I'm participating in a Poem RR with a group of friends. The cover is pictured on the left. The theme of my book is The Moon and Stars. One reason I choose that theme was the art doll idea that has been floating around in my head for a while. Once I started my book, I decided to go ahead and create the doll. I finally finished it last weekend. When my book returns, I'll display them together. The doll is polymer clay and the moon is a tin foil base, covered with DAS brand air-dry clay.

Three friends, Tricia, Lisa, Vicki and I decided to do an art doll round robin earlier this year. Each of us choose a theme and did our faces and bodies. Tricia choose Air, Lisa's was Celestial/Gems, Vicki went with Forest and I choose Water Sprite. We would meet once a month at one of the quaint little wineries or restaurants in downtown McKinney to exchange our dolls and visit. I have pictures from three of our meetings, 1st, 2nd & 4th. The dolls all turned out fabulous and we will definately be doing this again.

One of art egroups that I belong to issued a challenge - Ornies. The rules for the ornies are they cannot be bigger than 7 inches, must be able to be hung and have to be created from a premade doll. I got some small (5 3/4 inch) porcelain dolls from the dollar store as the base for my ornies. I used butterfly wings that I had purchased at Michaels. I had so much fun doing these.

Polymer Clay Candy Tin Purses

After taking Lisa's class, I was excited to use the technique to create another doll. This was another face I had sculpted and set aside, not sure what to do with him. I'm not sure why it is, but it seems like when I sculpt faces, they turn out to be male more often than not. I'm always pleased with the faces, but am challenged to come up with the rest of the doll to go with the face.

This face had a little bit of arrogance about it - and needed a pose to match. It took a little bit of engineering to come up with the pose using the method I learned in class. I did learn from this doll and I would do a stronger, longer support on the next one.

I had the pose and finished him and dressed him similar to Serenity, but I wasn't pleased. My friend Vicki was over (she is excellent with costuming) and I asked her what I should do for him. We went to my fabric stash and she made her suggestions. I took off the original clothes and redressed him as you see here. Voila! perfect. A piece of feather boa in rust became his hair, a dried pod with a feather made his hat. He holds another dried pod in his hand and a curly gold staff.

I'm very lucky that my friend, Lisa Renner lives nearby and I'm able to take classes from her. She taught a Stardust Fairy Class for our local polymer clay guild in June this year. Lisa makes taking a class such as pleasure, not only due to her abilities as an artist and teacher, but also the preparation work she puts into every workshop she teaches. The workshop was a full day and we were able to go home with a completed fairy doll. My doll is called Serenity, as her face suggests.

When Patricia Rose offered lessons through her guild program, I immediately signed up. I was very excited to learn from such a great sculptor. I signed up as soon as I found out she was offering the program. I was definately intimidated when I received the first lesson! It was a full body sculpt - of the classic Venus - in other words, a nude. No chance of any clothing hiding any mistakes.

I bravely proceeded, printing off her step-by-step directions. I began sculpting the face. When I finished the face, well, it wasn't Venus. In fact, it wasn't even female - but it was a fabulous face and I really liked it. It was too good to smash, so I set it aside and began sculpting the Venus face again. The second face was better (it was female at least) and I did finish the whole sculpt. All I can say is that it was a good first piece, but the only resemblance to the orginal Venus were the uplifted arms and standing on a seashell. I have it in my studio on a top shelf, but I would never post it. I did, however, still have the orginal face still staring at me, wanting to be completed.

I sculpted a body to go with the head and Tristan was born. He dances through the forests, clothed in leaves. I'm very pleased with the way he turned out.

The second piece I worked on while I was away is another bracelet, this one with the remaining frog beads to match the necklace I did previously. I did a peyote stitch base and added the frogs, leaves and flower beads. It isn't finished as I haven't decided what to do about a closure. The piece is rather heavy and I'm afraid a button closure will work loose with wear.

As I've mentioned, when I travel, I bead. I recently went to Rhode Island for my annual artist getaway with fellow artists. I did the base of this bracelet prior to boarding the plane and beaded during the flight. One of the airline attendants was a beader, so she was very interested in my piece. She said that she only did simple beading. This bracelet was inspired by the silver fish beads I bought at the Bead Renaissance Show in May. I wanted the fish to appear to be swimming through the grass & moss.

One of the egroups I'm a member of issued a challenge - Dolls with a Secret. This sounded like something I could have fun with, so I started to brainstorm. I'm not sure why butterflies in her stomach came to mind, but it did. I had fun creating this doll.

Last week was another road trip - my stepson graduated from Army basic training last and we drove up to Fort Sill (Lawton, OK) to attend Family Day and the Graduation Ceremony on Thursday & Friday. As I had already finished the mermaid necklace, I needed to find another piece to make. I was working on a couple of birthday presents and needed accent beads for them, so I looked in my lampwork box. I found those beads (and finished those bracelets), but I also pulled out two sets of beads I bought when my friend, Debbie Givens first started making lampwork beads. I added some glass beads that had gathered at various conventions and created this piece, which I finished yesterday.



My friend, Irene modeling the necklace. Her smiling face adds alot to the necklace, doesn't it? She said it was perfect for her - in her colors. Doesn't it look good on her? However, I did bring it back home with me. It doesn't look bad on me either.

When I went to the bead show this past May, I found some marvelous carved bone beads. I loved the detail on these beads. I bought several frogs and three mermaid beads. I also bought lots of leaf beads. I made the Garden Frogs necklace first, using only two of the frog beads. I created a triangle-shaped peyote base and added leaf and flower beads over the whole area.

My husband had a day surgery procedure last month and I took the beads to do the Mermaid Reef necklace while I was waiting. I got quite a bit done while waiting and finished it up the following week while watching television.

Last year when I was on a dragon-creating spree (thanks to Christi Friensen's book), I made this dragon and beaded the necklace with beads I found at the local bead convention.

When I travel I usually carry beading. It is one of the few artistic things that I do that can be portable. In April when I flew up to Rhode Island to take the class with Kathleen Dustin (I told about this in a previous post), I started working on the Octopus Garden necklace. I made the octopus with polymer clay using the instructions in Christi Friesen's book "Under the Sea". I thought they were cool and would make a great component for a necklace. The idea was to have the necklace look like a coral reef. I plan on adding to the necklace in a couple of weeks when I fly back to Rhode Island for my annual art pilgrimage.

Check out my Slide Show!

Check out my Slide Show!

A little over a year ago I took a workshop with Kathy Davis. While I knew I loved working with polymer clay and I had taken to sculpting in college, Kathy awoke my love a creating dolls with her workshop. I would highly recommend her as a workshop instructor - it was fun, informative and rewarding. I'm hoping to be able to take another workshop from her soon.

In the workshop she taught for our guild, we were to create a fairy or elf. She told us the doll would let us know what it wanted to be. She was right! Mine are Forest Folk. The bigger one was created in the workshop and the little one was created later.

Zeke is now over a year old - we are hoping he is his full adult size. He is on the bigger range of border collies. At last weighing, he was 50 pounds. He's also a bundle of energy. These pictures were taken last week. The car is my husband's 87 Mustang convertible - that is me with Zeke.

For several years I've been creating candy tin purses. Purses made from candy tins, covered in polymer clay. Two of my purses were published in Haute Handbags II (if you scroll down on this link, they are pictured as Polymer Clay Critter Purses) and two were in the May/June 2007 issue of Belle Armoire in the Gallery section (and no, they aren't that orange in real life). Since then I have created a few more, including this Indian purse. The indian on this purse is an original painting that I did years ago on a wooden box for my husband (the box got first prize at the Texas State Fair). I scanned the image, removed the background and used LazerTran to create the transfer.

When I got my first package of Sculpey UltraLight, I thought it was product with great potential. I was right - it does have. It took a little getting used to the feel of it - much like marshmellow creme, but not quite as sticky.One of the great advantages of the product is being able to create larger armatures that remain lightweight. This clay goddess is from my first playing with the UltraLight. She is approximately 6 inches tall and covered with a sheet of mokume gane over the UL armature. She is also adorned with three turquoise beads.