Dancing Crow Designs

Lascaux Horse

lascaux pony
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Another in what seems to be a series of horses from other eras. I have always loved the cave paintings of horses, especially ones that have expressions that I see on Ruby, and have seen on previous ponies, routinely. The colors of the Lascaux horse are particularly lovely,a red-brown that has to be related, geologically, to siena or umber.

I wish I could make it more smudgy somehow. The edges and the mane in particular are lovely and smeary at the edges, which I did not address properly. But the bouldering (small embroidered circles) on the body is perfect. I used three layers of painted organza to get lighter colors along the belly, and that worked pretty well too. The painted background seems like it would be easier than the patchy backgrounds I've been making but isn't actually. It took longer to get the colors in places I wanted than it usually does to get the patches placed and stitched down. Which surprised me.

Uffington White Horse

Uffington White Horse
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Another antique equine.

Inspired by the Uffington White Horse. I like the way the horse is almost all gesture, and I tried to catch that in the fabric and stitching. The one in real life is hacked carved into the chalk hillside, which is pretty cool. It is also incredibly old - Wikipedia says 3000 years.

Viking Horse

Viking Horse
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I got sick. I'm better now.

I still have a bunch of the art from the February show in the back of my car, but I got it out of the library in reasonable order on the 27th. Al helped. I am sorry the exhibit is done. It was lovely to have the work up, and visible, and have friends and strangers admiring it.

I finished this large horse yesterday. The whole piece is about 18x24" - bigger than most of the things I have done to date. The size was an issue for some parts, and now I am thinking wistfully about a machine with a much deeper throat. Something more than 6" would be very nice.