January 15, 2008

Claudia the Crow's story...

Click on the picture to go to her auction.
Ayala Art

Your attention please! Do not, and I mean it…. do not eat Mrs. Skeampole’s acorn flour crumpets, for ANY reason. Don’t even sniff them.

Someone put a tricky ingredient in the dough and poor little Claudia has turn into a crow after eating just one bite! Oh my!
Poor little thing! Always so well behaved, such nice manners, always following instructions and flying to follow her teacher’s orders… (sorry, no pun intended….) and now this!
She is still however, the teacher’s pet. (oops, no pun intended)
Some kids started to call her “Crowdia”. She doesn’t seem to mind. She never likes bickering. She just wiggles her little claws and hops away with her teddy bear Paul.
Claudia’s voice was always the sweetest in the choir. Now all you can hear is her constant dissonant caw, but please don’t tell her anything. She enjoys singing quite a bit. Only now she seems to feel more comfortable singing from way up on a tree branch.
It was going to be a hard task finding her a good new home as it was, with her being such a persnickety eater… and now that she has a beak? She really eats like a bird…
~*~
Now, for the details: Little Claudia is hand made, hand painted and her hands and feet are sculpted. I made her eyes with polymer, and she has long eye lashes.
She travels along with her teddy bear Paul. Luckily he didn't eat any of the crumpets.... can you imagine a crow-bear?
hummm, perhaps I need my sketchbook... :oD

January 7, 2008

2008 resolutions

OK, How is everyone doing in their New year's resolutions? I broke almost all of mine by January the 1st around noon lol

I was kind of upset earlier today because I forgot one of my favorite days yesterday, which is the Dia de Reyes, the celebration of the King Wise Men's visit to baby Jesus.
I love the bread, the getting together and the fact that we can keep stretching the holidays a bit more (good excuse to postpone the dieting) ...if only I remember!
And ALL because one of my crazy resolutions was organizing my little creative space, which ended in this huge thing, everyone involved throwing away stuff and deep cleaning the house.... I guess that takes Spring cleaning off of my list.

Usually I get a yummy Rosca de Reyes, also known as Epiphany bread, with a little plastic baby hidden in it, so the lucky person with that slice gets to make a gathering on February the 2nd. In the past that was when my grandma traditionally picked up and put away her Nativity. Everything else was already gone except for the Nativity set.

Well, back to my resolutions: Besides from creating chaos in my house, I want to post more often, also make some tutorials to help/inspire others just as I have been helped and inspired to learning about dolls, techniques and tips.

I am working on a couple of tutorials, pictures and all, so expect more info on the next few posts! For now I'll post this on doll hair:

As you can imagine, depending on the doll style and personal preference, yarn, mohair, paperclay, wire or natural hair can be used. Each of them has a way to be added, but anything can be glued.

As far as I have learned, for the mohair you have to start (to make life easier) by leaving a spot on the dolls head for the hair, as in "hole" where it comes out of, then glued some of it to the head itdelf.

Now, if you are like me and have a gazillion doll heads with no preparation for the mohair, you can do a couple of things.

One: cut clumps of mohair, glue them flat, let them dry, then glue them like extensions.
Two: glue all around previously cut (and pre-glued together to themselves) all around the head, starting from the bottom to the top, then add a hat or something to cover the last part (If you don't like the way it looks).
Three: pick the ugliest doll head you have around, practice making a hole on top, assuming it is a paperclay head! Then stick the hair in there and press it down.

I insist on having the clumps or strands already previously glued and dried, otherwise you'll find yourself sneezing mohair, all goopy-fingered and with a bald ugly doll with a hole on top.

Oh! For people interested in playing a tag-blog game, join doll4art group and list your "blahg" there, we are getting ready to play!

And talking about bald... Here's a picture of a doll that will be listed soon: Claudia the Crow