Wee Jet and Wee Tater (b.20 March 2010)

Back in March (it is now the end of May - I am so behind in posting about my creations!), I received an order through my Etsy shop for two custom wee horses. When I received the photographs of Jess and Tater from Carianne, I nearly jumped up and down with delight! I had another chance to make a Wee Appaloosa horse, and a leopard appaloosa to boot!

Because of his white coat, Tater's spots (particularly on his body) had a dark brown centre, which faded to paler brown. This gave me a chance to try a new technique (I like it when that happens!) I made up a bull's eye cane using brown at the centre, and then wrapping this in a thin sheet of translucent clay which I'd coloured with a pinch of the same dark brown.

Overall, the effect worked pretty well, and for the other spots, I just used tiny dots of colour, which I could spread out into random shapes using a clay shaper.

But what to do with the leftover canes?! Because I used spots of varying sizes, the canes that were left had varying diameters. This is because it's often best to keep a cane intact and just reduce down a portion of cane to the desired size. So I was left with a number of lop-sided canes without any real prospect of making a wee leopard appaloosa in the near future. I decided to have a bit of fun, and made up this random sculpture using the leftover canes and the extruded clay from the mane and tail (Tater had unusual colourings for both). I'm not quite sure just what it is, and (in the words of Tom Paxton's The Marvelous Toy), I guess I never will!

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!

Horses and Wee Horses (b.20 November 2009)

(Drum roll please...) Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to introduce the latest addition to the Wee Beastie range - Horse and Wee Horse!

As a result of a commission from Nicky at the Yorkshire Craft Fair in York on 7/8 November (thanks Nicky!), I returned once more to the equine realms. Those avid readers of this blog will be aware that I have previously experimented with Wee Horse back in July (click here for the post), but I didn't take the design any further.

Until now, that is!

I have been quite at home with Wee Sheep and Wee Highland Cows, using simple facial features and extruded clay for hair to good effect. So I decided to apply the same principle to Horse and Wee Horse. I applied a thin oval of pale clay to the lower portion of the face for the nose, and then pressed in two exaggerated nostrils. Then, after faffing about with cutters for the ear shapes, I found a much niftier and simpler way by taking a small blob of clay and pressing the tip of the clay shaper into it (I use a similar technique to shape cats' ears). After applying the ears to the head with liquid polymer clay, the head is then attached to the body, again with liquid clay (what did I ever do before liquid polymer clay?!)

Another refinement is the inclusion of a small disc of black clay to the bottom of the horse to give an impression of hooves (or pale clay in the case of the palomino horses).

Next came the fun part! I extruded some clay and applied it to the head and neck to create a mane. I built up quite a number of layers, much more than the other Wee Beasties, which gives a more natural feel to it. Varying the length of each strand also helped.

The tail was equally fun to do - to keep the shape of the tail, I placed three strands next to each other, and then laid more strands on top of them, spreading some of them out to the side. Because no strands stand proud of the body, it creates a robust tail, although it looks fairly fragile.

To complete Nicky's commission, I made up a paddock for the family of four horses. I first made one of these last month for display at my first craft fair - it was a real Blue Peter effort, and I had lots of fun creating fencing out of small lollypop sticks and lots of sticky backed plastic! I think the Horse Family looks rather at home in their paddock which measures 13cm (w) x 11cm (d) x 7cm (h). 

I'll be listing Horses and Wee Horses on Folksy soon, and they made their debut at the Made-It Craft Fair in Wetherby on 21 November 2009.

Wee Horse (b.29 July 2009)

So. The horse. Interesting one, this. Quite a challenge to keep the nose right, and the ears took several attempts. Smaller is definitely better! Keeping the eyes close together definitely helped as well, and having the mane and tail in a darker colour also helps to ground the shape.

I experimented with a new way of using the extruded clay by folding it back on itself, rather than using individual strands. The result is a rather stylised version of hair, and I think it works quite well. Easier to attach to the body too - I'm loving the liquid polymer clay, which has been a bit of a revelation for me. It does create a very secure bond between pieces of clay.

I may well have a go at putting some legs or feet on some of the animals, just to see how they look. There's something very appealing, however, about keeping them all in the same style.