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Posts Tagged ‘faerie’

My Interpretation of Little Dancer by Degas

Posted in figurative art, polymer clay, tagged , , on March 2, 2011| 2 Comments »

Degas dancer front

Marguerite Plays at Being a Dancer, 16-1/2″ tall.

This was the first of my versions of impressionist works. The Girl with Watering Can was actually second. And yes, I do have a third in the planning stages.

Degas dancer back

The hair was the most fiddley and time consuming part of this particular piece. I had to figure out a way to make long straight hair that was still consistent with my visual style. The answer was one thin little strip of fabric at a time — which took forever but looks fantastic. The skirt is made from fabric cut into thin strips and tightly gathered onto a waistband then embellished with silk leaves. I made the slippers from suede.

Degas dancer face

She has a really sweet expression and I’m thinking of making a series of these dancer pieces; one for each season.

 

 

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Happy Christmas!

Posted in book, holiday, tagged , , , on December 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »

brownies christmas book

and a Very Merry New Year.

From me and all the fae folk of this particularly enchanted vicinity.

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Brownie Puppeteer

Posted in figurative art, tagged , , on October 6, 2010| 1 Comment »

Beauregard Hawthorne and his Amazing Puppet. 16 inches.

This piece was a lot of fun. My idea was to play with the juxtaposition of a happy, friendly, smiling brownie with a grumpy, abrasive, possibly hostile Beetle puppet.

In this three-quarters view you can see that Beau is standing with his weight on his left leg and is starting to take a step with his right. You can also get a better view of the puppets wings and the way they come out from under a back yoke on his body.

Love, love, love the contrast between these two faces. The puppet head has an actual functional Muppet mouth and Beau’s hand is really inside. The beetles eyebrow/feelers are wired to hold their position and have a rich velvety texture.

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My First BDJ (Ball Jointed Doll)

Posted in BJD, polymer clay, tagged , , on September 1, 2010| 4 Comments »

A couple of years ago Pat Lillich started encouraging me to try making a ball jointed doll. Pat is an utterly magnificent artist — google her! She sent me some great background and technical information. OK, so the website she directed me to was in Japanese but it really was the most in depth tutorial out there. So being particularly persnickety I used Babelfish to copy and paste and thusly translated the text from Japanese to English and slung the whole thing into a Word document so I wouldn’t have to do this process every time I wanted to refer to the tutorial. Which I am now very glad I did because I can’t find that particular site now, it’s seems to have gone away.

So here I was with all this terrific information and no really compelling reason to use it — until the challenge theme for last year’s NIADA was announced “Make a piece using a medium that is new to you”. Well I do use polymer clay to make the face masks of my work but I don’t do whole figures and this one would be jointed and I wanted to try this different clay mixture to see what it’s properties were like. I figured that was “New Medium” enough. So here is my BJD experiment:

His name is Alexander and he’s about 6 inches tall. He and his pal Happy Duck have steadfastly refused to live in the display cupboard and spend their time chasing each other all over the living room. Which I have to say is far better than them playing tricks like “hide the car keys” or “build a fort out of DVDs (in the middle of the night) in the exact center of the living room”.

The technical low down: I made him out of a super sculpey-primo blend; his head and torso are completely hollow (which lowers his center of gravity enabling him to stand better); his upper arms and legs are made like shaped tube beads with a channel for the elastic down the center; I used brass rod at the joint terminuses (lower arms and feet) and strung him with round elastic from the fabric store. His wig is made from some upholstery trim (which I think has been discontinued). He balances on his feet just fine and has a nice range of movement. All in all, I’m satisfied with the experiment and may make several more.

Happy together!

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Guard Duty

Posted in figurative art, tagged , , on August 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

13-1/2″ tall (with staff 16-1/2″). Natural bamboo staff with an arrowhead made from polymer clay. And yes, that’s a mohawk cut made of my signature shredded fabric.

Sorry for the abbreviated post, I’m having internet difficulties today. Perhaps because the rain has driven all the children indoors and those who aren’t umbilically connected to their gaming system are most likely glued to their computers on the net.

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A Brownie with braids

Posted in figurative art, tagged , , on July 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This is Market Day, she’s a Brownie. She’s also the first piece I’ve done that has corn-row braids. They were a bit fiddley to make and attach but the final effect was worth the effort. She’s about 16 inches tall and is carrying a basket of moon-faced dolls. I made her for a moon-themed challenge for a NIADA conference.

Yes, her braids are partly green, which compliments her mauve skin. She’s a gentle soul.

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Hello and Welcome

Posted in figurative art, tagged , , on July 14, 2010| 2 Comments »

So here I am, finally, starting a blog. Just for a minute I’m going to pretend that absolutely no one out there knows who I am or what I do. Which, mostly, you don’t; unless you’ve met me at an Art Doll conference. The most seriously art thing that I do are my figurative art sculptures. They are made of cloth over an armature with hard sculpted polymer clay face masks which are covered in cloth. Their hair is made shredded fabric. They are all one of a kind.

Watering Can Girl

This one is Girl with a Watering Can, after Renoir. She’s 12-1/2 inches tall. I made her watering can with paperclay.

You’ll notice right away that I don’t do people-colored people. All my figures have lovely colored skin, yellow, blue, green, mauve; whatever color feels right for that piece. They also are all faeries, but earth fae not air fae (no wings). Some are bugs, some are Brownies or Hobs, I’ve even done a few Grigs. Mostly they are happy little folk, some more mischievous than others but all fairly benevolent spirits. I hope they make you smile.

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