The Art Of Carissa Kirksey✝

The Reason For The Silence

4/12/2018

Hey all!
SO! The silence...
& all the things left hanging here...
Two words: Computer trouble.
My poor old 5yo laptop is on it's last legs. I am on it now, though it's not happy about it, but I had not been able to use it for several weeks. In those weeks, I have been learning lots about computers as I search for what I wanted to replace the old thing with. I have a new one on order (it can not get here fast enough), & am happy to at least have this one creaking along until then.
Once the new one is in, set up, & we're getting along, I fully intend to finish up my NaMoPaiMo posts & videos! My poor friends stories have been left hanging! I will say that we all did finish! :) I was also surprised to get a NaMoPaiMo Van Gogh in the mail! I had a lot of fun painting him! Thank you Jennifer & Kylee!

Also, Finn, my medallion mold, cast like a dream! I ran the mold out at 31 total. I have 11 blanks for sale at $20 each, as well as various cast colored ones (one each purple, blue, green, rose, & glittery bronze, all cleaned up & glossed) for $30 each. They will be properly posted for sale once the new laptop is in, but if anyone is interested, they are up for grabs, just drop me an email! I will happily paint them as well for an added price.

I still have the report from the New Year's Bash to post as well.

My 100% CMs Gala & Salazar taking the O/A CM ribbons!

And just for fun, three of my MMs are in Maggie Bennett's MM Madness contest. I really don't expect to win anything, but it's fun to see them in the herd on her FB. :) Kim's 'Apollo', named KP Guy Noir, did win a category though! He took best preservation of details!

But anyway. That's the reason for the silence!

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I Have A Mold!

2/26/2018

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Progress & Distraction

2/25/2018

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Day 25 of NaMoPaiMo & Kim & Angel are still hard at work!
Kim had a little set back on wings today, they just weren't meeting with her approval.

So they were whited out & started over.

But she's much happier with the second try! I believe that she now just has details to go on her!

Angel has had good progress too! She's done fiddling with CMing & has been air brushing the base on her Gypsy! She's never air brushed before NaMoPaiMo! Kudos to her for trying something new!

She's also been having fun running with the inspiration that NaMoPaiMo has brought on & painted a couple SMs too!

Carole's still showing us all up. ;)

Me? Oh, well, um, I, haven't done anything with Nocturno this weekend. What have I been doing? Everything else! As usual I have a whole herd that is calling. Plus an experiment that I've been dyeing to try.
Today I broke new ground for myself & tried my hand at molding something for the first time ever. I made this medallion last week just for this endeavor.

Built my first ever mold box.

& mixed & poured my first ever silicone.

You have no idea how much I want to pull it apart & see if it worked or not. Morning can't come fast enough!
There are still three more days in NaMoPaiMo, we still have hope, right Nocturno? {:|
Happy painting all!!

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Plodding Along

2/21/2018

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One week to go in NaMoPaiMo! I have been neglecting my blog, but things are still moving, albeit slowly, for us all!

My Nocturno is still working on dapples. ...My my but we had go rounds on them! He was fighting me tooth & nail about them. But eventually, after the fifth try, I got them going how I wanted! I still have more to do on the other side before I can move onto the next step. *sigh* No matter how you do them, dapples are time consuming!! Alas, I do have other horses to work on too, so he has been getting my in-between time, poor boy.

Kim, likewise, has been picking at her NaMo Pegasus, but has other horses that have taken priority on being finished.

"This past week (Feb 12th) has involved me frantically painting and finishing another MM for an upcoming show next month. This will be my first show ever! And Carissa has kindly agreed to proxy for me. :)
Now that I have everybody done (well, almost) I can turn my attention to Furia. I am planning on painting her similar to the light morph hawk in the picture. This reference comes from The Sibley Guide to Birds. It’s an awesome book that is illustrated by the author, David Allen Sibley.
Cross your fingers that Furia cooperates!"

Fingers crossed, Kim! I think she looks good so far though! Can't wait to see what ponies you send me to show too!

Angel is still CMing her Shire-turned-Gypsy, but after a bit of a shaky start with sculpting, she's finally getting to the point of being pretty happy with him! She's still picking on the tail, so he may be a NaMoPaiMARCH pony. ;) I know I would prefer to be late but happy with my model, than finish in the month & forever dislike something about him, & I think that is how she is looking at it now too. :)

Carole, on the other hand, is still showing us all up. ;) She's sold her NaMo PAM, who was finished earlier, & has gone onto paint two medallions for herself! I think they look lovely!!

Wish us luck in this last week! We're still plodding along!
Happy painting all!

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Carole's "I Did It" ...Eventually!

2/8/2018

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"I Did It" has become the triumphant cry of NaMoPaiMo when one finishes their chosen horse within the month of February. & it should be no surprise that Carole is the first of us four to be able to say that! ...Eventually!

"Thought I was done. Then saw where she fell over during spraying. Didn't notice until photos as I don't wear glasses outside for spraying. Working on repairs now. Grrrr"

"I did play dress up before I saw her boo boo. She is a fun mare."

A Little later she had this update:

"It seems to be coming along OK. Just to show we can work through problems."

Shortly followed by:

"She wasn't real hard to fix. The scratches were easy with pigments. The little ding was harder as it went to base and was like a chip. So I had to carefully use a little acrylics to build it back up. Tried to keep it close to same color and then pigments to blend. I think it is unnoticeable now.
The little brat..."

Because of her disobedience, PAM's final finished pictured were without background, but still beautiful! Congratulations, Carole!!

Angel, on the othe hand, is having a little harder time though.
Yesterday he finally had a tail again.

But when it came to sculpting some extra hair she said that she wasn't feeling as confident as she had been.

You can do it Angel!!

As for my Nocturno... Not much. I washed off the dapples I did the other day & haven't gotten around to doing them again! Other horses have been getting my attention. I always have a herd of WIPs.

Stay tuned for more later!
Cheers all!

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Mixing & Laying A Base Coat By Hand

2/8/2018

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The very start of painting a horse in just about any medium is usually a good base coat of acrylics. As a prelude to my article on painting in oils, here is a little on how I do base coats.

A side note before we get to the info here though. I do not have an air brush (though I hope to get one sometime this year), I lay basecoats entirely by hand & have for years. With that in mind, this mix may not be good for an airbrush, I really have no idea! Just wanted to toss that out there before someone makes their airbrush unhappy!

On with the tutorial! Since Nocturno is going to be a rich dark bay, his base color is a mix of burnt sienna acrylic & clear gesso, thinned with water. You will want to pick or mix a base color as close to the body, or middle color, of your chosen finishwork color.

I started with this brush (which is rinsed & wet in this pic actually), but switched to a similar one later as this one was a little too frizzy & was leaving streaks in the basework.

Like all of my paints, I mix in bulk to have it when I need it, so I do not have pictures of mixing the base I used on Nocturno. But I did take pictures of another color of base that I mixed not too long ago. The motions are the same no matter what color the base is.

You will need:
* Acrylic in the color or colors desired
* Clear Gesso (I use Liquitex Professional)
* Water
* A sealable container
* A stir of some sort (I use a popsicle stick).

Add however much acrylic you need to your container. This "Honey Brown" is one of my staple base colors which I had run out of. I had washed out its container to reuse & it was still a little wet which is what the swirls in the paint are.

Add a good bit of clear gesso, but do it somewhat cautiously; The gesso is to add 'tooth' for the oils to grab onto, as well as to add a little more sandability (yes spell check that is the word I mean!) if you need to knock down imperfections in your base or something missed in prepping. But, if you add too much it will leave you with a sandy texture that will show in your finishwork. (Really bad if you use pastel as that sandy texture will 'pop' with the pastel catching it.)

It looks white, but trust me, it is clear. You can't see in the picture of supplies, but I paint the cap of the clear gesso bright red so I never mistake bottles & grab white when I meant clear!

Mix...

& add water.

You want to thin it down to a consistency so that it will just cover the side of the container without beading up. It's something of a learned skill to determine how far to thin it...

But as long as you are not leaving brushstrokes on your horse, you are probably good! If you start painting it on & think that the paint is a little too thick, you can always water it down more.

With a prepped & primed horse (taking off seams, logos, imperfections, etc. & giving it a good coat of spray primer), you can start brushing on your base. Nocturno was primed in Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch 2X Coverage flat red primer, which was really close to my base color! Made my work easier! If you are starting a light base color, white is a better choice, you won't have to fight the stronger color under it, saving you layers of painting base.
In the picture below, the first layer has been laid down on his head, neck, shoulders, & first half of his barrel. It takes many layers to completely finish a good base coat.

With a half inch flat (that isn't frizzed up!), dip the very tip into your base paint & attack your horse! Brush it over the surface, being careful not to leave brushstrokes. A way to help avoid brushstrokes is to not load more paint onto your brush than you can smooth out before it starts drying, & acrylics dry super fast! Also, brush in many different directions to help avoid building up any brushstrokes & ridges. If you do get a ridge, you might be able to smooth it out gently with your finger while the paint it still wet/damp; be careful not to rub a hole in your base coat though! The safest solution to ridges is to wait for the base to totally dry & hit it with a light touch of 220 or finer sandpaper. That's where the gesso comes in handy! Straight acrylic likes to tear & peal when sanded, but the gesso allows it to be sanded.
I start basing at the head & work my way back, usually leaving the tail for a hand hold. If your chosen model does not have a tail suitable for a handle, you have to improvise, using legs which will have to 'catch up' to the painting at every step. Since Nocturno is going to be bay & thus his legs are going to be black, I didn't bother basing them & can use them for a hand hold too.
Usually when I a basing, by the time I have gotten to the rear of the horse, the head is has dried & I can start over again. Don't get frustrated if your base looks really splotchy, you need to build up many layers to keep from getting brushstrokes, so this it totally normal for it to look horrible! Just take a look at 'Rastus' between the first few layers & the final result.

Here is the red primer I used on Nocturno, & the finish I usually use on bases. "CLEAR" is written on the cap because it looks WAAAY to much like white primer at a glance & I don't want to grab it by mistake!

TIP: Quite often I will spray a layer of finish over my base layers at some point to help avoid any of the base wearing off & leaving a 'hole' to fill, which is fixable, but annoying. I usually use Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch 2X Coverage matte for this, but any finish should work just fine!

Make sure you no longer have ANY thin spots in your base; if you move onto painting while there are some weak areas in the base, I guarantee that you will see them in the finished horse, so make double sure to catch them all!

Once the base is absolutely solid you are ready to move on to actual painting!

It's really hard to tell, but here was Nocturno when his base was finished.

Check back later for a tutorial on how to paint bay with oils next!
Happy painting all!

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NaMoPaiMo Day 6

2/6/2018

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Not a whole lot was accomplished in the way of NaMoPaiMo for me today. Other models were calling, so I did not do much to Nocturno, or any writing at all. I did start to add dapples in pastel, but I'm not sure if I like them. They look too small to me.

Yeah, I dunno. I'll leave it 'til tomorrow, but I might wash them off & start again. At least I'm not too far along! I also shaded his mouth, nostrils, & eyes, & a little around his head. Not much to look at yet!
Carole's moving right along though!

"Today I worked on the flaxen blending on her mane and tail. This was shades of cream, light tan, gold Pearl-X, white and pearl Pearl-X. Also popped the chestnuts on because that is a step I had forgotten before. ;D I also sent different pictures besides straight sides. She will be done fairly soon so I am thinking I should paint one of my 3 medallions."

& Angel's working on getting her Shire CM's tail attached, etching foals, & making tassels for her Arab costume!

"Tail wire... used what I had. Your right glue and soda on fingers is impossible to remove! Used razor blade; pretty sure I don't have a finger print on index finger."

Glad you still have fingers left Angel!

The fun continues! Check back later for more! :)

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The Reason For The Silence

I Have A Mold!

Progress & Distraction

Plodding Along

Carole's "I Did It" ...Eventually!

Mixing & Laying A Base Coat By Hand

NaMoPaiMo Day 6

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