A Report From The Front

It's been almost a month since I declared war on "Resistance".  Shortly after that I decided that the start of the war would be to get everything organized and put away or gotten rid of...  Throughout, not just the studio, but... the entire house.  I've been making a lot of progress, off and on, but I was saving the studio for last, because it just seemed so daunting.  I wouldn't be surprised if that was ol' Resistance, shelling me to keep me out of my creative, happy place.

However, it's only in the past couple of days that I have charged in and made some huge progress in the organizational battles that are taking place within the studio.

Back in early June, the studio was an empty room.  I did a post about it and I mentioned the huge closet and cabinets in particular.  It was my hope that, and I quote: "they won't just end up crammed full of stuff and become a black hole full of supplies that I won't see until we move again..."

Well, that's pretty much what had happened, so far.

However, after two days I'm happy to share this:

A big chunk of the closet has now been turned into a crafting nook!

When I first starting putting this together yesterday, I planned to just store all of my paper crafting and jewelry making supplies here.  But I realized that I can actually pull out the keyboard tray on the PC cart and make things here if I want to.  Which goes back to one of my early ideas of wanting two work stations - one for horses and one for paper crafts.  Since both require quite a bit of paraphernalia and it can be a challenge to switch from pony mode to paper mode or vice versa.  So now, if I want to, I can build my paper projects right here and save my desk for horses, tack, etc.  

The base of it is a PC cart that Jeff decided he didn't want in the latest renovation of his set up in the office.  On top of that is a cool shelf that I just picked up in a thrift store last weekend - for $6.00!!  On top of, alongside, and under everything, are my assortment of plastic drawers and holders.  In this picture, I had put my bags of Bonsai soil underneath the cart, but have since pulled them out and instead put my sea glass, polished rock, and wine cork collection under there.  A lot of my rubber stamps are on the shelf unit, the rest are in the DVD shelf on the left.  Left of the whole setup are the precious "figurines" boxes.  Yep, my model horses.  That's about all that's left boxed up in the closet now, aside from a couple boxes of random stuff "to sort".

The result of moving all of my stamps and drawer units into the closet is...  a LOT of empty shelves!

I'm also happy to report that, very recently, I have discovered a material here that is plentiful, cheap, and sturdy.  And the laser cuts it like butter...  I think once the epic cleanup is done, it's about time for me to start building my shelf stalls and.... free the horses!!

:D

I can't wait.

Bit More of a Break

Well, my "bit" of a break has turned into a longer one.  Though I have made a lot of progress on the house.  The downstairs (living room and kitchen) is almost completely squared away and I've been chipping away at the upstairs rooms.  My goal is to have everything dealt with by the time Jeff comes home at the end of this month/beginning of next.  Part of the problem is that we never... uh... finished moving in here.  We still have things in boxes here and there, along with piles of stuff we just hadn't put away.  I'm working on getting all of that sorted out.

Aside from "adulting" - mostly cleaning and attending/studying for my Japanese class - I've been enjoying myself by gaming and coloring.  The adult coloring thing seems to really be taking off these days.  Though... I never stopped coloring.  I guess I can say I was coloring before it was cool.  ;)  One of our friends gave me a beautiful coloring book full of Japan-inspired designs for Christmas and I've been working on a couple of pictures in it, along with some free printable pages I'd found.

This was my first "official" adult coloring project.  I like how it turned out and I certainly think the message is important:

I'm finding that coloring is a good way to be creative without any pressure.  While I do love creating pretty much anything, I tend to put a lot pressure on myself when doing studio things - perfectionism and all of that.  I think a lot of it stems from the fact that most of the things I make "in the studio" are things I plan to sell or donate/gift - basically give to others in some way.  So I want them to be as close to perfect as I can manage.  All of that on top of just wanting to make good/pretty things.  Coloring is nice though, it's just for me.  I still try and do my best, but I don't feel the pressure there.

With coloring I also don't feel the need to try and keep up with anyone else's work.  Some people have a ton of fancy pens, pencils, markers, etc. to color with - and talent to match! - but I'm using the same set of cheap colored pencils that I color in stamped images with (plus a few Sharpies), and I'm quite content.  ;)  I'm on a group on Facebook where people talk about coloring and share their work.  I find that I can be absolutely amazing by other's work, but not feel dismay that I may never reach that level.  It's a complicated thing to explain I suppose.

The only downside I'm finding to coloring is how long it takes.  The one above took me an entire day!  (and it's not even near as intricate as a lot of designs that I've seen)  I'm not sure how much of it I'll be doing in the future, once I get back to "work", but I am recognizing that it is a good way to take a break and still feed the creative bug.

I'm hoping to have the studio organized and back up and running soon.  The next vendor show here is actually only two weeks from today and I haven't even started getting ready for it!

 

Bit of a Break

The last few days I've been taking a bit of a break from, well...  everything.  I've been heaping a lot of pressure on myself lately, what with deciding to get the ENTIRE house decluttered and cleaned up (currently in the "it gets worse before it gets better" phase).  There's also the ever mounting pile of creative projects and ideas that is threatening to topple over and bury me!

So, I self prescribed some break time.  My chosen activity has been to play World of Warcraft.  I think I've mentioned it on here before, but yes..  I play WoW.  I've been a mostly casual player on there for almost 10 years (!!), though I haven't done much in the game for several months now.

One of the things I enjoy about the game are all of the different mounts and pets that you can find in it.  There are hundreds of different creatures to collect.  One of them is this adorable little critter:

Each pet has something they are labeled in the game.  This one is the "Sea Pony".  However, you can also name your pets.  So what did I name her?

Yep, Misty!  That seemed like the perfect name.

She follows my character around, floating in a bubble of water.

Also, if you click on her, you hear the sound effect of a tiny, high-pitched whinny.

She's so cute!

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Back in the real world, I did a bit of work on the epic house cleaning project this morning.  I'm hoping to get back in the grove on everything very soon, but for now it's nice to take a break.

Challenge - Days 9 and 10

I completely missed Day 9 - and my first daily blog post missed this year I think.  Oh no, that's how it starts!  Soon it'll be months in between my posts!  Ha...  Okay, not so much.  (more on that at the bottom of this post)

The Copperfox Challenge for Day 9 was to plan to attend a live show or enter a photo show.

Sadly, there are no live shows here in Japan.  (I've given a bit of thought to making it one of my crazy long term goals - to possibly change that...?  but don't hold your breath for now)  I did not enter a photo show yesterday (or today) either, BUT I will "officially" announce that 2016 is the year I will return to photo showing!  You heard it here first.  ;)

The Challenge for Day 10 is to imagine a story or create characters from your model horses.

I haven't done any of that for a long time, but many of my horses were characters when I was younger.  They had profiles and personalities -  that's something I'd actually like to get back to since it was a lot of fun.

It's interesting that this day's challenge came u, because I have actually been reading over a lot of my old stories the past few days.  I have always enjoyed storytelling.  I don't have a new story, but I'll tell you about an old one.

One story that I made up when I was playing with my horses (yes, I played with them! :O haha) was about a young girl in the Old West.  She and her father had a big horse ranch and they were going to move from Texas to Montana.  Think cattle drive, only with a huge herd of horses.  I would act out scenes in my story and several of my models played as main characters.  The story was not written down, so a lot of the details have been lost, but I remember the overall story, and the horses.

"Rock Steady" was the girl's favorite horse, though he might have had a different name then.  When I got to where I was thinking up show names or registered type names for my horses, I named him Rock Steady...  after a Bryan Adams song.  (he inspired a LOT of my horse names if you haven't already noticed)

Rock Steady was a good name for him though.  In the story he was beautiful, flashy, but solid as a rock - athletic and fast, but gentle and friendly.  Everyone liked him, people and horses alike.

Sadly he is in the body herd after suffering a leg break at some time.  I don't remember it happening during the play years, oddly enough, but after.  I put a hasty splint on it just now to take that hasty picture above.  He is also fairly beat up in other ways and discolored in spots.  The life of an old west cow pony is rough..  or, since he herded horses, would he be a horse pony?  Ha!

He was one of my favorites at that time; I thought he was so gorgeous.  I don't know what my customizing plans are for him, but I'm thinking he'll still be a flashy Arab/Appaloosa in the end.


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Now, more about the missing blog post!

In all seriousness, I've found that blogging is something I do enjoy.  Some days it feels like a chore, but I do miss it if I don't do it.  I've never been very good at keeping a diary or journal and so it was with blogging for a long time.  However over the past year or so I've been doing pretty well, aiming for, and doing, daily posts most of the time.  I'm not sure I'll be able to keep that up forever (okay, no, I won't be able to...) but for me, this is fun!  On THAT note, yesterday I did happen to see that I've passed 25,000 views!

I've got a long way to go to hit where Five Paws Studio is now (over 100,000 views!) and I may NEVER reach Braymere's current total (over 3 million views and climbing!),  but I'm excited about my wee milestone.  ;)

Challenge - Day 8: Join a Group, Forum or Club

I suppose I cheated a tiny bit on this one too...  I didn't join a NEW forum, but instead went back to one I had joined a long time ago.

Only Model Horses

Back when the board was first created I had registered...  but it was a bit slow in the beginning and I haven't been back there in quite a while.  So I spent some time on there looking at several threads.  It certainly has grown!

Challenge - Day 7: Favorite Piece

Day 7 of the Copperfox 10 day Challenge is to share your favorite piece in your model horse collection.

This is a tough one.  Especially since it includes horses, and tack.

There are sentimental favorite horses, such as childhood favorite OFs, and a few of my old custom models.  I've also got new favorites too, like: Darkness Falls (classic Black Stallion), Lionesse and my Copperfox Welsh Cob.

For tack, I could say: my old duct tape tack, for fun, or my first ever "real" piece of tack: the first leather halter.  Or how about my still in progress first (leather) western saddle or fancy Arabian costume.  Ack!  There are too many choices, even just in the tack department - and I'm really only getting started there.

I have to admit though, when I first read the words: "favorite model horse", the horse that popped into my mind was this guy:

His name is Reckless, after the Bryan Adams album.  He was one of my very first custom horses.  In fact, he might have been the very first one.  I don't remember how old I was when I painted him, but I think I was around 14 or 15.      

I found the model at a flea market (along with a few other Hartlands)  At the time, I didn't even know what they were, they were cheap horse-shaped objects and that was enough for me to buy them.

I ended up giving this one a wild paint job and eventually managed to take some cool outdoor pictures of him.

He was almost always photographed from the off side, but I do have a headstudy from his near side.

He was a multi-Champion photo show horse, back in the day.  (the pictures in this post are his old show pictures)  

A few judges even sent notes back with the results, saying how "cool" he was.  Sadly my old photo show records were destroyed in the same flood that took my childhood horse books.  Some of the old pictures have water damage, but mercifully most of them survived.

I still have him.  At some point I had spruced him up a bit, adding detailed eyes, and giving him a fresh paint job, same pattern - new paint on top of it.

He was never LSQ, because I didn't know much at the time about correcting mold flaws.  Once my customizing skills had advanced, I often considered doing an overhaul of Reckless, but I could never quite bring myself to do it.  I had also thought about doing a new and improved version of him, basically his coloring (or close enough) on a better model.  Maybe I'll still do that someday...

The back of one of his old show pics.  I'm assuming it was my note for some sort of favorite model class.

"My first custom and my "baby"!"

Yeah, that about says it all.  It looks like maybe he was the first.

I do have a lot of favorites, but old Reckless has to be number one.

Challenge - Days 5 and 6

Okay, I'm cheating a little bit...


The Challenge for Day 5 was to make something for a model horse or try a new skill.  I actually didn't quite do either, not completely, but I did almost get this one finished.  That counts, right?...

Day 6 Challenge was to find a new artist/sculptor or tackmaker.  I didn't find a brand new (to me) one, but did find out that an artist I'd discovered through Instagram is also on Facebook.  That would be Studio Thornrose.  I've been following her on Instagram for a little while now and she does some AMAZING work.  I'm happy to have found her on Facebook too.