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Thursday, December 11, 2014

The history of Heavenly Blue

I wanted to tell you the story of the second horse from November.  When we cleaned this one up, I felt a real affinity for her, something about her arched neck was very strong and appealing.  She's from the outer circle, and I always want to do an extra-fine job on those horses.

A while ago I posted a photo taken by local photographer Polly Joan, of one of the carousel horses as they looked a long time ago, before Annie painted them in the '80s.  Here's another look at that image:
This is one of the same horse models, and I noticed the morning glories on the breastplate.  As the rest of Stewart Park is also going through a big renovation project, with an emphasis on the park's history, this seemed like a good opportunity to play with honoring the history of the carousel as well. 

So let me introduce you to Heavenly Blue.
She's not quite done yet, so I will post more photos later after that happens.

I also took this really cool photo when I started painting, showing the old paint (on the left) and the new (on the right):
-Christi

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Samurai!

Let me introduce you to the 13th horse: the samurai warrior's mighty steed!



I had some fun researching Japanese motifs and crests.  So she has a classic gold and red lacquer color scheme, a chrysanthemum on the saddle, fish scale (I love fish scales!) and a wood sorrel circular crest.  I love the red against her black coat, rather bold and spirited, don't you think?

This horse is from the middle rank of the carousel, and was also originally black. 

-Christi

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

November's horses - catching up

During the month of November, I was able to paint in the Downtown Visitors' Center on the Ithaca Commons.  The space is shared with the Community Arts Partnership, and I'm very grateful to both the Visitors' Bureau and CAP for allowing our project to use the space.

The wonderful maintenance staff brought two horses to the Commons at the beginning of January, and I set up camp with a dropcloth and all the paints.  You can see the brushes have seen a lot of use.  Some of the most recent cash donations will definitely go to a new set of brushes, as these paints are pretty harsh on the bristles.

Here they are before painting.  I will make an entry for each of these ladies in the next few days, so you can see their new look.

The holiday season is exceptionally busy in the rest of my business (I make notecards and other paper products from my artwork, and have many fairs and markets and orders, and this year I also have a solo show happening too, and a series of freelance clients), and so the horse-painting has slowed a little while I survive the season and Julia gets through finals.  We are anticipating painting again in the lobby of the Tompkins Trust Company later in December and January, while Julia is back home from school.  Meanwhile, there will be a little break until the big holidays are behind us!

Speaking of the holidays, the T-shirts are currently for sale at the Cat's Pajamas, in the Dewitt Mall in downtown Ithaca!  These are a great gift, and all the proceeds go to our project.

-Christi