Fragmented Friday

If you get a chance, hop on over to my friend Kathleen’s blog, One Minnesota Writer. Lots of thoughtful musings on poetry and the universe in general.

Kathleen has a neat new feature  - first morning fragments. Since she asked so nicely at the end of her post for other people’s fragments, and since I am not a crack of dawn writer, I’ll give you five mid-morning/afternoon fragments instead.  

1)      It’s almost May, we shouldn’t have this much snow on the ground. Who the heck wanted to live out here in this godforsaken land* anyway?     Oh, yeah…

2)      Dog barking at 5:00 a.m. this morning. Not cool. MY dog barking at 5:00a.m. Not cool, annoying, and embarrassing. BOTH dogs barking at 5:05a.m.? It better be the zombie apocalypse out there.

3)       I really like baseball. 

4)      If I grow 5 inches, my work desk will finally be ergonomically correct. 

5)      I can survive any meeting as long as I have a pad of paper and pen to draw with.

*Brownie points if you can name that song from the two word miniscule fragment.

.

Monday Poem

The Dead White Male Muses Auxiliary and Sewing Circle
by Constance Brewer


A rag tag bunch of published old authors
assembled in the far back of my head.
They pulled up chairs - I was not invited,
this is what was rumored to have been said:

"I t'ink dat every t'ird word should rhyme."

"And the committee thinks that they should not."

"I think starting again would be sublime."

"Hellfire! Why don't we jus' keep what we got?"

"Gie me clue - how shall I thee ken, why it—"

The others turned and yelped at the poor man,
"No one asked you, Robert Burns, keep quiet!"

Before I start things get way out of hand
My poems are critiqued before I've begun—
Muses. I can't get meaningful work done.




*Today's procrastination poem was brought to you by the letter "S" and the number "147"

. . . .** No muses were harmed in the making of this poem - although several came close.

. . . . . . . *** Will the owner of the renegade Robert Burns romping through my head please come claim him?

. . . . . . . . . .. .**** The white zone is for loading and unloading of metaphors only. Violators will be given beer.

Knit things

Round up of knit objects from the past month or so. Not knitting as much, the threat of spring does that to me.
The Corgis have been on hikes almost every day for two weeks, but nothing exciting to document.
Yet.

CB Socks
Cherry Tree Hill yarn
Cherry Blossom Colorway

Yes, they are rather obnoxious. I like them. :)



Bunny Creature - Work Desk Protector
Alpaca/Merino blend yarn

Complete with fuzzy alpaca tail.


And lastly...

Tall hiking socks with reinforced heels.
Patons Classic Wool
Moss Heather colorway

On the needles, two pairs of unfinished socks - one toes up cashmere blend, one top down Lorna's Laces Mock Cable, an unfinished Ulla scarf, an unfinished shell, an unfinished pair of mittens, and an almost finished stuffed animal of the ovine persuasion.

That's a lot of unfinished, but hey, it's spring!
Time to be outdoors, before the next big snowfall.

Never Drop A Parasaurolophus On Its Head

Brought to you by Creative Procrastination Techniques, and the letter "W".

I've been writing, honest, 9 new poems and half a short story, in addition to editing, editing, editing - novel and poems and getting ready for the new WyoPoets chapbook. I also need to do a Year Of The Ox postcard for the Baren Chinese New Year Card Exchange. Researching my Ox took a while, but I managed to sketch out an idea I liked, dropped it into Painter to play with colors, then printed out a template.

The bad news was since I'd cleaned (well, some) my office, and rearranged, and shoved things into plastic tubs, I couldn't find my wood blocks to carve the Ox. I did come across a block of plasticine left from my sculptural days, conveniently sitting alongside a wire frame and baseboard. The wire framework looked suspiciously like... a dinosaur. A hydrosaur. Last time I remember being interested in hydrosaurs was when my eldest was five, and could recite every name and type of dinosaur with ease. I finally remembered, the wire skeleton was one of his favorites, a parasaurolophus. Digging deeper in the tub, I found all kinds of reference materials.

You know what happened next.





















Before I realized it, I had a fledgling parasaurolophus taking shape on the armature. Next thing I knew, it was hours later, and dogs were making those, "Good doG, woman, aren't you EVER going to feed us we're starving here" noises. I stuck the armature and fleshed out dino on the corner of my drafting table, noticed a block of shina plywood stuck on the bookshelf next to it, reached over... and knocked Mr. Duckbill off the table right on to his fancy head crest. His cranium took a beating, as did the tail. I'll be spending my next round of sculpture straightening the fancy head dodad so it doesn't resemble a limp noodle, rebuilding the tail, so it doesn't look like a cat took a bite off the end, and yes, picking copious amounts of dog hair out of the plasticine.

I set the parasaurolophus in a safe place on a shelf, (away from my elbows), got out my woodblock carving tools and bench hook, transferred the Ox to the block, and did some preliminary carving. Somehow, going from smooth blocks of oily clay, to splintery wood and sharp, pointy cutting tools doesn't seem like the smartest plan, given my klutziness, but hey, at least I won't feel guilty if the wood block ends up on the floor. As it is, I had to turn the parasaurolophus around, so I wouldn't have to look at his bedraggled crest, and mildly acusatory expression, as if I had deliberately set out to give brain damage to such a stellar member of the Cretaceous dinosaurs.

Yes, it's been a long winter, why do you ask?

.

Yes, I’m Writing, But… There Were Goldfish, You See…

It started inauspiciously enough. I knitted a few balls out of leftover black, white and gray yarn. Little, round, baseball sized orbs that quickly became dog and cat toys. I knitted more, up to softball size, some with color changes of black to gray to white. I decided they were Zen balls, good for squishing while attempting to meditate on life, and gave them away, mostly for people to throw at each other in a very un-zen like manner. I’d post a picture, but unfortunately, the only one I retained is thoroughly covered in dog slobber, and is not a very appetizing sight.

Then came the goldfish. Innocently enough, I spotted the pattern, and thought ‘Wow, I know a few pint-sized people who would like those.’ So I knitted orange goldfish and dropped them in the mail to swim their way around the country.

Knitted Goldfish

Apparently, knitting four goldfish didn’t get them out of my system, so I knitted two more, one in the last of the orange, and one in purple, because really, what small fry is going to complain if his goldfish isn’t regulation color? The more obnoxious the better, when it comes to kids and stuffed animals.

Knitted Purplefish

Of course knitting is like writing poetry, you can’t stop with just one. So I knitted socks,

Hiking Socks from my hand-dyed wool
Wyoming Autumn Colorway

and a beanie,

Beanie from my hand-dyed wool
Berry Picking Colorway

and now I’m working on a Norwegian mitten pattern.

Star Pattern Norwegian Mitttens
Knit Picks Swish Wool

I could say all the knitting cuts into my writing time, but frankly, I can’t do one thing continuously all day, even write, as much as I'd like to. I knit when I have a free moment; before work, after dropping Son Two off at the high school - they start earlier than I do, waiting to see the doctor, dentist, etc., before bed in a vain attempt to relax, (Ack! I followed the wrong line on the chart and the pattern is off… eh, no one but me will notice) and while waiting for dinner to cook... instead of washing more dishes. (That’s why doG made paper plates…)

Knitting is a great way to two-track your mind, I can ponder character motivations, or poetry revisions while adding a few rows to a project. And I’m never without a project to knit on, at last count, I had nine UFO’s. (Unfinished Objects) Well, nine that I'll admit to...

The drawback to this method is forgetting about a project for say, oh, a year, and picking it up again and having to figure out where I left off in the pattern, because I am not all about notes and details like markers, you see. The advantage? I’m a much better knitter than I was a year ago, so I’m quicker to figure out where I left off. Just think, in another year or two, I might be able to knit a project straight through, without dropping it for a neat sock pattern I just found on the Internet. (Darn you, Ravelry!)

I’m sure there will be loads of other distractions to keep me from doing what I should be doing at the time. And for the record, yes, I wrote a poem today. A rather harsh poem about my intense dislike for telephones and their annoying rings, and how I should yank the darn thing right out of the wall, and just keep my cell, which I can put on silent and ignore if I wish. I know, I know, I could ignore the landline, I should ignore the landline, but I can’t ignore it … and that’s a whole 'nother fish story.



.

A Walk In The Park

One thing the Corgi crew and I like to do is go for a walk in the big park after work. Since it's getting dark earlier, we have to tailor our walk to the terrain. The park has several wide open areas, an experimental tree farm, and some grassy paths that wind around under other trees and alongside a Frisbee golf course.

Max at the start point of our walk, patiently waiting for me to get my act together.

Merlin see, Merlin do. If it's good enough for big brother, it's good enough for him. Besides, maybe there's a treat involved...


The big, open field has lots of interesting smells. We have to keep a look out, because antelope like to hide behind the little swells in the ground, and don't take kindly on being disturbed. Max and Merlin saw the antelope chasing an Irish Wolfhound the other day. Luckily, the Corgis have no desire to chase anything bigger than a squirrel.


Speaking of squirrels, Max knows exactly where the dividing line between the open field and the tree farm starts. He goes into squirrel alert mode, poised for action.

Merlin, on the other hand, prefers to stick close to me for the moment... and the treats.


The heck with that. Squirrel Alert!



The Corgis tree an Evil Demon Plot Squirrel, who laughed at them, and threw nuts and bark down on my head, but no story ideas.



Max's favorite squirrel watching bench.


Recall to the car. Time to head home before the sun sets.

Palindrome Madness

Busy this week. But not too busy to enjoy the oddities that come from surfing YouTube. In keeping with the rather loose poetry theme of the blog, here's a nifty example of palindromes, set to music. Weird Al with the song "Bob". (A take-off on Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues, down to the vest and haircut.)

Remember your Poetry 101.

Palindrome ( ) n. A word, phrase, verse, or sentence that reads the same backward or forward.

And for those of you who were wondering what it would sound like if you played the song backwards... a YouTube someone has done all the work for you. The song "Bob" in Reverse.

Enjoy! Surfing for Weirdness so You Don't Have To. Unless you want to. Then by all means, go ahead. Knock yourself out. And don't forget to share.

Orc Horse, Too

Why? Because I should be doing other things. Like working on a print for a Baren Exchange. Which is usually when I'm at my most creative, when I can't work on what I need to work on - Otherwise known as The Procrastinator's Paradox. "Whatever project you are working on at the time, will be superseded by another, far more interesting project - with no deadline."

Okay, back to work. That woodblock isn't going to carve itself. Although it would be cool if it did ... and I'd have to renew my Psychic Friends Network membership ... and still probably get splinters.

Cell Phone Follies Revisited

I previously posted about my search for a new cell phone. I thought I had plenty of time to research, review, and try out different phones before I decided.

My old phone felt I was procrastinating, and in a bid to make me hurry, shed its little connector plate, where you plug in to charge the phone. I stuffed it back in place. Jury rigging bought me a week, in which I glanced at a few phones on the Net, and thought about going to my local Phone Store. Thursday night my jury rigging no longer worked, and I was faced with an interesting dilemma. Could I research and acquire a phone before 3:00pm Friday, when the kids would begin their litany of calls, complaints, and demands? For an added challenge, I was to spend early Friday morning in a meeting, and the rest of the day cleaning out my office... no, I'm not fired, the building owners decided to finally get new carpet installed. Finally. For the past 8 years I've had Bronco orange carpet in my office. And it went so well with my blue chairs... ah well.

I stole a few minutes while packing to jump on the Internet, see what my Phone Service Provider offered, and research a few phones I thought I'd like. Since I had flex time over lunch, courtesy of my 'O-Dark-Thirty drive across the state to learn about oil rigs training', I ran up to the Phone Store. At my early meeting I played with my boss' Treo, my supervisor's Q, and while I liked them, they had far more features than even I'd ever use. Not to mention they felt like they were the size of a cheese sandwich. I wandered through the phone store, playing with cells, until I reached one with a touch screen and slide out keypad. I picked it up, it came to life and a koi swam around the screen and hid under leaves.

I think my reasoning went something like this.. "This is cool. -But you'll get fingerprints all over it.- They wipe off... this is cool, look, touch, touch, touch, feature, feature, feature... don't have to change my cell plan... hey, look, an MP3 player. -But I have an iPod.- So, this is cool! Look, a 2mp camera. -But I have a digital camera.- But you can have everything in one for those days you forget your geek paraphernalia. -True...- It's also got Bluetooth and GPS capabilities. -But it's a tad pricey...- Hey, they're giving me a deal to renew. And it's cool..." Then the deciding thought. "Huh. This is the closest I'll ever get to an iPhone..."

I came, I played, I bought my LG Glimmer, I still had time for lunch. And my kids are jealous.

Perfect.

I like toys, what can I say? *g*

Corgi Thursday!

Because my brother's week would not be complete without pictures of Max and Merlin...

Max

Proof that Corgis can fly!




Merlin
Why yes, as a matter of fact, these are MY toys...



and the honorary dog, Anubis"You will bring me a small, unmarked tuna..."

Yet Another Reason I Love Wyoming

The incredibly awesome, super-duper sky. Where on clear nights, you can see the Milky Way, and oh, yeah, nifty things like a lunar eclipse. Now I know why eclipses freaked our ancestors out. A nice copper-amber shade crept across the moon, little by little. Coyotes howled, and the wind rose, then fell into an eerie silence just as the moon was obscured. You have to freeze your butt off to see it, but hey, good things come to those who can operate a camera with wool mittens on.

Right?

Of course, it took me about as long to find my tripod, drive towards Montana to a dark spot, and set up as it did for the eclipse to reach this phase.

According to my old reliable copy of CyberSky, the dot in the lower left is Saturn, the one on the right is Regulus. After paying homage to my old friend, Orion, and refilling my awe-o-meter on the Milky Way, I fled back to town and the warmth of indoors.

Thank you for viewing another episode of "Whim-based Photography" Theater. Donations to the Pneumonia Fund would be greatly appreciated...

A Game of Chicken

I should be writing. I should be working on my Year of the Rat print. I should be finishing the Lace Socks from Hell. I should be doing anything but dabbling around with paint. I just realized how tired I am of eating chicken for dinner...


Of all the paintings, on all the drafting boards in the world, THIS had to emerge from mine.

I blame the gnomes.

Inspiration, Animaniacs Style

Demons, gods, sea monsters, egotistical magicians, fresco artists, warriors, little girls with daggers, llamas and tigers living together… Trying to get everyone in tune for the final battle is proving a bit nerve wracking. Since I’m slogging my way to the end of the Untamed Fantasy Novel©, of course all sorts of ideas for the Rampant Run Amok Military Sci-Fi Novel© decided to erupt instead. What the heck, working on a bit of the RRAMSF Novel couldn’t be all bad, could it? Then I could return to the UFN and figure out how to kill off a god. Nothing like a little cosmic mayhem to make the words flow.

Not.

My RRAMSF characters stubbornly insisted on talking. Chatting sociably about their problems, as if they were having tea in an upscale Shoppe instead of fighting to save their little corner of the cosmos. As if they were the most important thing in my quasi-created universe. How dare they! I had to get their attention, and refocus them on priorities – mine. Desperately seeking inspiration, I turned to my old standby. Cartoons. Is there no wisdom they can’t impart?

Yakko's Universe

Everybody lives on a street in a city
Or a village or a town for what it's worth.
And they're all inside a country which is part of a continent
That sits upon a planet known as Earth.
And the Earth is a ball full of oceans and some mountains
Which is out there spinning silently in space.
And living on that Earth are the plants and the animals
And also the entire human race.

It's a great big universe
And we're all really puny
We're just tiny little specks
About the size of Mickey Rooney.
It's big and black and inky
And we are small and dinky
It's a big universe and we're not.

And we're part of a vast interplanetary system
Stretching seven hundred billion miles long.
With nine planets and a sun; we think the Earth's the only one
That has life on it, although we could be wrong.
Across the interstellar voids are a billion asteroids
Including meteors and Halley's Comet too.
And there's over fifty moons floating out there like balloons
In a panoramic trillion-mile view.

And still it's all a speck amid a hundred billion stars
In a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
It's sixty thousand trillion miles from one end to the other
And still that's just a fraction of the way.
'Cause there's a hundred billion galaxies that stretch across the sky
Filled with constellations, planets, moons and stars.
And still the universe extends to a place that never ends
Which is maybe just inside a little jar!

It's a great big universe
And we're all really puny
We're just tiny little specks
About the size of Mickey Rooney.
Though we don't know how it got here
We're an important part here
It's a big universe and it's ours!
You might think that you're essential
Try inconsequential
It's a small world after all!

Writer: Randy Rogel
Voice of Yakko Warner: Rob Paulsen

Gnome Hunters

The Corgis were online reading blogs (who knew?) when they happened to scent the Procrastination Gnome™ hanging around Scott Oden. Being sympathetic beasties, and companions to faerie folk, they did what any red-blooded, short-legged dog would do.


They went outside for a rousing game of "Fetch".
.

Despite Maximus' "Point Me At 'Em" stance, one flip of the tennis ball changed his priorities. After all, chase and retrieval demands skill and concentration, the kind that hones abilities for Gnome hunting. Afterwards, the Corgi Brothers came in the house for a biscuit and a nap. Then another nap. They'll get on that Procrastination Gnome™ hunting right after supper. Well, maybe after another game of fetch, and another nap. You can't rush these things you know.

I'm also afraid I insisted the Corgis hunt down the Procrastination Gnome™ living in my own home before helping others. I suspect he has been holding late night brainstorming sessions with the Plot Gerbil™, because the wheels were spinning wildly, hence the three half-completed short stories I'm jumping between. One is set in 483BC, another in an urban fanasy world I never want to visit, and the third on some alternative plane of existence - but only if you hold your breath.

Luckily, just the 483BC story allowed the Research Gnome™, (cute but insidious little brother of the Procrastination Gnome™) to get his ink stained mitts on me. I successfully kept him away from my Amazon account (One Click was invented by a Gnome) and actually got the story half written before he pulled the alternative plane of existence idea out of.... an orifice.

My Ending Gnome™ is vacationing in parts unknown, so I'm forging ahead without her. If successful, Gnomes everywhere will cower in fear at the thought of writers doing something without them. As long as no one finds out where I hid the Muse, I think it will be okay.

If not, maybe I can distract everyone with a game of Fetch the Plot.

Mug Shots

I was playing around in Painter and decided to start making mug shots of some of my characters for one of the fantasy WiPs. This could be the female protagonist, but after looking at it a while, I think the woman I have in mind for the female lead is a bit younger, however, so I'll have to do another picture and probably use this one for a different character.

Listen Up!

I spent a couple hours before bed slacking off. I should have been writing, or doing the dishes, but after four hours Wednesday in various meetings, getting shoved into a supervisory roll (killing my whole responsibility avoidance plan), and spending an hour in the building storm shelter because of a tornado… I just wasn't up to anything requiring much thought. I downloaded podcasts into iTunes so I could have interesting stuff to listen to on my Outreach travels across the Periphery.

I found a lot more podcasts for writers than I knew, combining a Google search for them with browsing iTunes podcasts. I found some new podcasts- or new to me, and promptly subscribed. I already listen to things like Military History podcast, Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac and language lessons – Italian, French Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Finnish. Take your pick. I found a Latin Language lesson that's helping me with pronunciation.

New discoveries include a nifty Irish and Celtic music podcast, and neat stuff like Alan Watts podcast, Philosophy Podcast, and The Secret World Chronicle – a Mercedes Lackey & Steve Libbey story podcast. My iPod runneth over!

There are more podcasts than any one person can absorb, news, tech, religion, culture, all kinds of commentary. I zeroed in on some writing geared ones, either story mechanics or ones that tell stories.

I've been listening to Escape Pod's SF/F podcast for a while now. Short (20min-1hr) speculative fiction stories read with varying degrees of voice talent, SF news and reviews, reader reactions. Some stories are so fascinating I listen to them again on my return trip. Some of the work read was by Mike Resnick, Jay Lake, Tim Pratt, Isaac Asimov, Sarah Prineas to name a few. They also spun off another podcast for horror called Pseudopod. Too scary for me. :)

Then there is the Dragon Page with SF/F book reviews.

Writing advice from Mike Stackpole.

Writing advice from Fiction Right.

Poets & Writers Magazine podcast with poetry readings and panel discussions.

Poetryfoundation.org which podcasts discussions and criticisms of poetry, including some of their main articles.

Being as I was downloading to my old crappy laptop, and transferring to iPod with a 1.1 USB port, it took a while. Not quite instant gratification, but I'm looking forward to my next Outreach drive and all the cool stuff I have to listen to. The good thing is I can choose to learn something or listen to some good writing and not waste three hours of my life playing road kill bingo. I can turn everything off and just admire the pretty green (for now) countryside and ponder my own writing, but it's good to have options. So time to throw away the cassette tapes and CDs and count me as a big fan of new technology.

Wanted: Map to My Thought Process

I was digging through my short story folder and found some snippets, a paragraph here, an opening sentence there. Most of the time the light bulb goes off and I think, "hey, I remember that idea" and I earmark it for further development. No so with one story. I opened it, read the paragraph, and it was an utter mystery. I didn't recognize the writing, or the voice. It could have been written by a stranger. It was some urban paranormal hallucination fic. With coffee. I didn't have a clue as to the intent or theme. Not a caffeine induced glimmer. But the paragraph that was there was interesting, in a disturbed sort of way. It even had a title.

I plugged the keyword from the title into Google and bingo, more science info than I could handle. Interesting stuff. I cut and pasted into a file, tagged it for reference, sat back and realized I still had no clue as to why I wanted to write about that topic, let alone what to write. I put the information on the brain back burner and turned to the historical short story I meant to work on, only to find the evil science information I spent an hour looking up pushed the history fic idea across my brain and right out my other ear. I had the characters, I had the time period, I just had no story. I swear I had a story in mind before I opened the evil paranormal short. Apparently the history fic idea was like a vampire, exposed to the hard sunlight it vanished in a puff of dirt. Which explains the smudges on my keyboard.

For a moment I grew excited, maybe I was meant to combine the paranormal and the history fic into one grand story, rift with doppelgangers, swords, and mocha lattes. I thought about that a while. Probably for far longer than any sane individual would. Then, as the dogs knocked the back porch screen off its tracks in their haste to go outside and bark at the neighbors, I had an epiphany. I had just finished a short story and turned it in. The novel mocked me from a safe place in its folder, poems did the can-can on my bookshelf. From my peripheral vision, I saw him.

I was a victim of the Procrastination Gnome. He's back from vacation, sunburnt, and he's got a plan.

But so do I.

And it involves coffee.

Now For Something Completely Different

I should be writing. I'm on a roll, things are flowing, good guys are suffering, demons are demoning... but I also have a print to get out. Luckily, I can divide my evening between carving the print and writing. Oh, and editing a poem. Sleep is overrated anyhow.

Since this is The Year Of The Boar, I am doing a printmaking exchange through the Baren Forum. The theme? Year Of The Boar. I've done Year of the Dog (2006) and Year of the Horse (2002).

The idea is to make a bunch of little postcards on the theme, and mail them off to other printmakers around the world who sign up for the exchange. After playing with different ideas, I ended up with a Roman Boar from a mosaic that I liked.

First step was to sketch what I wanted.


I did some clean up in Painter, dropping out the gray tones and increasing contrast, then printed out the sketch to use as a basis for carving my lino block. Someday I will get braver and delve back into Moku Hanga, but not this print. I'm comfortable with lino blocks and like the graphic representation they produce.

Next, I did a color sketch to see how I wanted the final print to look.
Depending on the inks I have, I can approximate the colors. Not sure about the purple, but I'll figure something out.



I carved out the first part of the boar. I decided to do a color reduction print - no guts, no glory. This means I will work from light to dark on the print, overlaying colors as I go, and carving away the things I want to stay the previous color. I need to make 65 prints, so a reduction print may be stupid on my part, but I want to give it a shot. In the first block, I carved away everything I want to remain white or the paper color. The boar is facing backwards, when I print him, he'll turn around the way I want him to face. For a spatial dyslexic, printmaking can be nervewracking at times - backwards is correct and letters get carved in reverse. Hence the layout before hand. Saves me a lot of miscarved blocks.










Next time: Paper, First color prints, block two.

Eye Candy

This is the type of eye candy I'm talking about... None of those chocolate covered eyeballs for me this Easter. Gratuitous? You bet! (Thanks to Amelia for bringing the Spartany goodness to my attention.)

They Paint Horses, Don't They?

If they stand still long....

Still trying to get the hang of this Corel Painter program. Not as tactile as using a paintbrush, but you can balance that by undoing your mistakes. Which makes me more apt to play with color if I'm not killing a six dollar sheet of paper each time I experiment. Working oil of a horse head.

Since I like the three dimensional also, I've played with painting a horse fairly literally. We did a painted ponies charity auction -I didn't feel up to tackling a full size fiberglass horse and getting it painted in time, so I went with a Breyer sized horse. I chose a Clydesdale, so naturally he became... Bravehorse.

This is Bravehorse, who was auctioned off and went to a good Celtic home.

Trust me, he looked much better before I flashburned him. Next time I won't wait until 10 minutes before I need to turn a project in to photograph it.

I'll even put up pictures of a REAL horse this weekend. I haven't painted him. Yet. He came pre-painted...