2018 Dala Horse Ornaments

For this years Christmas tree I thought I would revisit a few of my favorite designs.  I started with a pair of very different Iris horses, then moved on to more conventional designs.  Mixing elements of traditional dala horses with a spin of my own, each ornament is a bit different but they all go together.   

            

In addition to making ornaments I'm also designing them in paint and canvas that can be made into ornaments in the future.

                   Here are some of the ornaments in progress.

Lampshade Design with Flowers and Dala Horses

This project began as an up-cycling project to freshen up a discolored and stained lampshade.

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I started out by painting flowers over the damaged binding and then tracing some of my wooden Dala horses on it.

I ended up adding all of the other designs to pull the flowers and the horses together.

The more I worked on it the busier the design got and the more fun I had.

The great thing about this project is that it gave me a lot of other ideas for things to paint. 

Following htrough on the New Dala Horse Designs

Having done the new design in red I experimented with other colors and variations of the design.

I'm glad I scanned the basic drawing before coloring it in. It will give me an opportunity to audition other color combinations before painting any more wooden horses.

Before I move on with that I'll be making a wooden horse with the yellow design on it.

The possibilities are endless. 

New Horse Design Based On Tradition

I started out with a drawing that combines several different, traditional design elements to create a new horse.

 

Next I filled in the drawing with watercolors and acrylics.

Here is the completed drawing. My next step will be to paint 2 wooden horses.
One will be freestanding to see what it looks like in 3 dimensions and the other will be a Christmas ornament to see how it looks flat.

Here are all three finished horses. It made me laugh because laying the ornament down on the page and standing the other horse up looked almost like the new horse design was jumping off the page and becoming real.

From this photo it's difficult to tell which horse is paper and which one is wood. I may use both versions on merchandise in my zazzle store. Depending on what sort of look that I'm going for.

Here's a better view of the wooden Christmas Tree Ornament.

Here you see the freestanding dala horse both standing alone and joining the collection of other horses that I have designed and painted.

I think it fits in pretty well, don't you?

New Years Resolution and the Dala Horse

Whether or not you believe in making New Years Resolutions, you can't argue the value of making positive changes.

The first place I'm starting is going through my last years sketchbook and following through on my drawings and ideas.

I started by revisiting my sunflower horse design. This time I used Jo Sonya Acrylics that come in a  more muted color pallate than I normally use.

While this may be fine with some people, I prefer a lighter, brighter approach that would capture the energy of my original watercolor.

My next project will be to carve and paint a wooden horse based on this color pencil and ink drawing.

When I've followed the rest of my designs through I'll be able to start some brand new designs for this year.

The nice thing about this is that I'll never have to worry "what if I'd done this one". I'll know for sure and have something tangible to show for it.

Designing with your photos

I sometimes find it fun to play with the photos of my horses when trying to come up with other design ideas.

Here's a group of red ones from the last few years:

It's a real good way to see which parts of the designs I like better and come up with new ways to combine them.

I also made some changes in the shapes with a pair of scissors to see if I want to make any changes in the actual shapes of the wooden blanks that I have cut out to carve on. 

2018 Dala Horse Designs

One of the first changes that I'll be making with my Dala Horses this year will be to use base colors that I haven't used before.

It may spark some ideas for different designs too. New color or design combinations.

Here's my first one:

I'm using 3 different brands of paint right now so telling you the names of the colors won't help much.

Almost any paint in basic colors can be used as long as you have a red, yellow, blue. white and green. If your green is too dark add some white until you get a color that you like.

Keep in mind that your horse will look different once it has enough layers of clear coat over it. Because of our cold Minnesota winters I won't be putting the clear finish on mine until the spring or summer so that I can spray them outdoors.