Bobbin Jewelry, Steampunk style

Recently I red the newsletter from Stitchin Times doll club in Eugene, Oregon and saw where they were having a project that involved creating jewelry from bobbins. I thought, "How fun!" and i have saved a lot of my old metal bobbins, who knows why! but what a great idea to recycle those old and outdated bobbins, so I decided to create a couple of Steampunk jewelry pieces from bobbins.

The Little Tree Fairy

The Little TreeFairy is soon to be a new onlie class that will be featured at Dollstreet! It has been quite some time since I have written a new class, and this one was really a labor of love.
The Little Tree Fairy is a mixed media piece that offers students the opportunity to create a uniquely original art piece with the exploration of interesting techniques. The class covers how to make an armature for paper Mache, working with paper Mache, and polymer clay sculpting. Skills for making the tiny fairy and her costume are covered as well, as well as a very unusual  painting approach for the tree and it's base.
The class will be self paced, has 35 pages with tons of pictures and step by step instructions for all the processes.

Now is your chance to get your hands really sticky! Coming very soon at www.dollstreetdreamers.com

Click on the Creative College link for classes

LITTLE TREE FAIRY

Little Tree Fairy is a mixed media piece that incorporates paper mache, polymer clay and cloth. The finished piece is 13" tall, and the little fairy is 5". I must say I have really been having fun with paper mache lately! this piece is a prototype for an online class I am writing. Will keep you posted on the progress of the class.

The 10" tree is created from paper mache and clay. I added a base made from paper mache and other materials and a tiny cloth  fairy to sit in the fork of the tree.

Hemogoblin the Bone Collector

I love Halloween! Every year this allows me the opportunity to create something really dark and edgy, and even ugly. Hemogoblin is off the charts for ugly! It's a nice diversion from pretty ladies and cute faiies.

I started with a gourd which I left the natural mottled color. Then I sculpted his face from polymer clay. The goblin limbs are from cloth, and his teeth are actually from a coyote jaw.

The Troll Charmer

The Tree Troll of the forest will devour all that ventures within. But a little fairy cast her spell and charmed the Troll into becoming her protector. She now dwells within his heart.


This piece was inspired by Seattle artist Kim Graham who makes larger than life sculptures. Her giant Tree Troll about 20 feet high was the inspiration.
This is my Treasures of the Gypsy challenge doll and incorporates the  theme Charmed and Mystical. This project is certainly the most ambitious I have ever undertaken!
I started with a latticed piece of ivy wood for the base and added wire armature covered with foil. Then paper mache was applied. Little faces are embedded in the arms.

After the paper mache was dry, with a little help from my oven, I painted the sculpture with black gesso. It took days and days before I stopped seeing tiny pin holes where either the foil or the paper mache showed through. There were so many nooks, crannies and crevices and the gesso had to be pounced into these areas with a small stiff brush.

After the black  gesso dried, I painted the sculpture with acrylic paint and added highlights. i was still finding those awful little pin holes, and had to constantly turn the sculpture at all angles to get them painted.

 A few more highlights were added and a 7" Fairy was embedded into the cavity. She is made from Treasures of the Gypsy silks and baubles.

OCEANNA

Oceanna is my Hoffman Challenge doll for the 2012 season. She is my own interpretation of the fish rider concept. The Hoffman challenge fabric is in the fish tail and fins. 

Oceanna is 18" tall and this year, due to my disqualification last year due to being 2" over the height limit, I carefully measured every element from the design stage to finish! 

Incorporated into the fish's design are appliques of coordinating purple fabric. Tail and fins have armatures and the fish has Paperclay face. The doll body  is hand dyed to suit the color scheme, and has the usual needle sculpted elements, face painting, and articulated hands. She holds a hand dyed shell in her hands. Free motion embroidery cover her legs and arms and hand dyed lace piece for her bodice. She is very firmly attached to the fish and base with several armature techniques and should stay put should she be chosen to travel. There is a chance she will not travel because I used the Hoffman challenge fabric in the fish and not the doll, if they choose to be picky.

The base is applied Apoxy Sculpt over a plastic cone, embellished with micro beads and metallic paints. 

Shorty and Hercules

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I just  finished a piece commissioned for Shorty Rossi of the Pit Boss Reality show on Animal Planet. If you have not watched the show, Shorty is a dwarf who runs a charity and rescue for pit bull dogs.
There were challenges in creating Shorty, mainly the fact that I have never created a dwarf body! Achondroplasia is a bone-growth disorder in which one's limbs are proportionately shorter than one's trunk, with as larger than average head.


 I did many Google searches for images of dwarf anatomy and even found a few naked dwarf images. lol! 


Shorty's pit bull dog Hercules is basically a flat pancake style piece with some quilting for definition, and Paperclay snout. 


I have to admit I really had a lot of fun with this piece!
Here is alink to Shorty's Rescue:
http://shortywood.com/pitrescue.htm

Susie O Stash!

Recently jean Peters from the Stitchin Times Doll Club in Eugene, Oregon came into possession of the bulk of Susana Oroyan's odds and ends stash to distribute to her club and charity. She was so kind as to send me a box of some of Susie's stash from her studio which included a doll! And a couple of clay masks too! I will probably hoard the items, but may make a tribut doll with some of the fabrics and trims someday.

Roxie and her Sock Monkey

This is a doll I made for Dollstreet Morgue Challenge. We were to make a doll from our body parts we had on hand, reject heads, legs, arms, etc from other projects. The head and body I had from prototypes for a commissioned doll. I found a pair of arms, and very skinny legs which I added some paperclay to for bulk. Yeprz, she does indeed have a very large head!

Katie the Kiter

This is a whimsical little doll t hat I made from my Imperess pattern. Actually the head and body were from some of the prototype pieces I made.  I created this coll for a kiting event in January, there is a dinner and raffle after the indoor fly. Sadly, we were snowed in and could not attend. Well, she will visit with me until next year.

Maori Warrior

This is a doll that I created for the Male Doll Challenge on FOCD. The piece is titled Maori Warrior. He wears traditional costume and accessories, and is positioned in a stance depicting the Haka (war dance) of the Maori People. the extended tongue is part of the Haka. He also has traditional tattoos.