Sculpted Heads

I am not very good at sculpted doll heads. I am not super awful terrible at it but I am not super by a long shot. Occasionally though a different face is fun. And in some cases a different face is necessary. So I try. The first head I ever sculpted was this guy. Which of course prompted the first head in the oven photo.

 

 This was for an Arabian dancing horse rider for Jennifer Buxton. I was actually really pleased with how this head came out. Especially considering it was the first time I had ever sculpted a head. That was in December of 2012. Good thing I didn't have to make it fit in a cowboy hat. That makes things harder...

This guy was next. He was in January of 2012. And believe it or not he started out as a woman. And then he didn't really look like a woman so I started painting him into a man. Especially since his head got singed in the oven. For a bit he looked like a very light skinned African-American man. Then he started to look like a Native American man. After I put on the mustache he looked more Mexican to me. And a little frog-eyed though it doesn't show too much in this photo. Well, I guess it's not too bad for a second try.

 So after awhile I thought I would give sculpting a try again and in September of 2012 I came up with this guy. I think he actually came out pretty well.

 though the next guy, also September of 2012...is iffy. I think he looks OK but I am not loving this one. *sigh*

 Next we have another installment of head in the oven. This guy (or his head) is pretty popular on Facebook right now. I got the foil tent tip in a tutorial about sculpting miniature food and it keeps the heads from burning. Which is good because apparently people find it strange when I say I am cooking heads in the oven. I might get more grief if I was burning them...

 So here he is all painted up. This guy is for a contest prize for MEPSA. Harrison Ford was my model but I think he looks more like Brent Spiner. Oh well, at least he looks human and was meant to be a man. Maybe one of these days I will become good at sculpting :)

The evolution of my therapeutic riding entry

 

In November of 2009 I did a post on therapeutic riding as a live show entry with some background from real therapeutic riding. After rereading that post I am amazed that anyone at all follows my blog. Wow I was not a very good or interesting writer then. I don't know why it was so bad. So I figured since I have been posting a lot with updates on my evolution I would continue with the theme. It also gives me something else to write about.

A good place to start would be; what exactly IS therapeutic riding? Therapeutic riding or assisted riding is used to "treat" all sorts of handicaps. Studies have shown that the movement of the horse centers a person and their affliction is easier to deal with. Some people think that's a load of poop which is why insurance companies won't cover it as a real treatment. But really, can you honestly tell me that this kid doesn't look centered and calm? and he is certainly connected with his horse (this is one of my all time favorite photos)

 Another important function of therapeutic riding is it is a fun way to learn to follow instructions and pay attention. Both are very important life skills. Also some games that are played during lessons can be useful to build other skills, including turn taking, math and other things. Plus it's fun!

So next let's talk some about equipment. Any English saddle can be used but I am pretty sure most of them at Travis's school had tug straps (handle? I don't really know what they are called). The horse's do wear bridles but the reins are nearly always looped around the horses neck. The bridle is there to be almost like an emergency break for the leaper if something happens. Even therapy horses are still horses and you never know when they will see a horse-eating plastic bag blowing by. A halter is worn over the bridle. There is a lead rope attached in the usual way and there are also side pull reins attached to the front halter rings. Those reins are what the riders use. That's mostly all you need for equipment except for the most important part. People.

People are an essential part of a safe therapeutic riding program. At the very least you need a leader. It's the leader's job to work with the horse to carry out the instructions of the rider. Side pull reins are not as effective as bridle reins so if the rider pulls left the leader will gently lead the horse left. But only if it's needed. If the horse is paying attention to him mount he will go where he is directed. The other people involved with the rider are the side walkers. There can be one or two as needed. Some riders don't need any at all but it's usual to have at least one.

 

This photo shows a great view of the reins looped around the horses neck as well as showcasing Travis's excellent posture. His side walker was repeating the instructions given to him by the instructor.

I like to include this photo because I was once told at a live show that my entry didn't place because my horse was trotting and they NEVER trot in therapeutic riding. Well, they did at the Pioneer Valley Therapeutic Riding Association (which was indeed NARHA certified) and I got plenty of good workouts running around the arena. I used to be a leader as well as a side walker. I figure like everything else, all schools have different rules. And that is something very important to keep in mind, make sure you have documentation as some people insist that you don't trot in therapeutic riding but in Travis's school it was everyone's favorite part!

 So now let's move onto the evolution of my live show entry. This one was taken at the Region X regionals in 2008 (as the candy bar clearly lets us know). This was the original way I used to set up the entry. A rider holding the bridle reins, a side walker and a short explanation card. It was still different and interesting so the judges liked it. And it was accurate as there are times when the "assisted" part of assisted riding is really just a side walker who is there just in case help is needed. Usually though if there is only one person it is the leader. But my entry evolved

This next photo was taken in September of 2009 (two weeks before my wedding...) at North East Congress Live. It was a stock horse only show so I switched from Lady Intrigue (side saddle Strapless) to my Party Girl Strapless Skippa Latte (who I show as an Australian stock horse). The entry had evolved a bit more and I now had the reins looped around the horse's neck a leader and a side walker. I also started using photos.

The next thing I did was to use a child doll instead of an adult rider doll. Adults absolutely ride in the therapeutic riding program. I actually usually worked with the adults. They would ride during the early part of the day and I could go volunteer while the kids were at school. For this entry I had a bit more interest with new documentation that mentioned a trail class. Plus I had the photo of Travis to show proper equipment set-up. The tweezers didn't stay for the official class. This photo was taken at Factory Ponies Live in June...2010? I'm not sure on that one.

 Finally my therapeutic riding entry evolved to what I wanted it to be. I had a leader and a side walker, proper equipment and my "Travis" doll. I also had new documentation with a copy of the trail pattern used at one of the shows Travis rode in, photos of Travis riding in the show and a very detailed explanation of the therapeutic trail class. The entry had come so far...

 

...it even placed well when the horse was performance the wrong gate! It took awhile for me to believe it but apparently this horse is loping.It still looked very nice and impressed both the regular show judge AND the stakes judge. This entry was at the Region X Championship show in 2011 and got reserve champion.

 

 Finally the most recent way I have set up my entry was this. Therapy horses need to be nearly bombproof but to make sure they are you need to test them. So the way that is done is the most experienced rider gets on and you bring out a whole bunch of volunteers and toys and you see if you can spook the horse. We don't really WANT to spook the horse, but we have to do odd and unexpected things as you never know what the riders will do during lessons. So we run next to them and occasionally bump them with our hands or elbows, the rider will flail the reins and move around in the saddle. We toss toys over and near the horses. It really is a very bizarre time. Once this entry did really well. That was at the Quabbin Valley Performance Open. After that the best I could get with it was third. Either people are tired of seeing my therapeutic riding entry or they like it better when it is neat and set up for a show. I am chasing one more NAN card for Lady Intrigue in therapeutic riding though so I will keep on trying.

therapeutic riding is a very interesting live show entry and very interesting in real life. There are lots and lots of different ways to do it and unless it's dangerous, not too many wrong ways to do it. If you want to give it a try do a little bit of research and see if you can find photos and descriptions. Or better yet, call around and find a therapeutic riding school near you and get some hands on experience. It is a very worthwhile experience.

Field of Dolls Studio in the Past Six Years

Wow, it really has been six years (a little over) since I started making dolls. I have done a lot in those 6 years and while not all of it was super exciting I think I have come a long way and am pleased with my progress. The very first blog post I wrote was November 30, 2008. That post can be found here. In that post I mentioned that I was close to my 100th doll. I have gone way beyond that at this point. Let's take a little tour of dolls I have made over the years. I think I can keep it short. This first photo is the first doll I ever made. She was an Arabian rider (show ring style) and has see-through pants. I really liked the material though. I also made the costume. Today I would not even place a costume like that as it lacks some essential pieces.

This next photo is of one of my first saddle seat riders.

 This second photo shows that not much changes with saddle seat rider dolls. Though I do think this one is more interesting and it's also more detailed.

 

These next doll photos were from a post called making dolls look less like dolls. This was the front view...

...and the back view of two different dolls in the same saddle, on the same horse, in the same spot in my yard. It was showing how a little bit of padding makes the doll look less like it's wearing a corset and more like a person.

 Since those photos were taken I have changed a lot of things. I have changed the way I pad the dolls, created an entire new shirt pattern which is very similar to real like western shirt patterns (I am referring to the actual pattern used in sewing, not designs) and I started taking indoor studio shots. Here is the front of a recent doll.

 

Here is another recent doll from the front...

 

...and from the back as well. The patterns I use and the way I modify the dolls has changed many times in the past 6 years. And probably will again.

 
 These dolls were fairly recent dolls. I think they were both made this past July (2012) The doll in the lower right hand corner was one I copied from a real western show top. It came out pretty well and I was happy to see what I can do with a somewhat complex design in miniature.

 In my first post (or another early post) I talked about my friend Joan Fauteux  and how she had 10 or 11 dolls I have made. I think at least 11 in this this group shot are Joan's dolls. At this point she is up to 23 or so dolls I have made. We have lost track and need to do a count again. And maybe a group photo!

 Even my group photos have changed over the years. This new one was taken less than a month ago with all the dolls I made for the TRXC sale (I know, I JUST mentioned that in the last post) but it was important to mention it again. At least I think so.

 At the current time I have made 468 dolls, unless I missed someone. I have gone from occasionally making a doll to making dolls much more regularly. Not only is it an interesting job but it allows me to help out my family financially while still staying home to raise my kids. That is really important to me. Quality is also important to me and I am always looking for new ways to make the dolls nicer. I have been sewing for over 25 years (no lie, my mom taught me when I was 5) and making dolls for 6 years (not including dolls I dressed when I was a kid). My friend Joan Yount and I still chat back and forth about dolls and share patterns and tricks for making these plastic toys less like toys. I am hoping to still be making dolls for our wonderful hobby for years to come.

Hobby Photography revisted

So I have been looking through my old blog posts because for the most part I have no idea what I have been babbling about. And it also occurred to me that I posted all of 3 times this year. Wow. I know I can't catch up and start being productive...or interesting, but I can chat a bit about some past blogs.
   Anyway, I found this post about hobby photography that I wrote in March of 2010. The photos in that post really were a good example of the type of pictures I was capable of at the time. You really need to check them out, go ahead, I'll wait

~~~~~~~~

So I decided I needed to post because I have finally figured out the secrets of my camera and the elusive indoor photograph! I am not an expert, there are still many mysteries with my camera but I have improved. These first two ladies show some really nice recent photos I have taken indoors. The first was super popular on Facebook and the second was super popular on ebay. I was very pleased with both of them.

This next doll has been giving me a ton of issues and I have not managed to get a nice photo of her indoors. I use the same backdrop and lighting I used for the other dolls and she still looks washed out and sort of yellow. These two photos were taken on two different days on two different horses and all the dolls photographed at the same time have great pictures. This doll doesn't want to look good. So my camera/studio still have secrets they won't share with me. Maybe in another couple of years.

And this year I finally got myself a new group shot for advertising. I had all the dolls I made for the TRXC sale and a couple others. I could have pulled out some more dolls from my personal collection but I thought these were enough. I think they look pretty good. I have come a long way with my photos.

The game that Jennifer started.

I am pretty sure that anyone that reads my occassional blog postings is also a reader of Jennifer Buxton's awesome blog. And if you're not, you should be. Not only is Jennifer's blog interesting, informative and full of great photos but she also posts nearly every day. I was talking to Jenn today about her blog and said I might be able to come up with something for her as a guest blogger post. That woman works hard and we need to give her a break! So I was thinking about it and thought that writing a post about how I have done well in the show ring because of blogs she has written would be nice. Specifically I want to talk about the two barrels and a pole game that Jennifer first told us about here. What a great game idea! Interesting, original and not hard to set up. All my favorite things all in one package. So I had to try it. I looked back through photos and I think this may have been the first attempt. It would have been at the Quabbin Valley Performance Open last April. The horse is Cloud Dancing and he was my super horse for an entire season. He didn't let me down with the first time out with the Two barrels game. Note the documentation which comes directly from Jennifer's blog.The judge was impressed.

Next I showed the two Barrels and a pole game at Factory Ponies Live in June of 2011. The judge wasn't NAN card impressed but pretty close. The horse is Johnny Cash. He has since retired from showing.

 

Next I took some photo show shots of the Two Barrels and a pole game. It's not as fun without Jennifer's documentation but I still used it for Feature Presentaion in the MEPSA OF performance division...

 ...and with Caramel Latte in the MEPSA AR/CM performance division. I think I cropped these photos a bit more before I sent them in.

Anyway, back to live showing. This is Flash in the Sky. She is showing at the New England Performance Challenge in October of 2011. The judge was again impressed. Flash doesn't look very interested in the game though.

After that Cloud Dancing showed again at the 2011 Region X regionals. This was the regular part of the show and as you can see he did very well.

Then they got reserve champ in the games stakes class. Unfortuneatly Cloud Dancing developed cracks all over his body and he had to be suddenly retired.

Then I took a pretty long break from showing and did a lot of judging. But I did go out to More Fun Live; Performance on the Porch (held on my friend Kate Cabot's porch) and Caramel Latte again showed off the Two Barrels and a Pole game. Kate was judging and apparently she hadn't seen the setup before. She was impressed.

So with just a little bit of photo hunting I found 8 times I have used this great game. I think it's nearly always the super cool documentation that carries it to a win. No matter what it is I have Jennifer to thank for starting me on this game.

 

P.S. I looked again and found another photo of this game. This one was from NEPC 2012. So I guess that makes 9 times used with very little effort to find the photos :)

The therapeutic riding division

I realize I have not posted to this blog in a very long time. Some of that is because I didn't have much to talk about, didn't have any fun pictures and was just sort of busy. Another reason is yahoo locked me out for 3 months so I had to get a new email address, try to find customers and hobby contacts without any way of getting their information, etc. It was all very frustrating. The other issue I had was when I got my new gmail email address I was paranoid and didn't want to connect this account and that account (some of you probably remember my email hacker aka my trip to Spain). So then I had to log out of my email account to log into blogger to read or post and then back again. And because of my increased paranoia I have come up with redicoulously hard passwords that I have to write down to remember because they are just too long/strange to memorize. Or hack I hope. I also discovered that my virus software and Internet Explorer don't play well together. I know none of this matters to anyone and you all just want me to admit the reason I have not been posting is because I was too lazy. OK, I'll admit it, I was too lazy to log out, log in and then think of something to write about. Guilty as charged.

   So have I all of a sudden become less lazy? Nope, I just have switched to Google Chrome for most everything I do on line (my virus software seems to like it as well...) and I can come on IE just to post to or read the blog. No one really cares, lol.

   I do actually have something to talk about today and photos to share and I thought I would stop being lazy and post to the blog. Last Saturday was the Quabbin Valley Performance Open which was held in Spencer, MA. I was judging the entire CM division so originally I was not going to show at all to keep my sanity. BUT...my horse, Lady Intrigue, is so close to earning her NAMHSA superior event horse award in therapeutic riding that I figured I had to at least show her in that to try for another NAN card. And then since Joan (the hostess) had new rosettes I figured I needed to try for one of those so I had to show Lady Intrigue in the whole English division. OK, that's doable, she has done plenty of that in her show carear. Then I got to thinking about it and decided that didn't sound like a lot of fun. I have been sort of blah about showing recently and I needed a challenge. So I decided I would show Lady in all her classes as therapeutic riding classes! And that made everything much more fun. It could have back-fired because there was no telling if the judge would even count it as a regular entry or not.  But the very first class (games) the team got a blue ribbon. That was a good start to the day.

 The next class was "other English" which is usually where I put my therapeutic entry. But the entry I normally show is a trail class. So I came up with this new entry to amuse myself. The card explains that the group of volunteers is testing a new horse to see if she will be good for assisted riding. The rider needs to flail the reins, move unexpectedly and sometimes make loud noises. The side walkers need to sometimes bump or touch the horse and they play with toys all around the horse. This was actually something we had to do when I volunteered at the PVTRA and it was pretty crazy. The judge liked it and gave this one second place (and I got another card for my SEH award)!

 Next was natural trail. I recently (that day) sold my cool trail diorama but I still have this roll-up one I made. Now the trail mat in itself was a neat idea. I have the gravel, grass and other assorted bits of footing glued onto a dark brown piece of ultra suede. The result is I have a wonderful natural trail mat that can be rolled up and put in my props box. The downside is it's always a little bit wrinkled and some of the footing always falls off.
   Anyway, I found a real therapeutic riding center that has a cool sensory trail (most of them have sensory trails...) and they have different types of footing and a bridge so the riders can listen to the different sounds the horse's hooves make. I thought that was fun and didn't require that I bring or make extra props (I was going for super minimal) so that was the way to go. This entry also got second place.

 My arena trail entry is boring and I was amazed it did as well as it did. The diagram on my documentation was the actual trail diagram used at the last show my son rode in.The photos are all of Travis as well. But the pattern clearly shows that the rider only trots down the rail and not around or over any obstacles. So I couldn't have my trotting horse even going around the cones. We still managed third. Probably because dolls are cool...

 My last entry was English pleasure and I figured it would be pushing my luck to try to show that as an assisted riding entry (though it totally happens at real shows). So I took off the halter, unlooped the reins from around lady's neck and plopped on a regular hunt seat rider. This entry also got second place.

 So with all that fine showing Lady Intrigue managed Champion in the OF English division. I got a new rosette and lady got some more NAN cards for her collection. Unfortuneatly I can only use ONE of her cards for her SEH award in therapeutic riding. Even though she was displaying a therapeutic riding entry in each class only the "other English" card counts towards her award as that is what the rest of her cards are from (though some are other performance...). So now poor lady needs to stay in the show ring to get one last card. Poor girl needs to retire. She has jumped off of many many show tables and is getting a bit beat-up. The penny under her hoof is standard show equipment to keep her from tipping over. But she is a fantastic show horse and I am sure she has it in her to earn one more card in therapeutic riding.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! (yes, the child is sleeping folded in half)