Available, my genuine one-of-a-kind Breyer Shire Gelding painted by me at Breyer HQ in 2016.

In case you didn’t know, I’m the sculptor of the Breyer Shire Gelding mold. I was fortunate to paint two OOAK Shires at Breyer’s NJ painting facilities in 2016, the year the mold was introduced.

This one has the mane flights and tail ribbons removed, so he’s also a factory custom. I believe he’s the only OF decorator color painted on this mold so far.

Overall he’s fairly simple paintwork … no fancy mapped markings … but the true stunning beauty I was going for when I painted him, is in the way the aqua undercolor merges with the darker blue top shadings. And it picks up all his sculptural details. I’m a master airbrush artist with over 40 years experience. I added blue PearlEx to the factory paint to give it a light metallic sheen. Heavily glossed and in pristine condition. He’s never been shown and always kept in my cabinet.

He comes with a Certificate of Authenticity from Breyer. As with all Breyer factory OOAKs there’s no guarantee that Breyer will never release this model in this color at some point.

This a beloved model from my own collection.

I have a strong offer of 10k for this model. He will sell; there’s no reserve. I will consider offers only until Wednesday March 29 at 12 noon mst. I will personally deliver to Breyerfest in July, no shipping. You can take until July to pay, contact me to discuss payment terms.

Email me with questions and bids: karen@westerlydesign.com

The first group of 14 pieces in the edition are ready to order. The Mini Caprice 20th Anniversary OF china edition will be 30 pieces total, earthenware china on a base, as shown. It’s roughly 4″ x 4″. All finished to a golden bay with 4 white socks and a snip on the nose.

Go to this link to access the order form. It will be live until March 17th.

I can finally announce this special project for 2023! 

2023 marks 20 years since I purchased my kiln and dived full speed into ceramics for my equine sculptures. It’s been an amazing journey and I think it needs to be commemorated. The time has gone waaaaay too fast!

Fido The Kiln first arrived at my studio in 2003, when we lived in Boulder, Colorado. All my fellow china-making friends had given their kilns names. Fido lived in my garage, in a dog pen with a doggie door to the yard, which we didn’t use because I don’t want my dogs hanging out in the yard (or in the garage) when I’m not there. But the dog pen, with tiled walls and flooring, was perfect for a kiln. So, he got named Fido of course!

Fido lived in Boulder for 8 years, and then we retired and moved up to Colorado ski country near Vail, where he lived in the garage of the duplex home we bought. Then in 2017 we decided we were not ready to be downsized and we moved across the valley to a larger house where I have a gorgeous custom studio. Fido now lives in the garage here too, right downstairs from my studio above.

Mini Caprice China Anniversary Edition

Caprice, a warmblood stallion, was my first sculpture to be produced in ceramic. He was first released in 1/9th scale resin in 2001, in two editions of about 60 each, two different versions: a stallion version with braided tail, and a mare version, hollow cast, with a loose tail. Then in 2005 in the dawn of the 3D scanning scene, I had Caprice I scanned, output in a mini scale with a resculpted loose tail, and immediately sold out of 300 pieces in resin.

It’s only right that Caprice is my 20th Anniversary commemorative edition. He wasn’t released in mini scale in ceramic, until now. I gave my original mini master sculpture yet another new tail for the china edition, this one braided and swishing to the side. Then I sent it off to Donna Chaney at Alchemy Ceramics in Herefordshire, UK, my amazing and can’t-live-without resource for my works in ceramic. I received the first pieces this week. 

Mini Caprice China will be approx. 50 pieces total in earthenware china. There will be about 35 pieces in one OF colorway, on the lovely little plinth shown, all of which I will glaze myself. There are 10 pieces being made without the base, which will be all custom glaze colors. I may pull a couple of the ones on bases and custom glaze them too; I just love the way he looks on the plinth! I’m using “approx” and “about” because there will inevitably be breakage. I will release the final numbers when everything has been finished. 

I am working on the test colors for the OF edition color right now. I want it to be an “easy”color that I can paint and fire in a maximum of 3 passes through the kiln. Hopefully two! Most likely: a dark shaded bay with interesting pangare areas, 4 white stockings, and the base left unpainted white gloss. All will be glossy finish.

The price point for the OF edition will be around $200. each. I am hoping to deliver a lot of them at Breyerfest in Kentucky this July, so that I don’t have to ship very many. I will be debuting them for viewing in person to the attendees at the (already sold out) Clinky Mayhem event in Carlsbad, CA, the first weekend in May and maybe even delivering some orders there depending on how many I get finished. We’re off to Arizona in April and staying until mid-May, therefore no more glazing until May!

As soon as I get a sample of the OF edition color finished and photographed, I will take orders. It will go to a lottery-draw format if I get more than 35 orders. Payment terms TBD… I don’t like holding onto a lot of people’s money so I might just take names and then require payment in full each time I have pieces ready. It all depends on how long it takes me to glaze 35-ish OFs!

I will announce the opening of orders on my Facebook page, my website’s blog/email mailing list, and my instagram account (@traveldogartpony). If you absolutely don’t want to miss out, I suggest you subscribe to the blog via this link. Click the menu icon at upper right, scroll down, and follow the blog subscribing instructions. Then you’ll get my blog emails sent to you including the ordering announcement.

Thank you all for your support of my china dreams over these 20 years!!

I definitely underuse this website blog which I use as my mailing list, but there has been a steady uptick in subscribers. Welcome, if you are new!

Last March we bought a townhouse on the far eastern edge of the Phoenix AZ metro area, up against the Superstition Mountains wilderness. It’s to be our off-season getaway, in some of the months when Colorado is less than perfect. (Hard to believe that it is ever not perfect!) That purchase was spurred by the fact that we chose to do a big remodel to the Colorado house. Entire main level, basically. It finally got underway in early October last year so we were in the AZ place until last week. About a month later than planned, but that’s nothing new with house remodels!

We’re in the last throes of unpacking the house but there are also workers coming and going. (I think we’ll have the plumbing done in the bathroom today, yaaay!) Plus house guests next week. I did get my studio all unpacked and I’m able to work in there now. But it’s still somewhat chaotic around here and I’m a month later than I wanted to be for art-related goals for 2023.

I was hoping to debut an OF china edition at the BreyerWest event in Denver next month, but I’m waiting on the bisques from England and they’ve had some kind of hack in their postal system. I don’t even have a piece to photograph yet. I don’t want to rush glazing the test samples etc. so I think I’m not going to push it for the BW event. It’s not really my market anyway; china fans if you follow me on Facebook you will not miss out!

I’m still hoping to get a bunch of custom painted OF-style Breyers for BW. I have a nice stash of bodies! But since we got back to CO a month late, everything is late and they all need to have their existing finish stripped off first. I have so many things I want to do RIGHT NOW, that I’m finding it hard to prioritize!

I have been working on a new sculpture in my slow old-school-clay way. I only work maybe 3 hours a week at most on him because I’ve got such a busy life and this is all just a hobby for me now. But this Irish Draught stud (working title: Fearghas) is making steady progress and really just down to all the many refinements. I am SO excited to get him done; it’s my ultimate type of horse breed and sort of a tribute to all the sport horses I’ve done so far, but hopefully the best of them all.

I don’t have an urgent agenda for it, as with pretty much everything in my arty life these days. It is 1/9 scale now but I want to have it scanned into a digital format and output in a smaller scale, for both ceramic edition and resin. I will not be issuing any 3D printed copies or “micro-mini” scale; probably nothing smaller than about 4″ tall in resin and maybe about 7″ tall in ceramic. It’s all still to be worked out because I haven’t even fully researched where best to get the digital work done or who has space in their schedule for resin casting these days. I’ll probably bring the clay sculpt along to my BreyerWest AG table for viewing, or possibly the master resin cast if I get that far by the 3rd week of February.

In the ceramics department I will continue to finish custom glazed pieces in my “Denderah” Arabian edition. It all comes down to getting white ware from England, and I need a couple more! I also want to pick out a few more pieces from my white ware hoard and get more things glazed and out in the world. But… I only have access to my kiln in Colorado and we will go back to AZ for April and most of May, then we have a big 40th anniversary trip to Europe planned for a couple weeks late May/early June… sooooo there’s my usual problem. Life is too much fun to be in the studio. Plus my husband Paul is now 1.5 years into remission from his cancer so after 3 years of doing almost nothing, we are getting OUT! Hooray!

If you’ve been following me over on Facebook (or to a lesser extent Instagram) where I do most of my studio news (yes I’m now OLD and will NEVER do tiktok or anything like that at this point plus I hate video for some reason), I’ve got two Streetwise QH bone chinas almost ready to sell. I think they’ll go up for an offers auction on Tuesday Jan 24 on the FB page.

There’s probably other news but that’s it for now. Wally says HI from snow land!

UPDATE: Sold, thank you!

I’ve decided to take a commission on my Denderah Arabian stallion sculpture, a very limited edition in fine bone china. To be glazed to the color of your choice.

I want to glaze one this fall but not feeling inspired on color, so you get to choose!

A few overall terms:

1. Ideally I’d like it to be paid in full by the end of September. I want to have it finished by then because we’re leaving for Arizona and then no more kiln until December! But I may allow more time to pay depending on the commission.
2. The finish will be glossy.
3. Email me at karen@westerlydesign.com or message me on Facebook with a reference photo of your idea, or at least a description of what color you’re thinking of. It can’t be any shade of chestnut, bay, or palomino.
4. I will choose the proposal I’m interested in and then we’ll discuss price and details. Price range will be $1500-$2500 depending on complexity of color.

Thank you!