Happy New Year!

Sorry for the long silence. I haven't forgotten about this blog, but I just haven't had any time to work on anything. Since my last post, I've been to Bolivia and back to work on a volcano, graduated from undergraduate, started and finished an awesome internship at the Cascade Volcano Observatory, started grad school at Oregon State, and spent 7 weeks again in Bolivia and Argentina working on different volcanoes. Whew!! It's been busy! You can read about my academic life at my other blog: http://volcanoadventures.wordpress.com/

I did have a chance to work on some things early in the summer. I finished my red dun classic quarter horse mare, the red dun Seabiscuit, the G3 Friesian, and the Wintersong CM. I went to a show early in the summer in Oregon and did fairly well with them, especially since I was competing against resins. I didn't win any NAN cards, but several of my CMs were the highest placing CMs in the class behind resins. I haven't had time to take completed pictures of any of them except for the Seabiscuit.


I started a few other projects too. The first is a Native Dancer G1 SM to an akhal-teke. He's actually almost done now. I just need to clean up his black points and do detail work.


I bought some of the G4 SMs and I love them!!! Some of them do have the wonky SM features suck as thick legs and large hooves, but I feel that these models are easily customizable, especially if you want to make them into stockier breeds. I'm turning the paradressage horse into a Cleveland Bay. He needs a tiny bit more resculpting and then he's ready for primer.


The new vaulting horse will be a pregnant mare with lots of windblown hair. I've already added her belly and I still need to sculpt feathers on 3 of her feet.


I don't intend to stop painting and customizing in grad school. I have a wonderful new house with an awesome sun room that I plan to turn into a studio. I've ordered some cool new horses, including an Esprit, Valentine and Heartbreak, two Morgen Kilbourn medallions, a couple of Stone pebbles, and a Wee Wyakin. They are all waiting patiently to be painted! I've been itching to pick up a paint brush for the past few months, but I've simply been far too busy to. My New Year's resolution, though, is to get back in the studio. Let's face it...I'll have to if I want to keep my sanity! Grad school can burn you out quickly and everyone I've spoken with has told me to keep a hobby to turn to when I can't think about school any longer. School takes priority, of course, but I hope to be much more proficient next year than I was in 2010!