Wednesday, July 7, 2010

An Inside Look At What I Do

For the curious, I wanted to show a little bit of the process it takes to make my art character dolls.....

I take a basic wooden clothespin-



Holes are drilled, wire threaded through, and clay is used to form the head, arms and shape of doll-



I then paint and design the doll's facial expression and begin the work on designing their costume-



The finishing touches are made on their costumes, sometimes requiring a bit of hand sewing-



Hair styles and finishing touches are added, now for the other character!-



Now the characters are complete, and ready to be displayed!- (Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan)



I hope you enjoyed the little mini tour, and seeing the process of what goes into making my creations!

Stop in again soon!

Monday, July 5, 2010

Just Do It!

Today I was looking over some of my first art doll characters that I made- ugh...you can tell I was learning! But you know, everyone had to start out somewhere, right? So I kind of smile when I see those, and I like to keep them as
a reminder of how far I have come.

I used to only make female dolls because making male dolls scared me since the clothing was much more of a challenge. I couldn't figure out how to do it, so I avoided pushing myself to learn....but that bugged me.
So, I forced myself to get past my apprehensions and do it anyway...I don't know
how many made it to the trash bin, but I am sure there were quite a few that did!



I guess the moral of the story is, it is a good thing to stretch yourself. To try things that sound tricky, or hard. It feels good when you set a challenge and then
realize that if you try hard enough, you will see the reward.




Do I still try things that are new and potentially difficult? Yes indeed I do, and I will always try to do something new if I can- as a matter of fact, I have a book I keep new ideas in for me to try,(if I ever get around to it!).

If you are toying with some ideas to try and are scared to do it, my advice is to
go for it, you just may be surprised at the results!