Thursday, December 22, 2016

Horse History


OK, it's not exactly painted like a dala horse. But I was less than a year old here and it seemed to impress me anyway. I've always been fond of horses and it feels really good to be designing them now.

 

 I'm making the last of these small ornaments in red to show up best against the Christmas Tree. They are done in variations of traditional styles.


This freestanding horse is something new I'm working on to represent Christmas tree branches and garlands.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Red Dala Horse Ornament Designs


I always try to design each red horse differently than the last one. Even when I'm using the same colors and brush strokes.



As you can imagine there are parts of these that I like better than others. These are the miniature horses so there is only so much detail that I can get on them.

On a full size ornament or larger horse you could expand on the design by adding more rows of comma strokes around the saddle and mane or more layers of colors in the dots across the chest and belly areas.

I finish these off with a screw eye and a piece of gold cord to hang them with.



I've still got one dozen unfinished wood blanks to carve and turn into more ornaments. Will I be able to come up with a dozen different designs to paint them with? Keep following this Blog and find out and as always, Keep painting and discover your own creative spirit.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Red Horses for Christmas



I'm keeping details to a minimum while designing the small ornaments, some of these are only about 2 inches tall and under 3 inches wide so very small brushes are required too.



As you can see the brush strokes are easy ones too.


This one is just dots, straight lines and comma strokes.