Here is how the Tumlinson “Desperado” glazing turned out. What a pleasure to have the opportunity to glaze this gorgeous sculpture. Thanks Jeanene for commissioning me!

Well, OK I have been. Sort of.
I confess that the new dog has been a distraction. Having two is just sooo fun, and now with springlike weather finally coming in, it is very hard to stay indoors.

Factoid: Did you know that the plural of “Keeshond” is “Keeshonden”? I keep forgetting to say that when I tell people what breed they are, instead of “Keeshonds”.

The two boyz just love to play; I call it the Fight Club when they really get going. They have just discovered that the best way to get me out of bed in the morning, is to hold the Fight Club all around the bedroom and on the bed!

An additional distraction to getting down to work is that in less than three weeks Paul and I are leaving for a 16-day trip to Europe. We’re celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary with a big cruise all around Italy and 2 stops in Croatia. We’ve been to Italy 3 times already but we’ll get to Florence (where we’ve never been) and Venice for more days… it’s really just a big romantic blow-out! So I have had a hard time concentrating on work, with that trip looming ever closer!

But I have made progress on some work!

I needed to get the Keeshond tile going because I have the opportunity to have a sample taken to some dog shows this spring and the regional Kees club may be using some for awards or gifts if we can work it all out in time. (I do have to master ceramic tile making before that happens!!) Here is a resin cast of the finished sculpture. To make it final, I have mostly added detailing to the head:

I’m in the process of making my plaster mold so I can start casting them in earthenware china.

In the horse department, I have some work moving along:


The Desperado is just about finished. I just need to detail out the hooves and add more grey etc. to the head, and he’ll be on his way to Jeanene Bernardin this week. I just love this striking color on this great sculpture!

This month I started work on glazing another Stacey Tumlinson sculpture for a client, a “Majestuoso”. The color requested is a semi-leopard appaloosa. I airbrushed on some early base coat color here:

And then took up a “mop” paintbrush which looks this:

And with the mop brush I gently “disturbed” the wet overglaze paint, and then lightly dragged it in the direction that hair grows, to get to this place:

The glaze is still unfired and next I will be going in with a damp paintbrush and removing paint in the areas where I want the appaloosa spots and other coat complexities to be. This color will be a long work in progress!

I am also working on the two Hagen-Renaker Arabians as mentioned in a previous posting, and here they are at present:


The “Sheba” (top) mare is going to be a chestnut sabino. Lots of work to go yet, in building up the white areas on top of the existing color. The “Amir” stallion is going to be a subtly dappled dark bay with a couple white socks. They both look kind of funny now because they have white eyes; I have to paint out the original eyes with opaque white glaze in order to have a new white base to paint proper eyes.

I don’t know if any of these (except for the Desperado) will be finished before my trip; probably not, as I will not rush any work. But I’ll keep updating progress here because the two H-R’s will be for sale when completed.

I promise I’ll stop soon!

By the way, we have come up with less-awkward, easier to say name for the new boy, he is now going by “Kanab”. Named after a creek in Utah that flows into the north rim of the Grand Canyon. (A town near there is also called Kanab.) It sounds so similar to “canasta” that there was no learning curve for him!

We’re overjoyed to announce that we have adopted KitKat’s cousin and best kennel buddy, “Canasta”, today!!

We had a test run with him here last fall for a few days, and at that time I didn’t think I could cope with two young dogs. And Canasta is only just over a year old, and more exuberant and less trained than Kit. But I’ve been thinking about him ever since that time, and thinking how it would benefit Kit to have another dog here. My heart told me I couldn’t bear to think of Canasta going to some other home. So, today we took Canasta for good!

Canasta is on the left/front in the first photo. In the second Kit is on the left. They look very much alike unless you are looking straight into their faces. Canasta still has some growing to do yet, and his coat will change. Hmmm, I noticed that Kit could use a brushing!

It has been a blast to see them play together, and Canasta absolutely lives for his tennis ball. He’s one of those dogs that will just keep dropping the ball at your feet, and then stare fixedly at it until you throw it, over and over, forever. I went out and bought one of those tandem leashes so I can hold the 2 dogs with one leash. That’s going to take some getting used to for all three of us!

Here’s to adding a bit of chaos into our perhaps too-orderly lives, yay!! I realized that I will have to move all the breakables (ceramic horses) up higher and out of harm’s way for awhile, since ‘Nasta likes to fling himself around in his zest for the fetch!

I’ve reduced the price of my porcelain arabian horse tiles for sale at my ETSY shop. They are all art glazed in different colors and mounted in wood frames. They were $40, now they are $30 except for the jewelry box, which is now $50. Here is the newest one I just listed there:

They are always a great idea for show awards and prizes!

I want to get around to glazing more of these into realistic horse colors; I’ve just had too many other priorities lately. But I’d accept a custom order if you want to name your color scheme. I just counted recently and I’ve only got 14 of these tiles left in the edition of 100!