not the best idea

Having a lesson for the first time in 4 months (and after only riding a half a dozen times over the last year) without stirrups. Brutal. The only thing that doesn't hurt is my core -- thank goodness for my perpetually strong core!

More later.

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!

More Craigslist weirdness...

Let's hope this doesn't evoke the same reaction -- I'm short on horsie topics these days and suffering some real horse-withdrawal with the house purchase taking over my life. This is the best I can do for now.

Favorite paper cut to date!

I was fortunate enough to gain the attention of Miss Katherine Erickson over at Grey Brook Eventing via Facebook about my paper cuts. She asked if I would kindly make one of her lovely mare Kiki, and her Mother's dog as surprise Christmas presents!

I was eager to make one of Kiki (for one thing, the name!) and for another, I've been following along with her blog for quite some time now, and I feel as though I know her mare a little bit.

Without further ado, here they are!

One of the two fantastic photos provided. I got to choose...this one is so charming!

Finished. I tried including some of the background info in this one, so I included the grass (I loved that she had a big mouthful in the photo) and I mounted it onto two layers of handmade paper that reminded me of hay/straw.

Bat! What a cute little pup! *I used the photo with permission to make a paper cut

Finished. He was extremely difficult. The other photo I had to use showed more of his coat color which was inspiration for the colors I chose. As usual, I didn't use literal colors, but rather tones that depict the animal in a way that helps define character.

The one of Kiki, is without a doubt, my favorite so far! What do you guys think?

ps. Her Mother LOVED them!

this horse makes people smile

Words spoken by my trainer today.

Holy Moly!

I'm riding tomorrow.

My trainer offered a full day riding camp between Christmas and New Year's and I jumped at the chance. I know, I know...I haven't even been near a horse since September so I will likely be a mess. We're having two mounted lessons, one unmounted, a potluck and we're finishing the evening by seeing War Horse. Hopefully, I'll get my horse quota for a little while to hold me over.


Now where did I put my riding clothes?

And do they fit!?!

Are you serious?

This post today on Craigslist really has my blood boiling:

I'm a sucker for a chestnut mare

Those who've been reading from the beginning of this blog, know that it was inspired by one very feisty, very opinionated chestnut mare. A mare who not a single person would dare catch (much less ride) and somehow the stars aligned to put the two of us together. Our individual stubborn streaks managed to keep us working with each other and helped us form a very special bond.

What you couldn't know is that this love for all things fiery and red-headed started wayyyyy back in the beginning...Meet Cleo:

Yep, a 6-year old me carrying a crop! Love her roached mane!

All dressed up as Maid Marion for Halloween (we needed a lead!)

What a cute little face! She was maybe 15 hands and the first horse I rode after I graduated from ponies!

So thank you Cleo, for making an impact on my young equine-obsessed mind that chestnut mares are awesome!!!!!!!

When the going gets tough...

the tough get, errr....creative?

I've been so honored by the responses I've gotten through the internet from my blog and re-posts from others about the paper cuts! I've received several requests for commissions and I now have 3 in the works! Each one brings a new set of challenges and so far they've all been pretty straightforward, with one caveat...

...not all photos are created equal.

I mentioned in my step-by-step  blog, that finding a good photo is the first part of the paper cut process. You have to manipulate it slightly in Photoshop to separate out the layers and then you may begin cutting, the photo doesn't have to be perfect (since you eliminate background info and distracting elements anyway), but what happens when the photo a client gives is awful? Well, this was the situation I was faced with for my very first commission. The woman lives in Canada and her horses are back home in England (more on how she found me and our serendipitous internet meeting later)...she knew exactly which horses she wanted for the first round (she's having me do two more in January) and after a little back and forth via email she finally sent me the photos she'd like to me to use. She admitted they weren't the best, but hoped there was some way I could make them work. I'm not going to sugarcoat it...it was tough. At first glance, not only were they small file sizes, but they weren't very good photos from a technical stand point (poor lighting, composition, etc). And likely, low resolution scans of photographs. This was a factor I had simply overlooked when embarking on doing commission work...so after struggling with the files a little and doing some magic in Photoshop, I managed to make them into a posterized image I could work with. I decided if I was going to make this work, I should start with the most challenging one first...and here he is...

this is Frankie (what a cutie!)...I massively improved on the original file and this was just about all I could get out of it

I used Frankie as a chance to play around with adding another layer of tonality. This time I used 4 layers and I really like how he came out. I took a quick picture of the finished cut out against a bright color so you could see. He and the other piece will be mounted on a neutral handmade paper to be framed with the others I complete.

I may clean up a few areas before he completely finished. What a sweet face!

What helped Frankie is that he oozes personality. So despite being a black underexposed pony in a dark stall, I managed to improvise a little and get a lot out of the original photo.

What do you guys think?

RIP Rowley

I made this for my best friend's dog Rowley who sadly passed away a few weeks ago. I've known him since I was a sophomore in college and as one of 4 dogs they had, he ran that household...even putting their Lab/Chow in his place. He was a Grade-A snuggler and he and I were bonded for life because I dog sat overnight for him the very first day he came home from the shelter.  Their little pack will not be the same without him.

Original photo -- I knew he's be a challenge because I'm emotionally attached to him, and he's a mostly black dog!

Finished! Mounted onto some handmade neutral paper and matted with cream 4-ply

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I used leftover paper I had from Gogo's which got the job done, but I might have picked slightly different ones if I was starting from scratch. She doesn't know that I've been making these so I hope she's pleasantly surprised when she receives hers in the mail tomorrow!

I have several commission requests underway! It's super exciting. I'm hoping to play around with a few techniques while I work on them (specifically adding a fourth layer) and maybe introducing some textured papers.

Let's get crafty...a sort-of-step-by-step-tutorial to paper cut portraiture

Apologies in advance if this hurts more than helps explain the process I took to make these portraits! There are lots of teeny, tiny steps along the way and I tried to document as much as I could, but it's a little hard without 2 pairs of hands (next time I might make a video tutorial). Here is the video tutorial that I used to figure out the whole process.

Fair Hill International ***

Photo dump! Details and captions to follow! I realized two things: 1. I should have brought my tried and true Nikon and a zoom lens, 2. I need to learn how to use my fancy pants Sony NEX compact digital SLR (it's such a great camera and I STILL don't know how to use it consistently...it's either awesome, or terrible).