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 Silly and Wee Molly (b.17 February 2010)

Carey, that lovely lady from Harrogate, asked for another couple of wee horses to add to her growing menagerie. Silhouette, whose stable name is Silly, and State Legacy, or Molly, belong to Carey's good friends and she wanted to surprise them with a wee gift.

Silly, a Skewbald, is Molly's mum. Molly is a bay, and both are just gorgeous horses. Molly has just had major surgery, so fingers crossed that she makes a full recovery.

I do enjoy making up piebalds (white with black markings) and skewbalds (white with any other colour marking). I've found that the coloured markings are often in similar places - large patches on the haunches, often with small patches at the belly, and also large patches on the chest. The mane and tail are often bi-coloured, as Silly's is.

To get the patches looking as natural as possible, the trick is to roll out a sheet of coloured clay very thinly, and then carefully tear out the required shape, bearing in mind that the clay will flatten out a bit when blended onto the body. The two colours in the mane are usually quite clearly defined, whereas the tale is often two-toned - Silly had a black core to her tail, with cream hair on the outside.

Thanks again to Carey for introducing me to these lovely horses!

Wee Bessy, Wee Ginny and Wee Sox (b.17 February 2010)

Back on 12 February, I received a message through Folksy from Beth, who wanted to know if I could make up three Wee Horses based on Bessy, Ginny and Sox. Bessy, a black filly, is jet black and very affectionate. Ginny is a bay mare who can read Beth like no other person can - Beth has been owned by Ginny for 16 years all told. And Sox - well, Sox is a buckskin appaloosa.

Wee Sox was a little more challenging than some others wee horse commissions I've done before. And I loved that! Not only was this a breed I hadn't made before, but Beth asked if I could do a future Wee Sox, based on what he'll look like when he grows into his adult coat.

Appaloosa horses are best known as an American breed and have been featured in many Westerns over the years. They have a very distinctive coat and were bred to enhance the wonderful spotting pattern which covers the body in varying degrees. Although pictured with a chocolate coat and (to quote Beth) a Tina Turner mane, once he grows out of his foal coat, he will be more of a sandy colour with a black mane and tail. The black spots, which aren't clearly visible just now, will become more pronounced.

So I set about creating the future Wee Sox! I started with creating a tan/sandy body by mixing up some clay, and then I worked on the black spots. These are quite wide-ranging over Sox's body, stretching from his hindquarters up to his neck, and they also come in a range of sizes. So I rolled out a very thin sheet of black clay and tore off tiny patches of black, attaching them randomly over the body. Then I gently rolled the body to blend the clay, and I repeated the process with white clay, although this was concentrated mainly on his flanks. So in fact, although it felt like it would be a complicated make, putting it altogether was quite straightforward.

There was no crystal ball-gazing when it came to making Wee Ginny and Wee Bessy - these are beautiful horses, and for Wee Ginny, it was more a case of making sure I mixed up the right shade and conker brown. To get the rich colour, I used the Fimo copper effect clay, which has stood me in great stead for wee horses. It brings a depth to the colour, as well as a great sheen - it's one of my favourite Fimo clays.

For all three wee horses, I placed their manes so that they were lying on their right. Rather than just lay strands of extruded clay flush against the body and neck, I first of all laid two strands of clay along the line of the neck, and then curled the strands of clay over it, which created a ridge where the neck would be. I think the effect works pretty well.

Thanks again to Beth for commissioning these three gorgeous wee horses - she was delighted with how they turned out, and I'm looking forward to finding out whether the real Sox will bear any resemblance to Wee Sox in the future!

Wee Pandora (b.4 February 2010)

Well, would you believe it - another Wee Horse! Meet Pandora, the feisty bay mare commissioned by Helen through the website at the end of January. Thanks to Helen for letting me post a picture of her beautiful horse.

I tried a new technique with Wee Pandora. Her coat is fairly uniform dark brown, apart from one white sock, a white blotch on her withers and a white star and a smattering of a blaze. You can see how her face fades from dark brown to tan, and I wanted to find out the best way to achieve this effect.

First of all, I made up the dark brown body and head by blending chocolate brown with black. Then I took a small amount of this clay and made a Skinner blend with some tan clay. This created a lovely blend between the two colours, and I rolled the resultant sheet out very thinly using the pasta machine.

I had already shaped the head using the dark brown clay, and I used the thin Skinner sheet as a veneer, placing it carefully over the head so that the blended part was near the bottom of the head. I carefully cut out the shape of the head from the Skinner sheet and rolled it onto the head, being careful not to trap any air bubbles.

I do love using the Skinner blend technique on some of the wee creatures I make. The effects are great - I am particularly fond of Wee Donk. However, it is quite a time-consuming method, as not only must the two or more colours be rolled some 20 times through the pasta machine, but the clay gets wider with each pass, so I've also got to reshape the clay back into a rectangle after each pass so that the clay continues to be blended correctly. And once I have a flat sheet of clay, there's the question of shaping it into something three dimensional. It's not so bad when I use the veneer technique, as I did for Wee Pandora, but for three dimensional shapes, like Wee Donk, I need to roll the sheet into a plug, and then shape it from there, doing my best to keep the blended area as intact as possible.

It's so great working out ways of creating the effects I want when making up these wee creatures. Polymer clay is truly a wonderful medium to work with.

Wee Alfie (b.2 February 2010)

I'd like to introduce you to a very special wee pony called Alfie. Alfie is a 3 year old Welsh pony and he currently lives at Hope Pastures, a horse and donkey sanctuary on the outskirts of Leeds.

I was contacted at the end of January by Amy, who is a volunteer at Hope Pastures and works there every Saturday. (Amy has also got a law degree and is looking for a traineeship - get in touch if you can help her out!) Hope Pastures is a wonderful sanctuary which is currently called home by a couple of dozen horses and ponies, with a few donkeys and mules as well.

Alfie is currently a resident at Hope Pastures after his knee was injured in a tussle last year. He's been on box rest for quite some time, and he still has a limp. It's not clear whether he'll ever recover, but I do hope he does. I had the privilege of meeting Alfie on 20 February - the first time I've ever met one of my horsey models! - and he is such a sweet pony. Cheeky, yes; boisterous, yes; likes to nibble you, yes; and he's very, very sweet.

I was so moved by Alfie's story and the good work that Hope Pastures does in looking after neglected horses and ponies that I wanted to do something for them. So when I went to see Alfie, I met with two of the trustees to talk about how I could do this.

Hope Pastures have an adoption scheme where people can adopt a horse, pony or donkey to help with their upkeep. I have offered to make up wee horses based on Hope Pastures' most popular residents which can then be sold to raise extra money for the charity. So, I am donating six wee horses to Hope Pastures, and I will also donate 20% of the sale price for every wee horse ordered through Hope Pastures. This is such a worthwhile charity - I met a few of the other horses and ponies there, and although they all have a sad story of how they arrived at the sanctuary, they all look well and happy, and are being carefully nurtured back to full health.

I'll be writing about the Quernus Hope Pastures herd very soon - I'm making wee models of Muffin, Mr Jingles, Jasper, Trigger, Sparky and Prince, and I'm really looking forward to getting to know them all!

Wee Indy and Wee Paddy (b.30 January 2010)

I'd like to introduce Wee Indy and Wee Paddy to you. I was contacted by Vicky, a lovely lass, at the end of January through the website. She wanted a wee momento of her lovely horse, Indy, who was put to sleep last November. She also wanted a wee horse for her friend, who's horse, Paddy, was also lost a few months before that. So it was with a bit of a lump in my throat that I accepted this very touching commission.

Indy was a beautiful horse with A LOT of hair. Although he's shown here with his forelock neatly tied up, we agreed that it would be best to let his mane and forelock flow free and loose. His mane was mostly cream with a few strands of black near the top, and his forelock was mostly black with a few strands of cream. He had a lovely pink muzzle with black spots around his mouth.

It was fun to replicate Indy's lovely black markings as closely as possible - shrinking them down to a one inch ball of clay can be challenging at times, but I've been struck by how similar shapes keep appearing in the horses I've made. So I shaped the two large 'saddle bags' of black on either side of Indy's rump by rolling out a sheet of black clay very thinly and then cutting out the shapes by hand. I've discovered that placing these shapes is like pulling off a plaster in reverse - you've got to do it quickly and confidently to get the best results!

Indy also had a few spots of black and a black underbelly - because I roll the body to make sure the colours are well blended, it's important to bear in mind that the shapes do spread out a bit, so I deliberately make the markings a little bit smaller in the knowledge that they'll reach the proper size once I've blended them in.

Paddy, on the other hand, had very few markings - his most distinctive marking was the white blaze on his nose, and he also had one white sock. I love replicating blazes and stars as closely as possible - again, it's important to remember that the clay tends to spread when I'm blending it in, so what looks like an impossibly thin strip of clay will actually bulk out quite a bit when it's applied. So I cut a very thin strip of white clay which had a bend in it, and then placed it carefully on the face. The best way to blend in clay to the head is by a very, very thin knitting needle.

These two beautiful horses are clearly very sorely missed by their owners. I've really come to appreciate the amazing people and animals in the horse community. I spend a long time examining the photos of my horsey models, and I do get to know them pretty well. And their owners are always happy to give me lots of extra background information about their personalities, quirks, etc. It really makes the whole process so more much enjoyable for me to try and capture something of their personalities when I'm making them. Thanks to everyone who's given me the chance to have fun with these wee horses!

Wee Stella and Wee Harvey (b.30 January 2010)

I've had lots of requests for wee horse commissions after a few of my early creations appeared on the TrotOnline forum. The word has spread, and so I was delighted when Kathy got in touch with me at the end of January asking if I could create a Wee Stella to commemorate her chestnut mare who she lost before Christmas. She also wanted a Wee Harvey for her friend.

It's always so helpful not only to have photographs of the horses, but also some extra information about them. Kathy describes Stella (aka Belladonna) as "a grumpy, cantankerous but immensely loveable old chestnut mare"! She was a marmite horse - you loved her or you hated her, and it was clear from the pictures Kathy sent me that this was a horse that had lots of character, and then some.

Stella had a flyaway forelock and a mane that wouldn't lie on the right side. So I felt it was important to imcorporate these features when making up Wee Stella. Up until now, I had always put the mane on both sides of the neck and body, but because Stella's mane was so contrary, once I made up the basic shape, I built up the mane so that it lay on the right hand side. This involved blending in a little extra piece of clay between the head and the body, and in order to capture the right effect, I laid the mane over to the right and then 'combed' it over to the left. For her forelock, I placed some shortish pieces of extruded clay and then 'fluffed' it up using a scalpel.

Harvey was a very interested horse to make. You can see that he's got amazingly hairy feet, and some of the action shots Kathy sent me showed how very much they were integral to his personality! He also has a wonderfully long mane and tail, and we agreed that it was important to have these flowing freely (he often has it tied up to stop it getting into his eyes).

For his feet, I cut the usual circle of clay and then cut a small strip of white clay to wrap round the circle to act as a 'skirt'. To make sure this strip flared out at the bottom, I coiled three strands of extruded clay around the circle, which provided some additional padding. I did try to put small strands of extruded clay around the hooves, but this looked a bit strange. So instead, I 'fluffed up' the white skirt of clay with a scalpel, and that gave the impression of hair.

I love these two wee horses - I feel that my technique has advanced that much more as a result, and I'm delighted with the way they turned out. Kathy loves them too, as does her friend Laura, who owns Harvey. This is such fun work to do!

Wee Crystal and Wee Strawberry (b.30 January 2010)

I'd like to introduce you to Wee Crystal and Wee Strawberry! A couple of weeks ago, I was approached through the website by a lovely lady who asked if I could possibly make her up a menagerie of wee creatures - her husband had bought a couple of my Christmas cats at the Made-It craft fair in Harrogate, and she had just seen my wee horses.

In addition to Crystal, her horse, she asked if I could make up a mini version of her friend's horse, Strawberry, who sadly died last year. She also wanted her cats, Timmie Tiptoes, Hamish McTavish and Oscar, immortalised in polymer clay, as well as a frog for her frog-mad friend. And last, but not least, could I possibly make a wee Hungarian Vizler?!

Well, never one to shrink from a challenge, I set to creating this wonderful collection of creatures. I was greatly assisted by some super photographs, as well as some very funny narrative for each animal, which really brought them to life! First up were the two horses.

Crystal is a gorgeous bay with a lovely blaze and wee pixie ears. She also has one white sock, and this was the mane, sorry, main challenge for me. I rolled out some dark grey clay for the hooves, some of the rich brown clay used for the body and head, placed one on top of the other, and cut out a small circle. Then I lightly marked a quarter segment and nibbled out a thin layer of the brown clay, replacing it with white. It works!

Wee Strawberry was a beautiful strawberry roan pony who lived a long and happy life. Her coat had a wonderful two-tone effect, and I created this by using the Starry Night cane technique. I recently bought myself a mini food processor - a small Kenwood which has the dubious honour of being a "Delia Cheat" - and this has revolutionised clay chopping. So I roughly cut up a number of different colours - beige, white, salmon pink, etc. - and then blasted them in the food processor so they were reduced to small lumps. I tipped this out on the work surface, chopped it up a little bit more (I can never resist the chance to meddle), and then rolled it out to form a rough slab. I rolled this through the pasta machine a couple of times, cutting it in half after each pass and laying one half on top of the other, which created a fine 'hatched' pattern.

I reduced the cane down quite a bit so the pattern was even finer, and when I was happy with it, I covered a ball of scrap clay with thin slices from the cane and moulded it in the usual way. The Starry Night cane is such a useful technique for creating a flecked or two-toned effect.

I'll be posting more about the rest of the animals - I'm pleased to say that designs for Wee Dogs are coming along nicely, so expect to see a new addition to the Wee Beastie range very soon!

Wee Flora and Wee Marley (b.23 January 2010)

One of the commission orders waiting for me when I got back from the States was from Lauren, who wanted me to make up two wee horses for her - Flora, a grey Arab mare, and Marley, a grey cob cross gelding. The are both beautiful horses, and I hadn't really tackled grey horses before, so I was definitely up for the challenge.

Flora is such a wonderful elegant horse, with a beautiful flowing mane and tail, and delicate dappled markings on her hind quarters. I wasn't quite sure how to recreate those markings in clay, and so I looked at a couple of ideas. Firstly, I made up the body using a Skinner blend of two similar shades of grey. I rolled the sheet into a plug and rolled it into a ball, shaping it so the darker gray was towards the rear of the horse. To make the dappled grey effect, I took tiny specks of the pale grey used for the front of the horse, and placed them randomly on the hind quarters.

This created quite a nice effect, particular in conjunction with the Skinner blend body, and I was pleased to be able to replicate some of the wonderfully subtle markings on Flora. Flora's mane was a wonderful blend of greys and browns, and I achieved this by roughly mixing those colours before extruding them with the thinnest extruder disc I have, and carefully selecting the blend of colours, as well as placing them more randomly to reflect the fineness of the hair. (You can tell the difference in thicknes between Flora's and Marley's manes in the top picture.) Flora's tail was made up for cream and tan mixed clay, extruded thinly and then placed more fluidly, keeping it narrow at the top and splayed out towards the end - I just love this horse!

With Marley, I used another new technique to create the grey coat flecked with dark grey and brown. I based this loosely on the Starry Night millefiori technique (see Starry Night Cats for more info), but instead of mixing several different colours together in equal proportions, I finally chopped up lots of pale gray, and then grated in a few spots of brown and dark grey. I chopped the mixture up very finely with a tissue blade so that the darker colours never had a chance to blend, but where instead dispersed in tiny particles throughout the grey mix. I reformed the chopped clay into a cane and then covered a ball of scrap clay with thin slices from the cane. I then carefully rolled the ball in my hands to blend the slices together to minimise blending the colours, and repeated the procedure with a smaller piece of clay for the head.

This was the first time I've used millefiori techniques for the wee horses - the success of using a Skinner Blend for Wee Donk showed me how effective having blended colours can be, even on such a small scale. I much prefer 'painting' with clay, rather than applying paints - creates much more depth and warmth, and a more natural effect.

Wee Hugo, Wee Rosie and Wee Nugget (b.23 January 2010)

Orders for Custom Wee Horses have been coming through thick and fast, either by requests direct from the website (using the contact form), or through my Folksy shop). And it was through Folksy that I received an order from Elly a few days after I came back from the States for three Custom Wee Horses!

Elly is just lovely, and owns three beautiful horses - (from left to right) Hugo, Rosie and Nugget. (The horse on the far right is a second Rosie, ordered as an extra present for Elly's dad.) Elly introduced me to each of them in a way that brought them to life for me, and I'd like to share that with you.

Hugo is a smokey dun Criollo horse, who comes from Argentina and was rescued from the meat wagon in Italy before finding his way to Elly. He's shy, but loves his food, having just found out that apples, carrots and polos aren't poisonous! He's a rich, earthy colour and I made him up by mixing mostly black with some chocolate brown clay. He has a white star under his forelock. A very swarthy Argentinian boy!

Rosie, the chestnut, is a young-at-heart 23 year old derby day horse with a cynical view on life. Apparently she loves anything that comes out of your pocket, even snotty hankies! I love her rich, russet glossy coat, and for that I added some metallic copper clay to chocolate brown, with a touch of ecru to add a creamy touch. Rosie has the whitest legs I've seen, which contrasted beautifully with her coat, and I added a disc of creamy white clay on top of the brown for her hooves. Her mane and tale were a darker reddish brown than her body, so I took some of the body clay and added brown and black to keep the same tonal range. The white star I cut out freehand from very thinly rolled white clay, and then lightly pressed it to the head with a thin knitting needle.

Nugget is just lovely! He's a four year old Haflinger with a cheeky personality who loves to be around people! His coat is this amazing deep tan with rich, reddish overtones, and which contrasts amazingly with his creamy white mane and tail. I love experimenting with colours to see what gives the most accurate result, and for Nugget, I also used a pinch of the copper to get that rich earthy colour. His muzzle is grey, blending into his white blaze, and I cut an oval of pay grey clay and cut it to a kidney shape before placing it at the bottom of his muzzle over the white blaze. I then rolled up small balls of darker gray and pressed them in with a ball shaper to create the nostrils. Because there was quite a lot of extra clay added to the face, I had to make sure that the head shape was slightly smaller than usual to keep the proportions right. Nugget also has white legs, so again I laid a thin sheet of white clay over and sheet of darker clay and cut out a circle for the legs and hooves. The mane and tail were made by mixing mostly white with a touch of ecru to get that creamy colour.

I have been overwhelmed by the positive response to my Custom Wee Horses! This has been mostly due to the recipients writing about them on a horsey forum, TrotOnline - thanks to all who have spread the word! The horse community is very similar to the crafting community in many ways - it's so friendly, everyone really wants to help everyone else out, and there's a lovely feeling of family which is just so compelling. I'm chuffed to bits that my Wee Horses are being welcomed so readily into the fold!

Wee Mickey (b.23 January 2010)

I'd like to introduce the wonderfully idiosyncratic horse, Wee Mickey! Commissioned by Holly, who contacted me through the website while I was away on holiday, Mickey has a blue eye (he was going to called Ziggy, but Mickey suited him better!), brown patches and spots, and a white mane and tail with black lurking underneath.

Holly sent me through loads of pictures of her lad, which made it very easy to see where his markings should go. I love the brown patch on his head - he looks like he's wearing a hat!

I started by making the body out of white clay with a tiny pinch of ochre to take the edge off the starkness of the white. I then mixed up a rich brown colour with a touch of metallic copper clay, and rolled it out on the thinnest setting of the pasta machine that I could without tearing the clay. I then cut the approximate shapes of Wee Mickey's markings freehand with a scalpel, and applied them lightly to the clay body. By rolling the body carefully in my hands, I blended the patches onto the body without distorting the patches or smearing the brown.

For the head, I again rolled out a smaller ball of white-ish clay, and once I was happy with the shape, I cut out a thin patch of brown clay for his skull cap, and carefully blended it using a thin knitting needle (an excellent tool I wouldn't be without). I then cut out an oval shape of flesh coloured clay for the muzzle, and applied a patch a dark grey clay to the lower left side to match his marking. There's even a wee brown spot underneath his muzzle!

For Mickey's blue eye, I used a blue seed bead and placed it so the hole was visible. I usually place the round black onyx beads so the hole doesn't show, but with Mickey's lovely blue eye, you can clearly see the pupil, and placing the blue bead in that position emulates that.

Mickey's tail is quite unusual in that it it is essentially pale cream/white but with a core of black hair (I'm sure there's a technical name for that, but I don't know what it is!) And although most of his mane is that same pale colour, Mickey has a some strands of black lurking under his forelock.

I extruded both a rich black/brown clay and some pale cream clay. I worked on the mane and forelock first and applied the pale strands. When I was happy with the result, I lifted the forelock and added a couple of short black strands. There is limited space between the ears (no disrespect intended), so this was the only way to create the effect I was looking for. For the tail, I worked in reverse, attaching the black strands first, and then placing the white strands on top so the black still showed through.

I had lots of fun making up Wee Mickey - it really is such a joy to get to know new horsey models. And what's even nicer is getting to know the owners - Holly has been lovely to speak to, and she's clearly devoted to Mickey. Mickey's a lucky horse!