crickets, tumbleweeds and little bit of altruism

There's not a lot going on over here regarding horses. I mean, I am thinking/reading/yearning/watching about them CONSTANTLY. I am in full move-in-to-my-new-house-and-become-a-grown-up-slash-take-care-of-my-dumb-dog mode.

But there are a few vaguely horse related things happening...

Mainly, I was contacted by a friend of Rebecca Greene's a few weeks go. You may remember reading about Rebecca and the tragic story of losing her two beautiful OTTBs in a fire at the farm where she boarded her horses. She was recently interviewed and this article had me sobbing at my desk. There's a Facebook page set up by one of her close friends here where you can read a little more about her attempt to rebuild her life following this tragedy.

Her friend had seen a link to my paper cuts through Eventing Nation and sent me a lovely emailing asking to commission a few portraits (at the time I had no idea who they were for). We chatted back and forth a few times and it was revealed that they were for Rebecca... and she wanted portraits of the two horses that perished in the fire. After some deliberation, I decided that I simply could not charge her for the portraits. I thought back to why I started making them in the first place... inspired by Andrea over at Eventing-a-gogo, I felt compelled to make a portrait to memorialize her beautiful mare. It was something I took a stab at on a whim. I've never done any kind of paper cut art before and I wasn't sure I'd be able to translate the emotions of the horses involved into a cut paper piece of art. Gogo's portrait was successful and created momentum that I didn't expect. I was contacted by several people to make more portraits and I added more involved technical elements and I've been fortunate enough to make a little pocket money from doing something I really enjoy. So when I thought about Rebecca and the struggles she must be going through, I knew I had to dig up the same inspiration I got from Andrea and Gogo and make something really special.

They are still in progress, but here's what I have so far:

It needs some cleaning up and some extra detail (to come), but I'm pretty happy with the overall look. Humans are hard!

Rebecca Greene and Cassidy Blue (Kaz)

And her upper level prospect:

Rebecca and Scooby Who

In progress, only two layers complete

I thought it might be interesting to show these in progress (since I haven't really done that since my step-by-step tutorial). Stay tuned for the finished pieces and see how I include competition colors into background!

I promise the next post will be sooner rather than later and will include a trip to Dover Saddlery and an email exchange with a new trainer (UL event rider)...

... cliffhanger!