Leontyne is staying with me for awhile

Leontyne tiptoes slowly among dark forest trees, beckoning for you to come out and join her. She is a keeper of secrets and a singer of lies. Utterly trustworthy and completely deceptive.
Tell her everything....


She has been with me for a while as I could not quite bring myself to list her in my shop.
I love her presence on my work desk, her expressive arms and hands, her pose, as if she is about to take off, flying through the air over tree tops, silhouetted against the moon.

Yvette the Librarian

Haughty, disapproving, and obsessed with ancient texts, Yvette spends all her time dusting and arranging books (according to the Dewey Decimal system) in the basement of The Library of St. Walburga at Zutphen in Holland.

She is by far the most normal of all my people. But again, they just sort of happen and I work until they say "Enough!". So normal she will stay.

Impatiently Waiting Art Dolls

They have been waiting for over a month now. They are not happy with me at all.

I moved my clay station into our bedroom with hopes that I would be able to shut myself away at night and work without interruption. Sort of like a real job. I wouldn't be available to my family if I left for a job outside the home, this is how I rationalize it at least.

But I was busy with wholesale and custom orders, in addition to a little bit of business from online sales so the work station in the family room sat with no work being done.
12 undone dolls. For shame, Shannon, for shame.I feel as if I do not deserve the "Marie Antoinette Award" bestowed upon me by LoopyBoopy, who was bestowed by Gail Lackey, who was bestowed by Amy Short, who was bestowed by Tashai of UltravioletWind, who was bestowed by Art Lover. Where the trail runs cold because I could not find any mention of the award anymore.

But I am most grateful and with great power comes responsibility (just play along) and I shall resume completion of the waiting ladies and finish one of them as a French Darling in honor of this most special award.

The rules - copied from Gail Lackey's post because she had the energy to type it out in a French accent....

"Now ze rules of ze game...as one must always appear to follow ze rules(from Miss "P"s First rules of French Etiquette)

1..Pleeeze ad ze logo on your blog

2...Place a link to ze person from whom you recieved ze award.

3...nominate at least 7 or more blogs

4...put zee links to those blogs on your blog

5..leave a message on zheir blogs to tellz them zhey are ze chosen ones"

So here are my nominees for the coveted (humor me, will ya?) "Marie Antoinette Award"...
1.) Ginger German - who will one day have a blog and when she does, will display the award proudly I am sure.
2.)Rhonda Mum - who did an amazing job hosting the Les Emotion de la France book swap
3.)Eliane with artful-spirit - one of my favorite contributors to the above book.
4.)Elizabeth Holcombe - a fabulous bag artist.
5.)Kathy of Vintagesnapsandscraps - a lovely lady who creates wonderful altered art
6.)Fleamarketqueen - truly an queen of all things vintage.
7.) last but not least - Michelle Ward - who completely inspired me with a post in 2007 that contained her contribution to the Marie Antoinette Collabrative Art Zine hosted by Aahata Katkin and Lynne Perrella.

I have now spent an hour at the computer and my children are eating cheetos directly out of the bag at 9:00 am due to being left unsupervised while I hunted down links to share with you, dear reader. All for you.

Thank you, LoopyBoopy, the award was fun and special coming from you!

Art Dolls to Meet!

They are a little further along now and it's very exciting seeing them come to life.
I did these dolls a little differently by completing their hair and make-up before padding out the bodies. I only have little boots to sculpt and they will be complete!

I was not that excited when they were first sculpted, I thought they would not look very good for some reason. I grabbed a head off my work desk to show g.g (my mom) how I glue on the hair.
I knew I would be paying more attention to g.g then to the doll in my hands so I picked the head I liked the least and just started gluing bits of hair on, sort of haphazardly.

But then, after the hair and make-up, Christine introduced herself (the dark haired one) to me and she is now my favorite.
She is so wise and so burdened by all this wisdom she can hardly look up.
Ooooooh, I can't wait for her to be finished!

It just goes to show, you should always follow through with a project even if it is not what you expected or even something you like, lol, it could end up being life changing.

Family Requests For Art Dolls

A strange day, which started at 4 in the morning, with me getting horribly sick.
You do not want to know details.
But I am giving myself permission today to take it easy, drink lots of peppermint tea, catch up on blogs, read and feed the children microwavable food. :)

But I have a few non-people I would like to introduce:


First we have Morris. He was requested by my 8 yr old son, Rex.
I am now supposed to create a blue, wrinkled zombie as Morris was not quite horrific enough. (I really like him though AND his hands are some of the best I have ever sculpted.)

He has no story, but he leads a rather exciting life battling various creatures. His weapon of choice is the "Disemboweler" (thanks, g.g).

This is Sophie. She was created at the request of Miss. Pinkerton. We thought long and hard about what to name her, Pinky even got a piece of paper and "wrote" a list of potential names.
(It was sooooo cute!)
But she ultimately choose Sophie.
Sophie is sad because she is not allowed to dance on stage EVERY SINGLE DAY.
I Know! What kind of mother would keep a princess ballerina from dancing on stage every day.


When my mom saw I was back to creating dolls, she said she wanted one, this was so sweet, so I started her right away.
G.G had a name and a story already decided on and once the doll was done, wanted to learn how to make her own doll. This male doll would be lovers with the female doll I created for her.

So without further ado, I present Artemisa and Phillipe.
Artemisa is a poor French painter, living in a Parisian garret. She wants only to paint all day and lives on wine and bread.
Phillipe is her lover. A wealthy aristocrat, who has been cut off from his inheritance, because of his undying love for Artemisa.
Love stories like this never end well and I am fearful for the fate of our star crossed lovers.

The next series of dolls had to be set aside while I worked on wholesale orders and Christmas boutique items for a while. But I am very excited to get back to sewing the costumes.
I was able to purchase some unique vintage fabrics and I am imaging lots of full skirts, with short and long jackets, canes and little top hats!

Coraline

First off, you know how you sit down to get some tedious computer work done and find yourself, hours later, lost in a new discovery on line?
Well, that's what happened the other day.
And this is what I found:




How thrilling!
I knew his name, Neil Gaiman, sounded familiar but could not place it until I saw his book cover for "The Day I Swapped 2 Goldfish for My Dad" which Rex and I had read over and over when he was 6.
He works with the most amazing artists for his books and now his story Coraline will be a movie.
By the same director who directed Nightmare Before Christmas! Oh. Oh. OH. I am so excited to see this.

Not only that but I learned that Tim (the man that inspired me to create art dolls) Burton is working on a new movie ......
Alice in Wonderland!



Don't you love Alice's costume?

I left the computer behind in editing but completely inspired that day!

A Bald Art Doll is Beautiful!

So I splurged on a few pairs of glass eyes and now that I have made a few dolls (a total of 22) I can correctly order the right size for their faces!
This doll is my current favorite. No name. No story. No hair.
She had a really fancy dress planned and I was thinking something like opera, but she feels done right now, as she is.
If fact I have already started on the next series. They are not positionable, rather threaded jointed dolls, but they are just as weird.
Pictures soon!

Mathilde the shopkeeper

This is Mathilde. She was born and raised in the back room of the towns general store and has now taken over for her ailing father.
She is an expert on all tobacco's and despite many attempts at courtship she has never married.
Only the town Judge knows why she keeps her true love secret.

Hester's Heart

Hester wears her heart on her sleeve. It has been broken and repaired so many times, it is almost too heavy to carry.
And even she has noticed it has slowly begun to turn black.

Clarissa

Clarissa is a young widow. She has been mourning the loss of her beloved for 300 years now. She has no idea that there are others who mourn for her.


Although I am not experienced enough to be able to mentally picture a face and flesh it out in clay (yet), I find it enthralling to see a person come to life in my hands.
Their names and stories just come out, which is very fun!

Normally I work on items for sale well in advance before they are listed and marketed.
For instance the bezels that are just now beginning to sell in my store were created in May, photographed in June and listed in August. The items that will be listed next were created in July, and so on.
(This way there is always something in the works. I find it easiest to work in batches or I guess a more professional term would be 'series', lol. )

But the dolls are different. I still work in a series, the first consisted of 8 and they are special because of their hand made eyes, but once they are painted and their bodies filled, I create each costume individually, apply their hair, photograph the next day and list almost immediately after.
It's like introducing a new friend to other good friends.

Nanette & Etta

This is Nanette and Etta. They are sisters, 16 and 9 years old. Nanette cares for them ever since their mother disappeared 2 years ago.
Nanette is extremely protective of her younger, awkward sister and viciously defends Etta when thoughtless people stare and make fun of her mis-proportioned limbs.
Have you ever seen sadness turn to rage?

Now that they are complete and their story is written, I cannot sell them separate.
I did not plan on them being sisters but as I painted their features and put on their hair, a remarkable resemblance came through and it was apparent they were related.

I think the red heads are my favorites, but I did get a few other colors to play with; white, golden, peach and pink.
The pink will be most interesting. I, of course, got it for my own little pink doll, Miss Pinkerton. Who, in spite of having all the best barbies with a ton of clothing, pulls her little stool up to mama's work desk and plays instead with the creepy undone people.
She also likes to dig into the fabric box and 'help' make dresses. Strangely she keeps picking out this scrap of dark red silk and putting all the black lace bits with it. Sort of like a painted lady of the night ensemble. It will be a little risque I think.


The jewelry is all still there, but I need to buy more supplies that I put off buying until the last minute, like jump rings and ear wires. So necessary but boring. Then more photos, descriptions and listing. It makes me tired to think about it.

Juliet

Juliet is a 28 year old, theatrical major who likes morbid French films and sour cherries.
Her air of directive authority puts off many would be lovers and she spends nights alone in coffee bars, writing screen play after screen play that she will never send in.

Creating Polymer Clay Bezels

At 27.7 mb, I am finding it difficult to send to the average users email but a wonderful customer let me in on a little secret (okay, maybe not a secret, just unbeknown to me).

Lisa of thecreativeplace.com, has told me that if you go to www.yousendit.com, you can use their service to send really large files. Yes, this means I do not have to condense and revise! Or keep offering to send disc's free of charge.

I am constantly amazed at the people I have come into contact with online. Giving, passionate, kind. I know some people are cynical about online friendships, but being part of the world wide web has enabled me to 'meet' and connect with people I would never had the opportunity to learn from in the"real world".

Thank you to all of you who have taken minutes out of your busy schedules to give advise, encourage, teach, explain and placate me. You have allowed me to further a dream.

Now back to thecreativeplace.com, I have had a group (herd, tribe, clan) of art dolls on my work desk. Sculpted, but not to my satisfaction. They tend to take a Elvin/masculine character after the eyes are put into place. Which is fine. But I want to sculpt more whimsical, sad eyed girls.
Thecreativeplace.com offers online classes by the amazingly talented Marilyn Radzat.
And several others I admire and hope to be able to learn from.

I love to create art dolls because they encompass so many different media's - polymer/paper clay sculpting, fiber, fabric, sewing, paper, collage, assemblage, and of course beads.
They also offer the opportunity to create fantastical worlds that help me escape from reality.
I like to go back in time and see how the early dolls were assembled and take inspiration from those techniques. I believe I could create something unique by using today's modern supplies.
You've heard there is nothing new under the sun, right? Well, I believe that to a certain extent, but with new inventions and materials being created in this day and age, it is my opinion we live in a very exciting time, we can truly come up with original works.
I hope to work towards a day where I can utilize all of the modern supplies, experimenting with out worry of cost!