacket^), has been needing to get out and walk, but something that isn't too strenuous. And then my dad and I came along, because we knew we needed it, too.

Almost by default, whenever I bring my camera (this time my little Casio), I am by myself. Too busy capturing the world to keep up with it, I guess.

One of the first things we noticed once we reached this end of the country on our way to Yellowstone when I was in high school, was that there was water next to the road. Where I grew up, there were dry riverbeds. Rarely, had there been enough rain to overflow Tempe Town Lake Dam to flood the dry riverbed from it.

Jasper was standing there proudly on the rock, but since the Casio takes awhile to turn on, he was already getting down by the time I could snap a picture. Auto cameras aren't great for instant pictures in these cases. I could have brought the Canon, but again, my headache is not just in my head/TMJ/eye/ear area, but also in my neck and I did not want the camera to add weight to it.

I really need to create a model horse scale fence with a grass base to help with breaking up the hard edge between the footing and the background. This is great inspiration - even if I don't use it.

My favorite part about this trail, is this fascinating spring that is seeping out from the side of a rock cliff next to the trail. During the summer, this whole area is just MUD. Winter, ICE.

But the cool part is that towards the middle of December, the water coming out of the spring freezes over, creating a waterfall gushing out the side of the cliff. This can be seen from the highway. What you can see here is the start of it with few visible icicles.

Ice reflections

Shadow line versus the sun line in Logan Canyon.

I have no idea what kind of plant this is by this seed pod. Not a bad picture for a little Casio, isn't it?

There were a lot of bushes with these peculiar seed pods all up and down the trail.

There was little bits of snow that collected in-between rocks and on the sides of the trail.

Trees are cool!

I mean, look at this root system?

Trees are unstoppable!

We don't know what this was either.

And this was also everywhere.

We really liked the color combo of the sagey green stems and the light yellow flower heads.

I thought this was a snazzy idea and it totally worked, too!

Obviously, I had to wait until I had my phone to take this picture!!

It was cold, like really cold, however. I think I needed my handy-need-a-new-pair gloves that my grandparents had brought back for me from Scotland to wear under these gloves (they are made from Cashmere wool and are so much better than the Acrylic ones you get here in America). My fingers were like ice!!

I'm hoping that I'll get more of my ICEE project done today - at least the main part of it, though. We'll see.

Chocolate ICEE

 

I already knew that my ICEE/NaMoPaiMo Visible Horse project was going to exceed the allotted time slot to complete. The last day of ICEE is today and I was only able to get to the rib cage - which is fine considering the extreme lack of motivation I had in EVERYTHING for the ENTIRE month of October!!! I was so, so relieved when my motivation to create came back at the beginning of November.

Now the Chocolate ICEE.

That photo above is not chocolate.

It is Apoxie.

DO NOT EAT!!

But, boy, does it look like the brownie batter that I make every Christmas that has peppermint patties nestled in a layer in the middle. (By the way, these are SO good - just know that they are also extremely rich that you can only have one, little square...or else you would feel sick after the second one).

I decided to try a different Apoxie color because my mentor through NaMoPaiMo, Jessica Saucier, said that the bronze color works better for detailing hair.

See that purple dot? That's where the shoulder blade connects with the rib cage. I had brainstormed all year, trying to figure out a sturdier solution to making the entire model functional as a let's-take-this-apart-and-see-how-it-fits-on-the-inside. My solution was to make the muscles in-between the ribs only part-ways. Here's my process to creating the detail work on the muscle part.^

This is apart of the skull. I'm building up the edges to close the gap between the "lid" (above) and the skull.

Here's the other side of the rib cage. This part still needs to be sanded before adding the detailing for the muscles.

Remember in my previous post on this project that there is quite the gap between the removable rib cage piece and the sternum? It still needs some detailing, as well as some lining up with the sternum, before I set the magnets in the sternum region.

There's still quite a bit that needs to be done before working on the legs....like sanding on the ribs or setting the magnet on the skull cap/lid/whatever.

But, what I am most thankful for is one:

My motivation is back!

And two: even though it has taken me almost five years to complete,

but it is half-way done!

Melting Cat

 Ever heard the term that Cats are like Liquid?

Well, this happened either earlier this week or sometime last week while I was working on stuff:

Thunder is normally not this close to the heater, preferring the heated blanket (or me) as her main source of heat.

Silly Kitty!

A Little Late, But Motivation Is Great!

 Yes, I have finally had the motivation to work on my ICEE project as of last week.

So far, so good.

I had sawed out that ugly hunk of Apoxie that was supposed to hold up the shoulder blade. That did not work as planned. New plan is sculpting new ribs right there.

Oh, yeah, and remember how one of the ribs broke off?

Fixed!

Here's a rough estimate on how it would look with the lungs in place.

Now, applying the Apoxie...

I didn't do any sculpting last night as planned. Instead, I spent my time sanding, carving, and studying how to make the ribcage actually close together. It was still good to do that.

I think I'm going to have to modify either the ribcage or the sternum when I go to insert the magnets.

One thing I didn't think all the way through, is that I didn't have to carve out the magnet at the back of the skull. What I really need to do is extend the edges to close the space gap on the "lid" side.

I do plan on sculpting an eyeball for this project.

It doesn't seem right without one!