Well, the days are ticking down and now I’ve get exactly a month to go until we fly to our new temporary home in England!

Here’s an update on everything.

Above is the finished “Halfling Boreas” bone china, the 100% donation to the Breakables at the Breyerfest Birthday Bash all-china model horse show in July. I have put a few more photos on this web page. This is the only Halfling Boreas to be glazed in matte finish. Hard to believe it is only 4.75″ tall!

Next is a sneak-peek photo of my awards for the Westerly Design custom glaze challenge class at the Breakables show. The first and 2nd places will receive these custom glazed porcelain tiles, mounted in wood frames. Hmmm, I wonder what color the horses will be…? (Each will be diffferent.) You’ll have to attend the show to find out!

Below is the very last china horse I’m finishing before the move. Remember the Can This China Be Saved Hagen-Renaker Roan Lady from this post? Well here it is at present:

The body now is darker overall, and has some subtle dappling and pinto markings. I just finished getting the white fired on, and now I will glaze the tail to flaxen and do the other detailing.

Speaking of Hagen-Renakers, I just received a gorgeous new-release Hagen-Renaker Roan Lady in white with dark mane and tail from The Little-Shop. You can now order any of the H-R molds in any of the new colors. This is exciting for me because you can order them in the white color, which means that I can custom overglaze them to any new color. (The dark mane and tail is easy to cover with white as needed.) The one I got has fabulous crisp mold detail. And you can order them without the liner on the mouth! I also have a Large Zara in white coming. There’s no telling how long you’ll be able to custom order these from H-R, so if you had any ideas of getting one of these for custom overglazing, just to be safe I would order them this year. I can’t glaze them while in England but I’d be happy to glaze your H-R when I get back! I charge $400-$700 for the work depending on the color.

The moving company is coming either tomorrow or Tuesday to pack all my stuff and take it away to the UK! I am looking forward to this because I need to stop adding little things to the pile that I don’t really need to send all that badly!! The good news is that my snowboard does fit in the crate so I am bringing it! I ride with a not-as-common “hard” boot and binding system and a specialty carving board, which would be almost impossible to find in a rental shop. One of our big goals is to Ride The Alps and I am glad I’ll be able to do that in my own equipment.

I also decided at the last minute to bring my two in-progress clay sculptures to England after all. Clarity and the little walking Morgan. I’ve unscrewed them from their wood armature bases and packed them into a foam-lined case. Neither of them were far enough along that it wouldn’t be a disaster to restore them if they get a little bumped around etc. The J-Mac Classic Clay that I use is pretty forgiving. I just thought that with 2 years over there I will want to stay busy and productive, with a variety of things to do. Glazing has been almost my entire focus the last 2 years and I am looking forward to NOT doing that now for a good while! By bringing these sculptures I’ll have more work options in addition to learning slip-casting (on all those rainy UK days, ha ha)!

Keeshond tile production is in full swing:

The art-glazed tiles just need to be glued and grouted into the frames. The 5 realistic tiles are still in progress and they will all go either into a trinket box, a jewelry box, or a mirror. I started out with 6 of those but one cracked in the kiln. It had a big air pocket inside which is probably what caused that. These are all intended for the Keeshond National show at the end of May, but if they don’t all go at the show I’ll put the remainder on my Etsy shop. Just for fun I’m also making a few tee shirts and tote bags based on my tile art:

Next weekend I’m flying to my hometown in upstate NY, to meet Paul and visit with his parents and some of his other family members. Then when I get back I’ll finish up all my work and start going down my large list of things to do to get ready to leave. May these last 30 days go fast…! !