Andrea's Winter Vacation
My sister Lynn and I
submitted
drawings of our plans for decorating a horse to the Germantown,
Tennessee "The Horses are Coming!" group. This is part of the
60th anniversary of the The Germantown
Charity Horse Show. They plan to have 21 of these decorated
horses scattered around Germantown until October when they will be
auctioned off for charity. We went to an afternoon party to
show
our drawings, to meet the organizing committee, the sponsors, the other
artists and, ... the horses!
After
several long weeks, my horse drawing, "Mariposa" was selected by
Cadence Bank. They have volunteered to sponsor my horse and
to
display it for six months before it is auctioned off. Lynn
and
I now have a whole two weeks to finish it before we all take
off
for a week of fishing.
The horse arrives! Actually it is the replacement
horse.
The initial horse delivered was neither what I had originally
sketched nor what the sponsor requested. So, ...
the old
horse rides off into the sunset and the new one heads into the garage.
Mariposa is led into the barn
... er, garage and two smiling artists meet a very nervous
horse.
Before we could start painting
we had to fill some holes in the fiberglass and fix an ear and the
tail.
So we applied two layers of Bondo, spent quite a while sandpapering to
get it all smooth and ended up with "My Horse Spot"! (Is
there an Appaloosa category at the horse show?)
Next came three layers of
Gesso—with a days drying time between each to form a good
base coat for the acrylic paints. We decided to use Liquitex
soft body acrylic based on information from the horse manufacturer and
from other folks who had painted outdoor sculptures. We could not find
the paint anywhere in Memphis (or Tennessee for that matter) and had it
shipped in from Maine (eating up another two days of our
initial 14!).
The
Bankers are
Coming!
A group of folks from Cadence Bank decided to come over and see our
progress — so we had to generate some. They had
asked us to modify our original design to use a different horse and to
use the banks colors. So … Lynn spent quite some
time mixing paints to match the two purples, a blue and a green from
the bank's color chart. We then quickly painted the mane and
tail
in purple and the legs in green. Five of them came to see how
we were doing. They liked the colors! We were
pleased and got to work.
In between drawing and
painting, I spent my leisure time finishing up a Princess Belle dress
for Althea—for her first trip to Disneyland later this
month.
It took somewhat
longer than I had planned, but then, what doesn’t?
Fortunately, Lynn was hard at work painting while I sewed.
After several days, the horse
is starting to take shape. The background is a blue from the
Cadence palette (another Lynn mixed concoction). The flowers
and butterflies were drawn on paper, cut out and then sketched on the
horse. Now it is just
a matter of painting them
in—in some sort of artsy way. This is now
Tuesday.
We will get the guys to come take the horse away on Saturday.
That means we have to finish her up in the next couple of
days— because we still need to put on three coats of UV
protective varnish to keep the colors from fading while it sits
outdoors!
It's
Wednesday. After two very long days (and nights - interrupted
only by a softball game) the detail painting continues.
Photographs and drawings of flowers and butterflies litter
the kitchen and living room. Cut out patterns and strange
strips of paper appear magically. Colors are changing as
vague memories from long forgotten lectures in art classes seem just
out of reach - and all of the light colors will need a second coat!
Well, it's Friday morning. After an all nighter ( I believe
that sleep is highly overrated) this horse is about done. We
finished the detail painting and fixed most of the little mistakes that
crept onto the horse while we weren't looking. Here it is!
Eeks!
I just found more information on the Liquitex paint web site.
They recommend 3-5 days of drying and curing time prior to
overcoating with the UV varnish. Quick change to plan G.
We will let Mariposa dry for a week while we go fishing and
play golf (we had this vacation planned prior to my horse being
selected). Then Lynn (who thought that she was done with
this) will give the horse three coats of varnish when she gets back.
It will then get picked up after a day of drying time for the
varnish and be delivered to "Dobbs Ford of Memphis" who have donated
the time and materials to clearcoat all of the horses to keep them
looking great. Mariposa will then go to sit outside of the
Cadence
bank in Germantown until October.
This has been a great project and I am looking forward to the Horse Show. Please check back for more pictures later!
Andrea