Things that make me happy

I have been so pleased with the recently reorganized Realistic Equine Sculpture Society. I was particularly excited to learn that Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig would be taking the helm editing the organization's biannual ezine The Boat. Those of you who know Sarah know that she never does anything in moderation.

Over the weekend I received my copy of the first issue. The first full-color, 195 page issue! Nope, no moderation there. The magazine goes out to members in PDF form, so what you see in the above picture is the printout that I made and set inside sheet protectors. I thought that might be a wise precaution given the likelihood of the articles ending up in the studio for reference. In that photo the book is opened to an article on planning - and revising - sculptures. That's just one of many really in-depth articles. The article on hooves alone is fifty pages long! (I suspect my little version of Sprinkles would like it if I quit reading about revisions and just roughed in her last leg, or perhaps a proper head!)

That would have been enough to keep me happily reading for the rest of the week, but then this morning I found this. That's the Dutch horse color book Het Paard in Zijn Kleurenrijkdom, written by J.K. Wiersema and published in 1977. Almost twenty years after it was published, I found a copy in the rare book room at the old Arabian Horse Trust and was able to leave with a rather poor black-and-white xerox of the contents. The original book, however, was in color and I've often wished I had access to it again now that color copies can be so easily had. So when I accidentally stumbled across this, I was beyond thrilled! I don't speak Dutch, unfortunately, so I still cannot read a word of it. But the rare photographs of appaloosa Welsh Ponies and silver dapple Groningers were what I was really after.

None of this is getting my dapple greys finished, of course. Tomorrow the books get put away and it's back to the painting table.