Happy New Year of the Horse, 2014, from Angie and Snooky

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Beautiful BLUE, and also beautiful collage with paint.

'Liking the paint stamped across nice textured paint, 

and the papers creating layers of color and texture...beautiful horses!

Thanks so much, Angie! xxx

...and the postage stamp is from the Year of the Dragon? Nice!

[David Stafford]

Yes, that's beautiful. It has that pagan Wicker Man quality. The ropes are a nice touch as well.

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

The wooden planks from the Greek ships ....

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

There are several full-scale models of the Trojan Horse, the best one, I think, is the one that was built for the film: "TROY" and was filmed in Turkey near the site of Troy. It remains in Turkey at the seafront of the town of Canakkale, not far from Troy.

I like it the best, because the Greeks would have used the wooden of their old ships to construct it...no grand forests in that area around Troy.

[David Stafford]

Wow, good Googlin' there, Katerina...

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Wikipedia says this Year of the Horse is for the wooden horse, David...go for it :-)

Start Date	End Date	Heavenly Branch
25 January 1906	12 February 1907	Fire Horse
11 February 1918	31 January 1919	Earth Horse
30 January 1930	16 February 1931	Metal Horse
15 February 1942	4 February 1943	Water Horse
3 February 1954	23 February 1955	Wood Horse
21 January 1966	8 February 1967	Fire Horse
7 February 1978	27 January 1979	Earth Horse
27 January 1990	14 February 1991	Metal Horse
12 February 2002	31 January 2003	Water Horse
31 January 2014	18 February 2015	Wood Horse
17 February 2026	5 February 2027	Fire Horse
4 February 2038	23 January 2039	Earth Horse

[David Stafford]

Nah, the wood part was my thing. I just like the idea of a wooden horse. Nails and boards, wooden wheels, trapdoors… stuff my inner boychild finds appealing.

[David Stafford]

Thanks, XX. Patti still has veto power and she's leaning toward a more petroglyphy kind of thing. As I told her last night whatever we do, it will surprise us (this is a more generous paraphrase of my actual comment).

[xx Jones]

not sure about green, I found plenty of Chinese papercuts online and they are all red. I also thought of the Trojan Horse - it is fitting, because this year it is the wood horse, go for it !!

[David Stafford]

And thank you for your Year of the Horse collage! We are currently working on our horse concept (every year Patti and I make a joint painting of the Chinese New Year creature. Our snake was pretty darn good.) This year I was thinking of trying to make a Trojan Horse but it's probably a bridge too far in terms of our painting abilities. The other problem is the horse is apparently green...and a Green Trojan horse just seems...wrong...I guess I've come to the conclusion that, though I have no bias against the color, I just don't know what to do with it. Gimme Red and Payne's Grey and I have no problem.