Wee Horses (b.21 December 2009)

Wee Horses go custom!

Steph Keegan from Methil in Fife (not too far from Pitlessie where I lived before moving down to Leeds 11 years ago!) contacted me through Folksy over the weekend and asked if I could make up Wee Horses in different colours. It turns out that she has four gorgeous horses, all with quite unusual markings. Well, you probably know by now that I'm always up for a challenge, so I relished the chance of trying out new techniques to achieve the right look. Steph sent through a number of pictures as source material, and I got to work!

The dun horse was probably the most straightforward, and it was just a question of mixing up the right colour of reddish brown for the body and head. The mane, hooves and fringe were all a deep brown/black.

Next I made the dun and white horse. This horse is really unusual - mainly white body with pale brown patches, pale mane and tail but with a startling black fringe and ears! I made up a white ball of clay for the body and then rolled out a thin sheet of ivory clay. From this I tore out random patterns to apply to the body, and then blended them in. The face was white clay too, with strips of ivory attached to either side to create a white blaze on the nose. And the dark fringe and ears speak for themselves!

Next I tried the spotted horse, which reminds me of a strawberry roan (I was horse-mad as a young girl, although my memory of all things equine is a little rusty now). To get the right spotted effect, I chopped up lots of white clay very finely, and then grated a few pieces of dark brown clay into it randomly. Once I was satisfied with the mix, I reformed the chopped clay into a sheet and rolled it out a few times. The brown specks were embedded throughout the clay, which gave it a mottled effect because it can be seen through the white clay. I rolled the sheet into a ball for the body, which smeared the brown even more, giving it a more natural look. I made the face using a similar technique, and added a few more tiny scraps of brown to the nose to complete the look. The mane was a mottled grey/brown/red so I roughly mixed up these colours and extruded them, which caused the strands to come out with a mottled effect.

The final horse was more straight forward, being black and white. I made this horse in much the same way as I made the dun and white horse, ie by having a white ball of clay and applying torn strips of black clay for the markings, and repeating the process with the face. The mane and tail were grey, and black hooves and ears complete the look.

I had so much fun making up these Wee Horses that I tried a bonus one using the Starry Night cane effect - I had wondered before if a dapple grey horse would work using this technique, and now I know that it does!

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