SEWE quick sculpt/paint

 One of the highlights of the show (Southeastern Wildlife Exhibition) in Charleston was the quick paint/sculpt event. One hour was our allotted time. People surrounded me, encouraging me on as I madly threw clay about and magically came through with a grouping of very fun elephants. The auction was wild.  It was great fun. My little group will be cast in bronze and shipped to its new home. This will be a small edition so I am welcoming pre-cast orders until May 1st.

SEWE and the ride home

Every show presents the challenge, how best to display the sculptures. I think SEWE this year worked well inspire of the fact that my "Art Roadie" and husband, Vic had to be on a business trip. Here is just a snip of what I had out. Thank you Stefan Savides for stepping in and helping me unload the truck.

I brought this little English Cocker study in the wax. It was a great way to show people what the piece looks like in that step of the bronze process. This piece is at the foundry now and I am taking orders. 

Opening gala at SEWE was quite the event. Shorty the flamingo was my favorite visitor.

Vic was on a business trip so we were apart for Valentines day. He took care of that :-)  These lovely flowers arrived along with the fluffy puppy attached. Pup is detachable so I can cuddle. I named him Charlie, short for Charleston.

Load out went smoothly thanks to my wonderful "Art Roadie" and husband, Vic. We drove a couple hours down the road to Myrtle beach. We arrived in the dark, but the morning gave us a glorious wake up!

Our second night on the road was at VA beach. Morning was beautiful and we couldn't resist taking a walk. We found a little place for breakfast where we sat and watched the ocean.

On our morning walk at VA beach we were excited to have a group of brown pelicans fly overhead.

"In The Company of Cats"

 "In the Company of Cats" was one of my early sculptures inspired by my first journey to Africa. They were the groundwork for my journey into the world of wildlife art. To me they were primal, essence of cheetah, an energy of creation that started me on another long journey. I love this piece, and happily many other people have as well as it has been sold out since early 2003. BUT it has been brought to my attention that one set is available from one of my collectors. It is sad when one must part with old friends, it it is an opportunity for someone else. The cats are about 6"H high and it was an edition of 20 with no APs cast. The molds are long gone. If you are interested please call get a hold of me (karryl@karryl.com. 303-666-8582)

I am honored to be included in this wonderful show. Come on by! Opening is Sunday, Oct.30th from 1-4. I will be there along with many of the other artists. My good friend Paula is featured artist! See you there!!

Waterfowl Festival and more

This fall was exceptionally beautiful! As usual for November we headed to Easton,MD for the Waterfowl Festival. Vic took a few days of vacation so we could arrive early for some special time together. We let our favorite b&b, the Ruffled Duck Inn, Oxford,MD, pamper us.

 Every morning our gracious hosts, Joyce and Dennis, surprise us with both a visual and culinary feast. (I highly recommend staying there when you are in the area.)

As a special treat this year Vic booked us for a 2 hour horseback ride (one of my favorite activities) through beautiful Lumas Ponds State Park, in Deleware. We couldn't have asked for better weather. Our horses were a treat. Mine was a sweet, rolly polly boy named Tonto.

Vic and his sturdy mount.

After our ride, we headed back to Oxford with a detour through Bombay Hook. Fall and evening light made it a most wonderful ride. We were greated by 2 foxes almost as soon as we started the drive in the hook. As we continued through, there were many birds and spectacular foliage.

Vic and I continued our quiet moments together in Oxford over the next few days, taking walks around Oxford. We love the boats and the peaceful little town.

You can see what a colorful fall it was!
The Waterfowl Festival was blessed with perfect weather. The crowds filled the town of Easton. my booth was in the little historic Christ Church again, so it was easy for old friends to find me. They are gracious hosts there and it is one of my favorite shows to take part in. Here is a peek at my booth before people came to enjoy.

The show went very well and it was especially nice to spend time with our artist friends.

September

September, Magic and I completed our migration, returning to PA. Paula and I converged in Lancaster for the Pembroke Welsh corgi National specialty. Combining her paintings and my sculptures resulted in a lovely booth. It was a pleasure to be around so many wonderful dogs (and people). It definitely brought up wonderful memories of my Tinker and Topaz. Paula immortalized them in her painting "Security".

You might remember from my posting in May, all the wonderful corgi reference I gathered. The inspiration resulted in the dreation of a number of new works featuring the corgi.  The smaller pieces are little studies capturing some typical corgi attitudes. "Sleepy", "Sit" and "Rollover" are miniatures in bronze.

Slightly larger, in the 3-4" high and about 6"long, are "Speedy", and "Playful". All these have been done in red and white and tri.

Corgis are very curious and have an abundance of energy. They were used to drive cattle, herd ANYTHING else, keep the rats down and take care of the kids. They are a large dog in a small package. Their curiousity is insatiable, and they can crawl into your heart in a moment. Well, at least into mine. In this larger sculpture  the corgi had been playing ball when something came by on the other side of the fence, a cat? another dog? maybe a butterfly, or better yet, you. 'The Garden Fence" is 12"high.



Summer Continues

August proved to be as busy as can be; exciting and challenging. Magic and I continued our regular walks, one of my favorite times in Colorado. Morning sunrises and evening sunsets are renewing inspirations for me. Hands in clay occupied my day. New Corgi works, touch up on an elephant I had started at the Evergreen Gallery during a wonderful open house, and for fun, (as if all that wasn't fun) a roadrunner! After Vic and my adventure at the Brookfield Zoo watching the roadrunners in a fun natural exhibit, I knew one would errupt at sometime, so here it is in clay. (#1 is taken, bbut let me know if you are interested, edition of 20).

The sculpture shows in Loveland came and went so quickly I hardly knew what hit me. I had a lovely booth at the Invitational. Weather was good and so were the crowds. "The Offering", my giraffe with its 2 hornbill friends, sat in the center where many people stopped to get have a giggle. Love all those smiles!

Best of all was getting to deliver it to its new home after the show. It will live in a lovely rock garden.

It was only a short time of working on waxes, getting the next group of pieces ready for foundry when it was time for the next big adventure:

The 50th Anniversary show/celebration of the Society of Animal Artists!

Off to San Diego! Many of us stayed at the Town and Country resort where meetings and greetings and headquarters were set. It's a lovely place, roses and cosey places to sit, 3 restaurants to choose from right there as well as being right on the trolley station, and a mall across the street. I shared a room with artist Sandra Blair. We had a blast!

Getting in a day early allowed me to visit with an old friend and then a special surprise (indulge me, I'm a grandma) a surprise visit from my daughter and grandson Isaiah!

We found a lovely playground and of course some water!

The Society had so many activities! Besides our wonderful chances to meet and greet ( I don't think Bob and Diane Mason had a moment of privacy) we headed to the Wild Animal Park. My favorite was the shoebilled stork. It looks like it stepped right out of Alice and Wonderland.

Another highlight of the day was the cheetah! My favs always. 2 young cheetahs got lunch, hand fed by a keeper who obviously addors them.The cheetahs each had their own place to stand and waited patiently as she alternated handed them their yummy meat.

Oh, confusion set in here. But then, the order doesn't matter, just that it all happened. Our first adventure was a whale watching adventure! Although the whales were scarce, we saw seals, sealions, gulls, pelicans, and much more. Porpoises played with us as we returned to the harbor.



Being animal artists, we couldn't have been happier with a day at the San Diego Zoo. Since my piece in the SAA show is my Guenon monkey, "The Sage", I was happy to find that the zoo has Guenon's! (photo of live guenon courtesy of Annie Coulter who came to my rescue when my camera decided not to work in the low light).

We spent the whole day winding the many paths through the zoo, spending much time in the aviaries. By evening we were quite happy to enjoy a wonderful dinner right there in an area just for us.

The bird show was amazing, clever and entertaining. Before the show we enjoyed an intimate moment with a young Eurasian eagle owl who needed some exposure to people for his training. Sweet!

I couldn't help but make friends with this little polar bear.

Saturday was our meeting with an amazing talk by Robert Bateman. After a wonderful lunch I had the priveledge of riding with Bob and his lovely wife Birgit to our opening at the Natural History Museum. There I was one of a few of our artists to be giving demos for the public. Kids love to see the animals happening out of lumps of clay and I had clay to share with those who just couldn't help but get their hands busy. A few of us took an extra day to just wind down and visit the harbor in San Diego. All too soon we were on our way home.