I've been remiss in posting to my blog - sorry!  My latest bronze is Pik L, an elite Hanoverian stallion who is a Grand Prix dressage horse.  He's currently at the foundry being cast in bronze.  One piece will be a trophy, and he will also be available in an art edition if you'd like to buy one.

This halter-type pose is appropriate for the trophy this piece will be used for (I can't say more about that yet, sorry).  Normally, I do action pieces, and since he's a Grand Prix horse, I would've loved to do an action pose of him at work, but it was also interesting to work on a static pose for a change.  I did manage to get some movement in his hair from an imaginary slight breeze.  I like how this sculpture turned out, and the owner is very happy with it, yay!

The base under the horse will only be about 1/4" thick on the bronze.  I had to build it up with Styrofoam boards to reach his feet because I didn't have pipes the right length to get his feet closer to the working surface.  He will be mounted on walnut bases, both for the art edition and the trophy.  The trophy base will be elegant and have enough brass plates for it to be awarded for 10 years.

In addition to the trophy, the owner ordered "take away" awards, so the winners have something to take home since this is a perpetual trophy.  I'm still working on the relief for those awards, but I can show you "in progress" pictures of it. The sculpture on the take home awards is a relief, which I will cast myself in resin and finish to look like bronze.

This horse isn't fat - Grand Prix horses have monster abs due to the collected work they do.  They lay on massive muscles all over their bodies, and their rumps actually change shape as the muscling builds, but the abdomen of a Grand Prix horse is surprising if you don't know what you're looking at.  I've seen this kind of remodeling going on with my daughter, Jennifer Truett's, Grand Prix horse, Lafayette HQ ("Taffy").  He went from being very slender and lightly built to a muscular powerhouse who is sttil laying on Grand Prix muscles since he's only been doing GP less than a year.  Eventually, he may look like Pik L.  GP horses are the Arnold Schwarzenegger's of the equine world.

Anyway, that's my latest.  What are you working on?

I just told someone I'm coaching that this quote about writing, "Kill your darlings," applies to art, too.  You can't fall in love with a piece to the point where you freeze up when you need to fix it.  You have to be able to rip, shred and tear into your piece (this is why I use plastilene - stone and wood sculptors would have a problem with this!) to perfect it.

You will learn more from tearing into your piece and making it right than you will from deciding it's finished while it's still not right.  It's HARD and FRUSTRATING (and sometimes terrifying!) to tear in to what looks like a nice piece, but the results will be so much better after you've done it - believe me, I've cut off noses to build heads longer or shorter, I've cut all the way down to the armature to redo something, I've lifted more tails than I can count when they wound up too low, I've ripped out eyes and re-positioned them over and over and over on the same piece to get them right from every angle. Remodeling the piece is PRACTICE which helps you get it perfect, and helps you learn how to make the next piece better in less time.  

I was working on "Just Trying to Help" (below) in my booth at Equine Affaire in Mass. a few years ago when I realized her neck was WAAAY too long.  Since I'm used to building adult horses, I'd given her an adult neck - and a lovely one it was, too.  Her head was PERFECT for a foal, but that neck had to be shortened, so I cut the neck behind her head, declared "OFF with her head!" and ripped it off, resulting in a *gasp* from the dozen or so people standing behind me who I hadn't noticed.  I cut about an inch out of her neck, cut off the excess armature wire and put her head back in place.  After working for a while longer, I grumbled, "I'm going to have to cut her head off again," speaking to myself.  A woman who was browsing questioned me about it and stayed for over an hour waiting for me to actually do it.  When I finished what I was working on and was ready to deal with her neck again, I cut her neck right behind her head, declared, "OFF with her head!" with an evil chuckle, and heard more gasps.  But as you can see from the bronze below, cutting her neck shorter was the right thing to do, despite the fact it was beautifully detailed and perfect - it was just too long.  Her head was perfect too, but I had to yank it off and chance ruining it to get to that neck and armature wire.

My point is, don't fall in love with your pieces while working on them.  You have to be ruthless with your work, cutting, pushing, pulling, doing whatever is necessary to get the piece to be what you want, not just what it winds up being.  You will learn more from "killing your darlings" and reworking them than you will from just letting something go because it's "good enough."  Never stop pushing yourself!  Kill your darlings and learn from the process!