Last month, my friend @agrasstory came at home. As always, modelhorse pictures were planned, we decided to try again to do one a day... here's the result:
Day 1 (sunday):
Maybe, just maybe Anne is tired to be hitting on by @agrassstory 's male riders... she's tired of it and really wish she could ride alone, just one time... Do you think her dream will come true?
Day 2 (monday):
Mule train, yeah, yeah. Mule train: clippetty-clopping over hill and plain. Seems as how they'll never stop.
Way seems like they stopped.
Day 3 (tuesday):
@agrassstory told me my "captions" about my pictures were too serious, so I've wrote some humor for the first two... but how could I mess with this badass native couple? I cannot. Sorry.
Day 4 (wednesday):
Are you looking at that shirtless guy or at the horses? Wrong answer only.
Day 5 (thursday):
Girls night, it's tonight! Don't forget to grab your favorite snack ;) Wich one would you bring? Ay Que Viva La Sangria!
Day 6 (friday):
One bucket to rule them all; one bucket to find them; one bucket to bring them all...
It was as exhausting as the first one... but we did it!
When I see a beautiful place, I always think first "I wish I could bring Amira here for a picture". Most of the time, I can't... so I do modelhorse pictures instead; that's pretty much why I take so much modelhorse pictures, because it's easier to bring a figurine than a real horse everywhere.
But I've seen this place, not so far from the stables last autumn and knew I had to stalk for the flowers.
Glad I got it!
Modelhorse pictures, with a real horse... that's a lot more difficult but also, really rewarding.
Artist Resin; (paintjob byAleksander Freda) on the model "Blue Bird". Painted in 2024. Sculpted by Anna Dobrowolska-Oczko. Colour: Black, Varnish pattern. // Breed : Chaar Appaloosa. Gender: Foal.
Artist Resin (3D printed); (paintjob byAleksander Freda) on the model "Birdie". Painted in 2025. Sculpted by Jake Heaps. Colour: Black, Leopard pattern. // Breed : Chaar Appaloosa. Gender: Mare.
Bonus pictures: the fauna I had the pleaseure to see as I was shooting thoses pictures. My camera is not good for zoom, so they are terrible pictures but still, there was a bunch of Chamois wich is the second most rare animal I've seen while shooting modelhorses after the bear.
Toffee Apple Artist Resin (3D printed); paintjob by Carole Jacquier on the model "KS Bob". Painted in 2025 and sculpted by KS Art. Colour: Bay, Minimal Spotted Blanket Pattern // Breed : Appaloosa Mule Gender: Gelding (jack).
Amira did very few competitions with me. Probably because I don't have the spirit for that, probably because I dreamed of us winning and didn't wanted to rush... I though we had all our life.
The first competition Amira did, was a dressage one and I wasn't the rider. When I was asked if I wanted to compete with her, I said a firm no but that if someone else was willing to try it's chance, it was okay for me. It was around our first year together, and I felt it was a bad idea... she was still stubborn. Spoiler alert: she was unwilling on that day and the girl who took her finished in cries.
The second one was an obstacle course, I said I was okay to compete, but warned everyone that it would not be easy. I was said that she jumped very well and there will be no problem. I was aware that she jumped very well, but also that she have a special character and I didn't feel like "it would be no problem". I did the first turn (luckily) but got stuck on the obstacle n°8 because she didn't wanted to jump it, at that point I said to the staff that I needed to pass it, or she'll never ever would. They said I couldn't and that I had to left the ring... she never ever jumped that obstacle for the next peoples who had her that day to compete.
The third was a intern competition, obstacle again, on my stables. I was more than happy to participate, as I felt I was ready for competition at that point of our relationship. We won the 1rst place. But that was not a competition with prizes and ribbons, just congratulations and the pride to finally have won something with Amira.I though it wasn't our last, that I was on a roll for that ribbon I was hoping for. But in fact, it was our last chance and I didn't know.
When plans were made to compete with Kalinka, I said to Eva that maybe she will win that ribbon I was dreaming for. Eva said to me that she will try, but she promized me nothing. Last week-end, on her third dressage competition... Kalinka won a 3rd place and so, a ribbon!
I don't know when I will be the rider to won a ribon with Kalinka, but that doesn't matters, she's got one already at the dawn of our adventure!
Congratulation to Eva and Kalinka for such a quick accomplishment!
On a side note, I am very excited to show a knabstrupper in dressage competition, thoses are an unknown breed and deserve more spotlight! It's planned for this year that she'll compete a whole season... are you interrested for more report about that?
For the moment, she got compliments from the judges. I wish I showed Amira more, she could have been an ambassador for the spotted horses but now, it's up to Kalinka to do it for her.
Bonus Grumpy Pony (yes I cannot get over the post-button braid look):
The work entered represent the hope I got in my mare's recovery in our darkest hours. (as a reply to the thema: harmony; the partnership between horse and a human, the relationship between artist and subject
-First picture is my mare before she headed to the clinic, at this point it's been a month that my vets were fighting for her. We found a piece of wood that got into her hoof and created an abcess, then an infection was eating down the navicular bone.
-Second picture (the one were she's laying), it's us in the first clinic that wanted to put her down and offered no more help.
-Third picture, is at the second clinic, that found that despite all the damages in her hoof, she could do with orthopedic shoes. She wasn't limping anymore.
-Last picture is her, living a happy retirement in the fields now... she wore hoof protection all the time to avoid her to loss an orthopedic shoes. She's living almost like nothing happened and does not show pain in a day to day basis. It's been 5 years now.
This drawing means a lot to me, as it express all of this and I'm glad it touched more hearts once again!
You might have seen that my friend ClĂšme (@agrasstory) and me have spent a few days together and as soon as I launched the idea of the one picture a day challenge, we hoped on our first idea...
Sunday, on a military shooting range, we took a trio of western riders.
As ClĂšme just had bough us a lot of two resins (one for her, one for me), we got new "horses" to introduce, so we ended picturing them as well.
It was the day I arrived, so we didn't do much, but it was off a great start!
Monday, we went riding. ClĂšme have a black mule, her name is Brune and you probably have seen her a few time on this blog.
But that was not about me riding, the real goal was to do pictures, so we went out of the barn looking for ideas.
Showing mule skills...
And searching in the woods for something to jump!
Of course, I had to try this as well.
Then it was time to plot again for a modelhorse picture, we decided that for our mental sanity we needed to find easier things for some days and created a still-life scenery of horses in a pasture in the evening.
Tuesday after a movie at the theater we went at a place called devil rock, with native figure and props wildhorses... I loved this place and we did quite an unusual setting.
Behind the scene of the mess it make to do modelhorse pictures...
Wednesday, after a great carriage ride we did pictures at the barn...
Do you want to hear the sound of this?
While one was playing, the other was grazing the mule!
Thursday, we had planned a picture with a castle. We went at Fontainebleau, started doing pictures then... we were told we weren't allowed to do pictures that needed an "installation" on the castle garden/ground. It's the first time ever it happend to me, I've done picture in several well known place and it never had been a problem. I've read the castle picture reglementation and didn't found it wasn't allowed, nowhere nor on the entrance, nor on their website. We were pretty mad, because that's a total nonsense, but decided to head back to the castle were ClĂšme is living.
There we got a little helper!
Was it really help?
We ended at the barn and I did a few "liberty" pictures of Brune. Because when I'm not picturing miniatures modelhorses, I'm playing with real equines.
Saddly my camera is truly showing age signs, I need to upgrade it...
Friday was the last day, we wanted something unusual and staged each side of the fence.
Then, it was already time to say goodbye...
At the end of this week, we were a bit exhausted by so many pictures, but at least really glad to have done it! And I've got a lot of extra pictures to showđ„°
