In the next couple months I’m going to be transitioning out of Westerly Design into a new studio name, Wizard’s Vale Arts. This is for both business and personal reasons I won’t get into here. By the end of this year all Westerly Design presence on the web and internet will go away, replaced with Wizard’s Vale Arts. Including my email address!

Old friends from the model horse hobby will remember that Wizard’s Vale was my original “stable” and studio name back in the 1980’s until mid 1990 when I merged my equine art work into the Westerly Design company name. Well, I’m no longer designing anything since I gave up my graphic design and art direction career… and I decided to go back to my roots for my fine arts studio and the 2nd half of my creative life!

The first things I have been changing are this blog, which is the main landing place for the wizardsvalearts.com domain. It will serve as my studio’s home page; I won’t have another anywhere else. I’m slowly building the name changes and information and pages into this studio home. Fortunately email subscribers to the blog won’t have to do a thing, you’ll still receive all the news posted here.

I’m eventually going to have to delete the Westerly Design Facebook page and redirect this blog feed to the new Wizard’s Vale Arts page there. It’s already built but not “live” yet. When the time comes I’ll post the new page to Facebook so you can all migrate there.

You can test out my new email address if you like; for now both my old and new one will work.

Email Karen

Here’s to fresh starts!

Are you attending Bring Out Your Chinas in San Diego this month? If you are making a last-minute decision, I believe there are one or two openings left to attend. I hope so, because I want to see many examples of my chinas and custom glazing work represented there. Please DO bring them out!

There is a Karen Gerhardt custom glazing challenge class, and here is my award for first place:

It is an earthenware china “Optime” Arabian head, customized. This is all that remains after I customized an entire horse in greenware and then broke a leg off. AAARGH! I managed to save the head, and I’ve left it in bisque so that the winner of the class can have it glazed by their favorite china finisher.

And what might these little Halfling Boreas china gems be…??

There are a total of seven of these made… and you’ll have to attend BOYCC to find out how I am giving them all away!

Email Karen

Today I opened Fido the Kiln on my first-ever greenware-to-bisque firing. This was the first group of horses where I slip-cast them in the plaster molds, put them together in greenware, and fired to bisque. I did cast and assemble 2 horses while in England, but Donna Chaney fired them for me in her kilns. So this was truly the first time I took pieces all the way on my own. And I am happy to report that all eight of them fired perfectly! They are now ready for glazing.

All but three of these pieces had some custom resculpting done in the greenware clay stage and even they didn’t come up with any cracks or flaws. I was pretty surprised. Perhaps working in clay is more forgiving than I expect. My biggest challenge is not knocking a leg off while cleaning the seams and customizing the unfired greenware. But I got less clumsy the more I did it.

The new Boreas has had feathers added to the legs, plus a long tail, redone mane and ears. He is going to be part of my Bring Out Your Chinas Convention banquet table centerpiece. The question is, should I glaze him a realistic color or an art glaze? I can’t decide!! What is your vote?

Email Karen

At last! He’s done.
And he now has a website with photos.

I’m starting to finalize details about the Roundie resin edition. I thought I’d share this information so you can plan for it. The sale should happen in late May. I think!

Even though I initially wanted to offer a really small edition, various friends told me I might as well keep open the option to cast the whole production of one mold—since I’m paying for it anyway.

So we’ll call it an edition of 60. But… 10 of them will be cast solid (not hollow) to send out for china mold-making and for my “keepers” as well. (I don’t like hollow resins myself, they feel just too much like plastic models and I think resins should have more “presence”). I am also holding back a certain quantity to give away as gifts. And there is a yet-undetermined amount that will be going to buyers living in the UK in a separate sale.

Based on the above I think my sale quantity will be of 35 hollowcast resins. I might offer them in two batches on different dates, depending on delivery of resins. They are going to be $200.00 each, USA postage paid. (International shipping will be split with the buyer.) I am going to sell them via my Etsy store. You’ll need to register as an Etsy user to buy there (there’s no cost and it’s a well-known, safe site)… so you might want to do that now or soon so you don’t have to do it the day my sale goes live. There will be no time payment terms; all resins will be in-stock and ready to ship during the sale.

Sheila (Anderson) Bishop of Palouse Arts has graciously agreed to paint the very first resin copy of Roundabout, which I will photograph to use as the “promo” painted example. She has to complete that before the sale, too. Her work and the arrival of all the resins will determine the exact day of the sale, but I will post the date and time here on the blog at least a week before.

China edition: I will have no information on the china Roundies before the end of May. I do know that I want to produce both English bone china and USA earthenware pieces. I’d like to do an OF edition, but that may be too ambitious.

I am slowly detailing out the master resin. It is slow work. But it needs to be done by March 20th.

While you are waiting for photos of the final Roundie sculpture… here is one of my many reference photos for Roundie. I took hundreds of action photos of British heavyweight show cobs at the Royal Windsor Horse Show on “Cob Day” in May 2009.