Plans for 2015

My dear Poppes

I manged to achieve 5 out of 9 goals set for last year! I would love to set higher goals for this year but since this will be a very intense year when it comes to school, my funds will still be very limited and the fact that I will be having a lot of things on my plate this year (including a month long trip to Africa in June and working) I will instead set lower, achievable goals.

- Attend at least one liveshow.
This is a goal I'll try to achieve every year as I love the liveshow atmosphere and meeting all the great hobby people.

- Get my RC Mini Haggis painted.
Yes. This is the year that my mini Haggis will finally get some "clothes", hopefully.

- Paint some of my poor naked horses.
I still have quite a few naked models that need new clothes and since I probably won't be able to buy any I'll have to paint some myself :)

- Buy at least one model on my wish list
Doesn't matter how big or small. I probably won't be able to make it through the entire year without buying one anyway ;)

- Take photos for my website
Now that I have a new camera I just need to find some time to photograph them.

- Finish pedigrees for at least 3 breeds
Small goals will hopefully make sure that I will make it through all my pedigrees one day.

- Keep blogging
I'm setting the bar a little lower for next year and will try to post at least two posts a month.

I hope that 2015 will be as good a year as 2014 was for me. 

2014 Review

Splinter In My Soul, Paint horse gelding
Sm. G2 Stockhorse repainted by me

As seen in this post, my goals for 2014 were as follows:

- Attend at least one liveshow.
- Obtain some of my "to be portrait" models.
- Get my RC Mini Haggis and RC Bruno painted.
- Paint some of my poor naked horses.
- Obtain at least one horse for my Strapless conga.
- Get started showing with the IMEHA
- Finish my website
- Organize my pedigrees
- Keep blogging

Let's see how I did:

- I did attend a liveshow in May and I enjoyed it very much! I would've loved to attend more but with limited funds, studying and work I couldn't.
- I did manage to obtain, not one, but two, "to be portrait" models. An Eberl Elsa and a Kandinsky Dino. Elsa.
- I didn't get my Mini Haggis or Bruno painted but at least I got Haggis prepped and primed.
- I did paint a few of my poor naked models, as you can see in this post.
- Unfortunately I was unable to obtain a horse for my Strapless conga.
- I did get started showing with the IMEHA, and I absolutely love it! It's great fun and my models have actually done quite well over the months.
- I didn't finish my website with pictures as I had no opportunity to take any. 
- I decided to save our trees and instead of organizing all my pedigrees in a binder I decided to organize them on my external hard-drive but I'm not finished.
- I managed to keep the blogging up fairly good. I posted 4 or more posts 9 months of the year so I'm quite happy actually :)

I managed to achieve 5 goals out of 9 and I'm happy about that :)

I didn't do a whole lot of model horse buying in 2014 but higher rent and a long-distance relationship kind of makes hobby funds scarce but I'm still very happy with my 2014 haul.

1 painted resin horse, Unnamed Tivoli resin
2 unpainted resin horses, Rose Tiny and Eberl Elsa
2 unpainted resin dogs, Kandinsky Dino and Sarah
A few original finish models I won at a show
And of course I have another "to-be-portrait" model with a prepper. Can't wait for him to arrive :)

Adria, Abaco-Barb mare
Sm. G2 Paso Fino repainted by me.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas 

From all of us at TiMe Stables and Studios!

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent and we light the fourth and last candle.

This time I'll give you a more traditional song :)

Third Sunday of Advent

Today it's the third Sunday of Advent and we light the third candle.

And of course, here's today's Christmas song. A really good duet by two Swedish singers. I do like the original as well but I decided on this version :)

I was struck...

... by an unexpected inspiration today so for the first time in quite a while I took out my acrylic paints, my brushes (which was way more than I remember, I'll explain why) and a willing victim.

I brought out my old, trusty paintbrushes...

Old and well used.

And they looked just as terrible as I remembered them... Luckily I knew that I bought new paintbrushes. I knew I bought 3 brushes before school began, two tiny, round brushes and 1 larger flat brush. Somehow I've forgotten that I'd actually bought a total of 7(!) new brushes. Not a day to late and even though I now have more brushes than I thought I would, they will be put to good use.

They look so much better than the old ones.

For the willing victim I took out my old Schleich Arabian mare that have been in my bodybox for quite a long time. This is what she originally looked like.

I honestly liked her colour the way it was, but she was one of my first Schleich horses and she was well-loved and played with so her colour got scratched and rubbed of at some spots. I decided years ago that I wanted to repaint her to a palomino. She was actually on her way to become bay at one point as a friend of mine started to repaint her but it wasn't quite smooth so when my friend lost interest in her I striped and reprimed her and started on her palomino coat. The thing is that she got too yellow and I had to redo her.

So this is Serenity, in her current state of base coat. I usually do the base coat in acrylics (sometimes I do a little shading in acrylics as well) and the shading and highlighting in pastels.

The light in my room is really bad for photographing so I apologize for that but the colour of the horse looks true to reality (at least on my screen). 

I know base coating one model isn't much for most people but to me this is a great step in the right direction as I've finally picked up the paintbrushes again :) I just wish the weather could be a little bit more co-operative so that I could prime and seal the ones who need that.

Hopefully I will be able to keep this up so that Serenity finally will be finished, my painting skills can improve and hopefully I'll be able to write you some interesting in-progress posts :)

Second Sunday of Advent

Today is the second Sunday of Advent and we light the second candle.

Another Christmas song for you, that might not be the most traditional :)