Fun stuff

I had a good Easter weekend, peaceful although no egg hunts anymore now that the kids are older... sniff sniff
I have some fun stuff to share: All kinds of birdies!

One made of paperclay based on a lesson in SoulFood

One in my backyard. Today they took off flying!

One collaged in the front page of a small journal I made

My cat looking at all the birdies...

My tiny brushes.

Thanks for visiting! I am participating in 100 days project, check my FB art page to see more stuff there :oD

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Traveling doll from the BBQs (how to add eyes)

 

Little Madga is such a funny girl! The first thing she said when she came to visit me was “Are the lights out?” I thought she was kidding, but then I realized she still didn’t have eyes! So I told her it was a sunny day, and she was soon to see it. We found a nice pair of glass eyes and after getting Emily’s OK, we removed her eyelashes and started to work on her face. To see this is the tutorial please visit my doll blog HERE 
Thanks!

Cloth dolls

I am currently and slowly working on 2 cloth dolls.
The first one is Claudia Crow, who is a re-worked dolly. She has a video, which will be redone as well. Originally, the story I made for her, a nice girl who are the wrong cupcake, and turn into a crow.... she kept her hands in flesh tone, but seems like that was not quite right. So now she has crow color all over, she completery changed. I think she looks cute, but then again... I am partial ;o)

Before

After

And the other dolly WIP picture. I think she looks more like my mini paintings, yes? That has been my goal for a long time but it is easier said than done!

I didn't give her ears because I am planning to have her have hair and a hairband. So lets see how she looks at the end :o)

Hearts, chicken and a dolly

I will start with the chicken, she will have her personal post shortly but for now she's hangin' in there with there girls. Her name is Petunia and was made for Illustration Friday. I think she turned out cute :o)
And I have hearts in my mind. Well, chocolate hearts but for now paper hearts will do, right?

I have been working also on a new doll, but I am kind of stuck at the moment. I am not sure if I want to paint her one way or the other so I left her sitting by the window in the kitchen. I kept all mirrors away so she won't get scared of her head at this point :oP

How to paint the "bone" look

Here's a little tutorial on how to give the appearance of bone:
Sculpt the figure you want in white clay. Can be polymer, paperclay or any other air dry.

1- First thing you do is gesso it, with the solution a little diluted with water so you don't lose detail. In this case I had a lot of "cracks" that I wanted to show. Use a soft brush so it won't give you deep brush marks. Let it dry well.

2- Once it is dry, give it a coat of watery black acrylic paint. Not too watery, so you really stain the gesso. Let it dry for a couple of minutes.

3- Get a wet sponge and rub the piece until most of the black paint is gone but not so much that it shows the white gesso again. Let it dry. Make sure you stain your under your fingernails as well, eww!

4- Once it is dry you will give it a dry brush coat with just the tiniest drop of yellow paint, dust the brush on all the bumpy areas, making sure it looks transparent and not solid yellow. If you painted it too much, get the sponge and rub gently. Let it dry, that should be really fast.

5- Give it another dry brush coat of white paint, making sure you neither cover the black or yellow, just highlight the bumps.

6- Detail with more black paint as needed, dry, varnish with Satin finish and you are done! You can do a whole body or just parts. In this case I added a magnet.

You can have a cookie now :o)

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Winter preparations and more Re-works

I know in many States and Countries, the snow has been falling for a while now, but here in my little spot of the world, the Winter actually started today. So I made preparations for it as follows:

-Get the yard ready for winter... check

-Replant a rose bush to a sunnier spot... check

-Scream like a lil' girl after finding a nasty spider in my glove... check

-Asking son for help... check

-Holding up the words" I told you not to..." when the son walks with muddy shoes in the house... check

-Cleaning the mud and changing driveway light that were supposed to be replaced weeks ago... check

-Losing the stoopid screw of the light fixture in a bushy plant of the flowerbed under the light fixture... check

-Forty minutes around the bushes looking for the screw with a magnet, while cursing in English and Spanish... check

-Getting bandages for all the arm scratches.... And feeling really shtoopid realizing that magnets won't ever attract brass screws... check

Asking son for help finding the screw (and putting up with jokes like "so you're missing a screw", "do you need a bigger magnet?".... check

-Washing the other light fixtures while son looks around the flower bed trying to find the lost screw... check

-Looking in disbelief as son has dug out half of the flowerbed, and still no screw.... check

-Making a list of things for HomeDepot (outside light fixtures, light bulbs.... new plant for flowerbed).... check

Making a call to yell at DH because really, he should've change the light bulb weeks ago..... pending

:oD

And well, I can't leave before showing a picture of my paperclay heads I am reworking on:

Before and After; Nose bridge softened; cheeks and forehead added to take the bulgy look of the eyes; lips sanded down to a more realistic proportion.
I made this head probably 2 years ago, and left them on the side because I just knew I was doing something terrible, I just didn't know how to fix it. Forward 40+ months and I have learned enough things to see where the mistakes are and how to change it.
This heads will not have a "baby" look. I guess adding enough clay they could look like that, but I think I want them more for a fantasy looking doll.

So... Never give up! and Happy Winter solstice! :oD

Frida doll

I listed Frida on Etsy HERE And I have more pics of her:




Wish me luck!

Oh!! I went to she bookstore yesterday and of course I went straight to check the doll magazines just to find in Art Doll Quarterly: Mealy Monster Land's dolls in there I was so excited to see her there!! I saw Deirdra Doan's dolls from Jane DesRosier's class too! great art dolls! :oD

Cover girl!

I'm so thrilled! My goblin doll is in the cover of one of my favorite groups!
I had just posted her pictures and I guess it was her.... hum...beautiful smile? that did it heheheheehe Or was it her pink hair? Not sure, but it sure was a nice surprise to find out, thank you guys!



I have been sculpting more dolls, I just have not list any of them yet.

Enjoying the weather

Being in California, I guess we should not complain about weather, since we don't get the frozen winter other people have, but I need to say... I'm glad it's getting warmer!! lol
I was supposed to finish a IF to post today, but somehow I did not like the result, and the painting did not agree with me, so... another friday with no illustration for me.
As you probably have noticed by now, I get pulled in different directions when it comes to art and creativity. Too often, but I can't help it.
Right now I'm working on paperclay.
Isn't she cute?




I also have started some polymer projects, and I work slow. Mostly because I keep looking at the window and admiring the flowers.
I think when I finish this little one in particular, she's going to be frolicking all over the grass. She just looks like it.

UPDATE:

She is painted, but still need hair and clothes... and shoes...!

Lots of news!

I am doing the happy dance!
My little Cordelia is the Diva Queen for February in the Art Diva's group!
She was "princess Cordelia" but I guess now she is a Queen ;o)


So all month long she will be in display, along with a cute girl painting from "The wild gipsy".

Also, I've been tagged! ...Twice!! lol
OK, Flora and Sue, I hope it is OK to answer the same 5 questions for the 2 tags?
10 things about myself would be too much for me to reveal LOL
*wink*

1-When I was a little I wanted to be a mermaid and have a twin sister.
Since it was impossible, I decided to start drawing mermaids on my grandma's wall, to the delight of some, and the embarrassment of my poor mom lol

2-I am ambidextrous. No, it's not a religion :oP

3-There's always a bunch projects going at the same time on my table.
Some of them grow legs and walk around by themselves into new inconvinient places.

4-My favorite thing to paint is eyes. Me second favorite is hands.
My least favourite? ... I have yet to find out.

5-I can roll my tongue into a taco. lol (can you??)

I'll have to come back later with my people to tag!

~*~

Right now, in Doll4Art, we are having votes for the doll challenges for the months to come. They will be a lot of fun!
And there's also a goodie-bag give away for the lucky posting in the chit-chat thread, yaay!

Good bye 2007

I was reading a site about artist's blog block and how to brake the blog block with creative ideas and bring more visitors to your site. Imagine my delight!

Just when I thought all my blog problems were solved.... the postings end abruptly on September because the writter got a block and stopped posting. lol

People! c'mon! What happened to the inspiration? I know in my case eating Christmas cookies takes all my spare time at this time of the year, but hey, I have the huge responsability to keep my 3 readers up to date. So here I am (crunchin' while typing) looking busy....

Now, for the real content of today's blogging: Ta daaaaaa:
There's a great doll event from MRSBO coming this January, on the 31th.
Hhmmm... What is MRSBO? you might ask yourself suspiciously... Well, it is a group that I have been mentioning many times by now if you were really paying attention! (excuse me, that was for my cat, who was only pretending to read here) No, they won't have any tuna either.

And what's the event about?


Well, Mr. Pringle's Society of Feeble Prestidigitators is sponsoring a fund-raiser for the little MRSBO orphan dolls. All members have attempted to conjure up a doll to be sold for charity, but there is something very odd about every one of them!

You have to search MRSBO that day to see what each artist of our group came up with!
Want to take a pick at what I will be presenting for auction?

This is Cordelia.

She heard something about The Orphanage having some dolls, and she took the long walk to go there and get herself one.

You'll have to excuse us here. Cordelia is still bald, undressed and doll-less, but we are working on those matters.

~*~

On a sad note, I want to say that I will miss Dan Fogelberg and all the music he still had in him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhjYbfK9vrk

Lavender's story

So I have been telling you, my three readers, how much fun (and frustration)I've been having making dolls, and finally here is Lavender!

She is not at all what I envisioned. Right from the beginning, she decided she was going to be herself, and no matter how much I moved the clay around, she decided she was going to be... Lavender. lol
You can see her HERE.
She's up for adoption and will bring along her polymer lil'cupcake.

And how was I going to stop at just making the doll? I had to make a video!
As always I had my assistants ("Hey, don't take away the camera... where's the tripod?... No, we don't need explosion noises for the background thank you... who was eating fritos on the carpet?... where's the... never mind, I'm sitting on it")
It was a lot of fun!



I want to thank Melisa from The copper mouse here's her blog for all the info!
It's been a long time since I used my sewing machine and making little dresses is challenging but I'm loving it.

I am currently finishing a doll with a Disappointing Christmas present.
Keep an eye over here!

Here's Lavender's story:
"Once upon a time, there was a little girl lost in the forest. In the mysterious, dark forest…
She was sitting by a lavender bush, all covered in little dry leaves and lavender blooms, therefore she was named “Lavender” by the people who found her.
Her hair was blond, her cheeks rosy and her toes…. well, pretty big!

They tried unsuccessfully to find her family. No one knows who her parents were, and since she was so little she didn’t remember why she was alone in there, where her shoes were or if she ever had a donut.
Not knowing what to do with her, they took her to Mrs. Blathersby’s “Orphanage for the unattractive and mentally unsound”.
She still gets very nervous and scared if you mention the forest.

After she arrived to the Orphanage people kept calling her "Laura", "Laverne", "Larissa"... never Lavender, so she decided to give them all a little hint on her name by coloring her blond hair to a almost neon “lavender" color!
That did not work so well either, because there are still some people calling her Lisa! And some yet, call her “fuchsia”.

Lavender thinks of herself as a delicate flying fairy. Fancies herself as a shimmery moonlight dancer… although she was not graced with any beauty, or shimmer nor wings... and she literally never combs her hair.
Since she insists that fairies don’t have shoes, she keeps on going barefooted all the time through marble, rain, gravel, and twigs or sand, her feet look more like a nasty troll's, covered with calluses, bunions and are really, really bony!

Every night, right at midnight, after failing one more time at flying attempts… Lavender always tries to sneak into the kitchen to get one more cupcake, but they always catch her because of the thump-thump-thump of her wide, heavy feet.

It is said that one of the teachers left the orphanage right after that, because she couldn't deal with naughty barefooted kids who would let their tangled-up hair in wild colors, on top of everything else. But there was a witness who said the teacher was in a hurry when she left, carrying a huge trunk full of cupcakes… That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!
The end"