This Weekend's Art

Mixed Media

I had a couple of Tim Holtz's Configuration boxes and have wanted to do some mixed media pieces with them. Graphics 45 has a Steampunk collection, though I don't think of it as much as steampunk as Art Deco, featuring the art work of my favorite, Alphonse Mucha. I bought the paper a while back since I couldn't resist it (wish I had more now). I worked on these all day yesterday, combining bits and pieces from my collections around the studio. I'm very pleased with them. I just need to figure out how to hang them. I added lots of pieces from Tim's collections - sprocket gears, light bulbs, bottles, birdhouse and metal wings. I also used distress inks and alcohol inks to color the metal and plastic chess pieces.

Configurations Box

In The Studio

What a mess - works in progress

Heads on sticks - some are now witches

I've got a really great studio space. It was supposed to be the formal dining room, but we aren't formal dining room type people. I love that it has a big window the looks out onto my front yard and up the road. Lots of the pieces of storage in my studio are recycled and they work great for their new purpose. I also usually have lots of "heads on sticks", heads that I've sculpted waiting on bodies and to be incorported into the latest art doll. I like sculpting the heads best, so there are usually several pots filled with them. The first part of next year I plan on taking out the carpet in the room and covering the floor of my studio by decoupaging book pages on to it. While I have all the furniture out, I'll probably paint the walls. I'm thinking about corking one so it will be a permanent bulletin board and I think I'll cover one section with chicken wire so I'll have a place to hang things without sticking pins or nails into the wall.


Display of finished dolls

More heads on sticks

Supply storage

Wall unit from surplus - bead storage

Still Loving Halloween
I was gone the week before Halloween on the Michaels Crafting Cruise, but I still had a chance to create Halloween-inspired art this year. We did have a Halloween Glitter Ball one night on the cruise, so I had to create a piece of jewelry to wear. The spider is a great Bead Landing pin that I found at Michaels this year. I picked up several of them. I found some great spider web "coasters" when I was in St. Paul this summer, and appliqued them to a plain shirt. I added one of those spider pins to the shirt as well - perfect! I decorated a witch's hat with flowers, ribbon and tulle but didn't have a chance to wear it this year - maybe next....

The necklace is bead embroidery with dagger bead flowers that I made. The "web" is made from piece from the Bead Landing Metal Mania collection that I patinaed so they wouldn't be so shiny.

More Dolls

I've created several dolls this year. I had the opportunity to test a new clay prior to its arrival in the store. It is Art Minds Clay Mache, Michaels private label brand of air dry clay. I LOVE it. It sculpts like a dream, is easy to smooth and blend into itself and sands beautifully. I like it so much, I've done more air dry clay dolls recently than polymer clay ones. The good news is that it is now available in the Michaels store. Here is one of the first sample dolls I made with it. She is entirely sculpted from the air dry clay, head, arms, hands, legs, feet and body. She's dressed with stuff from the floral department and her hair is faux fur.

Close up



Aren't those glittered tennis shoes the coolest?

This summer I also took an online workshop with Christy Meyers of CC Whimsies. We created a pumpkin fairy doll. The workshop was a doll to hang on the wall, but I'd found these really cool glittered tennis shoes at Treasures of The Gypsy at the ADAA doll conference in Austin and wanted to use those, so my pumpkin fairy stands. This was a great workshop as it was all done with videos and Christy even generously provided us with a pdf file as well.

I sculpted a couple of extra heads during the workshop. One I turned into a steampunk box doll and the other one is still waiting on my to create the rest of it.


This doll is also from the clay mache clay and uses a paper mache mannekin form for her body. She's a mixed media doll inspired by the Santos dolls.

I played around with some polymer clay dolls this year, too. One has a box body and the other has a candlestick for the body. I taught the box one as my break-out session on the Michaels Crafting Cruise in October.

All Dolls Are Art
I took a 3-day workshop at the All Dolls Are Art conference with Lauren Vlcek in July. This was the first year for the conference which is held in Austin at the end of July. Lauren's workshop was a Butterfly Doll. Here are pictures of my completed doll:


Butterfly Fairy



Close up of face

                                                      Close up of flower detail

Really looking forward to ADAA 2012, the theme is the World of Make Believe. It's really shaping up to be a fabulous conferenc. Hope to see you there!

All Dolls Are Art Conference Information

Been a Long Time
It's been such a long time since I've posted, I don't know where to begin. This has been the year of computer issues. First an upgrade on my aircard wasn't compatible with my older computer so I didn't have internet access on my personal computer. Fixed that and thought all would be well and my old computer crashed, burned and forever died. Luckily all of my info was on an external drive so I didn't look images, documents, music, etc. Bought a new computer, however had issues trying to load the old original photoshop so I could use my upgrade. I finally got photoshop issues resolved and the busy-nes of life got in the way.
It's been almost a year since I've posted and it's been a busy one. In January Vicki & I attended the Texas Beader's Retreat again. April brought a horrible hail storm which damaged trees, roof and various outdoor items. July was my first trip to New York City and the first All Dolls Are Art doll artist conference in Austin, TX. September was the Blog Her Creative Connection Convention in St. Paul and October was the Michaels Crafting Cruise.
Of course there was lots of sculpting and beading and such going on this year that I'll share soon. I'm going to try and catch up on my posts again and try not to fall behind again.

Happy Holidays!

 

 A little late, but none-the-less... I'm still not decorating for the holidays at home, but decided to dust off my collection of Santas that I did years ago and bring them to decorate my cube at work. It was interesting looking at the dates on some of them (gee, has it been THAT long?) and remember the workshops I took or classes I taught.

It's been a long time since I did decorative painting, I prefer sculpting more now. This year I did ornaments for gifts on small glass ornaments, Santa faces and little elves with burr oak caps.

I sculpted some old world Victorian-style Santas on heart-shaped glass ornaments, which I also gave as gifts.

 Our department has an annual ornament contest, which encourages me to create a more elaborate ornament each year. This year I decided to do an ornament featuring the 4 seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter. I got the prize for best overall for this one.

 Winter is the old man with holly leaves and berries.

 Autumn shows the abundance of the harvest, with grains, grapes and fall leaves.

 Spring is the young girl with daffodils and morning glories.

 Summer features roses.

I hope everyone has a happy, safe and prosperous New Year!!!

It's no secret that I love Halloween. Every year I create Halloween-inspired dolls and crafts. Last year I did the Haunted Tree doll and the Book of Spells with the witch I took in an online class. This year I created a stump doll witch inspired from some Alexander Henry fabric, The Ghastlies. Rather than leaving all these scattered around my home, I thought I would decorate my cube at work. I used The Ghastlies fabric as a backdrop behind the bookcase in my cube and draped the bookcase with some sheer spiderweb fabric.

I created a vignette with the art dolls and coffins I'd decorated last year and even did a skull rose bouquet. I used another Halloween fabric to cover the rest of that side of my cube. I hung ornaments, ATCs and a 4x4 (both that I have made & received in swaps) on that section. This year my cube is fun and perfect for the season.

I also receive lots of Altoid tins from coworkers - they know I use them in my art, so this Halloween I decided to decorate them for Halloween and gave them to my coworkers.

I hope every one has a safe & Happy Halloween...bwaaaaaaaaaaahhhahahhahaha

Two Less Heads on Sticks

I love to sculpt faces and I generally have several "heads on sticks" (sculpted heads on dowels) sticking in the tool holder or in the paintbrush basin on my studio table. Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to completing the dolls.

Professor Pocus changed so many times from the original concept (and his head had been around my studio for a couple of years). Originally I intended to do a European style hobo clown holding a skeletal umbrella. The idea was to put him in the guest room when I had it painted. I sculpted his head, hands and feet and there he sat in that state for over a year.

Then I had the idea to use him in a box, he was going to be a magician with a top hat with a rabbit coming out of the top of the hat on his head. I began working on the box...but...that's not really what he wanted to be either.

The box took on a more rustic look and I added the great feet by Tim Holtz. The box dictated that he be more of the traveling snake oil salesman, so I started working on that concept.

I was doing his body out of a piece of 2x4. I drilled and glued and attached his hands, arms and head. Again it sat, not quite coming together.

Last month when the gals were over for our monthly art play day, I got the idea to carve out the center of the 2x4. I dug out my handcarving tools and started working on hollowing out the center. (Husband asked why I didn't just go out to his shop and use the power tools - heck, it was 104 degrees that day & it is an uninsulated metal building).

Once I carved out the center, he began coming together quickly. I used grunge board and dies to cut gears. I painted them and added them inside the 2x4. I also used Tim's sprocket gears. I decoupaged pages from an old book on the top hat and dressed him with mulberry paper. I found the perfect item in my stash for him to hold, one of the Industrial Chic pieces I had picked up from Michaels several months ago.

So now I'm proud to introduce Professor Pocus & his Traveling Magic Show.

The other head on a stick that had been sitting around my studio was done with an air-dry clay that I was testing (I love this stuff - I do hope it becomes available soon). I decided that I wanted a cloth doll for this one, so I got out one of my Patti Culea books, Creative Cloth Doll Couture and used the pattern from it. I made the doll body and it was too small. I had to enlarge the pattern. The second doll was much better sized.

I gessoed the doll and painted her with Tim Holtz crackle paint. I used distress inks to enhance the crackles and to give her some aged character. I choose old laces to dress her and created her boots, skirt and belt from ostriche hide. I liked the hat that I'd done for the professor so much that I took rusted sewing patterns and stamped on them to decoupage on her hat. I added a Boutique Fleur flower from the Recollections collection with lace to trim her hat. I haven't decided on a name yet...any ideas?

Finally finished

Several years ago I started a canvas - mainly to test a couple of new products, a crackle and texture medium. The canvas sat in my studio for a while, was stuck in a closet and generally moved from place to place as it go into my way. From time to time I would pull it out and think about finishing it, but the inspiration on what to do never did strike. For one thing, it is a rather large canvas, so it needed something that wouldn't get lost or look out of place. The mask evening class that I took at EDAC gave me an idea. I molded a large paper clay face and glued it to the canvas. Michaels has a fabulous line of flower embellishments from Recollections called Boutique Fleur. I bought several of the jars of flowers and decided to use them on the canvas. Friday evening I stopped by Aaron Brothers and picked up a few items, including some velvet stickers from Stampendous. I collaged handmade papers, stenciled a few words, added the dimensional flowers, painted some grungeboard flourishes and added the velvet sticker leaves to finish the canvas. I'm very pleased with the way it turned out & will take it to work to hang in my cube.

Tidepool Necklace

My friend, Ellen created small sea creature beads for me for my birthday - an octopus & a few stingrays. While pulling beads to make a necklace out of my treasures, I ran into a polymer clay pendant that I had gotten from my friend, Sherry in a swap. It was the perfect color and design to go in the necklace, but not the right size. I took an exacto knife to the pendant, cut it into three pieces and shaved the edges a bit - perfect! They were exactly what I needed for the necklace. I used 4 different color/toned bead soups in creating the necklace, two turquoise/teal and two in the sandy, neutral colors.