New and Old Years,New and Old Projects

spiritdoll pinkpurple session1Not only have I made a start on the pink and purple spirit doll,I’ve also had some great ideas recently about how to combine textiles,metal and clays to do bead enhanced spirit dolls with ceramic and metal bodies. I’m looking forward to getting back to school in the new year to make up examples of what I’ve been seeing in my imagination. A few things finally fell into place with the “how will I do that?”aspects and I look forward to realizing these very soon.

In the meantime,there’s lots to do with making up Spirit Doll Kit Samples and getting the bits and pieces all pulled together for making the new ladies and producing new finished work to get out to stores and galleries.

So much to do–and I do love doing it! Over the semester break I’ve  had a chance to rest,see family and friends,read,and to delve into my art supplies to work on old and new projects both.

What a wonderful year of artistic and personal opportunities its been in so many ways…and I’m looking forward to more in 2012!

May we all appreciate and cherish  the marvelous parts of  our lives,past present and future…with lots more to come!

day1-pinkpurple-spiritdoll

Playing With Dolls

Large Spirit Doll KitI’m enjoying the break between semesters and taking some time to restock the shelves at my Etsy store. I’ve had a very busy and productive year in 2011,and now it’s time to share some of the results.

I’ve revamped the packaging and I’m putting together more Spirit Doll Kits  with ceramic and polymer clay faces that go with dyed cotton doll bodies,fabrics and trims.

In addition,I’m making up the contents of each kind of kit for a sample or two,and taking pictures as I go.

ceramic face and buttons,dyed doll,fabric and trimsHere’s a picture of the contents of a Large Spirit Doll Kit. I’m going to spend a few days working on this doll,adding some beads and silk flowers from my stash of stuff,and do a bit of embroidery.

I’ve been wanting to do a little needlework and this is a perfect spot for some! I’ll be taking pictures as I work on the doll,and I’ll post an update after Christmas.

Large Spirit Doll Kits like this one have contents that include:

  • one ceramic face,hand drawn and painted with under-glazes and clear glaze,affixed to
  • one (premade) 12″hand dyed cotton doll body,
  • one 18″x 22″(fat quarter) piece tie dyed cotton jersey
  • assorted dyed fabrics,trims and embellishments

ceramic face

 

I also sell the ceramic faces by themselves.

I made a specially shaped cutter from a strip of aluminum,cut each face from a rolled ceramic sheet,then shaped each one with a curve.

After they dried,I sanded each one to get smooth edges and a good surface for drawing the faces.

After the pieces were bisque fired,I drew and colored them all in with painted under glazes and gave each a finishing coat of clear glaze before firing them all again!

The results are colorful “dolled up”ladies all ready to turn into dolls,or wearable art.

 

 

New Pretties for Fall Semester

This semester at Front Range Community College is an extremely busy one! The FRCC Art Club is off to a great start with our Art Concrete | Sidewalk Chalk Event,and we are gearing up for the Student Art Sale in November,which will happen AFTER I get back from the Houston International Quilt Festival at the beginning of November. That’s right after the big Halloween Party (THE social event of the season on my calendar!) and of course in between and all around the preparations is ongoing homework. And lots of it!!

My Jewelry/Metal III class continues to offer all sorts of challenges that go beyond mere trying not to hammer my thumb. Here are oics of my first homework project for this class–fold formed copper pieces. One set has polymer clay accents and was patinaed with ammonia. The other set’s color comes from the fire used to anneal the metal prior to hammering. I do like making jewelry!!

Back In The Swim

Not that I’ve exactly been lollygagging on the divan eating bonbons watching Oprah–in fact,I hear she’s not even on tv any more. Not that I would have had time to notice however,with a very busy summer! It has led up to a very busy Fall semester,coming right up starting on Monday. I’m looking forward to it,with great classes to take and to teach and lots more art to produce,plus the upcoming International Quilt Festival in Houston to continue preparing for,in November.

Here are three mermaids that I finished up in ceramics this summer. One broke,but she’s lovely anyway and will be displayed with some strategically placed fishnet to cover her cracks. I like them,and will make a couple more soon,including one as a fountain for a friend’s garden.

A Splash Of Color

tie dye fabricActually,it involves LOTS of splashes and lots of colors–I think we had 43 colors this year at our Annual Dyeing Days event.

As always,it was a marathon event,spanning 10 days of mixing,dying,rinsing,washing and of course cleanup!

This year we added a pole vaulting event. That is to say,we raided the vault which is our garage full of precious stuff–like old pvc pipes–and did some shibori arashi.

Susan's shibori shirtThis form of resist dyeing (shibori) is done around poles to create an effect that can look like rain in a storm (arashi).

Or it can look like feathers,or leaves. You can see the shibori arashi designs we did this year on garments and fabric yardage in the tiedye slideshow.

Our friends come to dye along with us at these events. Here’s Susan shown unwrapping a shibori arashi dyed shirt.

Here’s the pattern it created on the shirt.shibori arashi

This year as always I dyed lots of fabric–cotton jersey and kona cotton this time as well as some lovely cotton gauze. I also did lots of doll bodies,silk handkerchiefs and lace for making up more Spirit Doll kits,and this time I even did feathers. They took the dye beautifully!

feathers

A Little Handiwork

I’ve been busy with all of my classes at Front Range Community College this Spring. That’s true of the classes that I’m taking now,the ones I’m preparing to take in the Fall,and the ones I’m listing to teach this summer through the Continuing Education department. We are still working out final dates as the Boulder County Campus in Longmont CO is closed on Sundays,so the classes listed as being on Sunday now will be moving to a different day,probably Friday. But that’s ok–online registration isn’t open yet anyway. I’ll update the dates and the links to register very soon,but for now you can take a look at what classes are coming up!  You can also see polymer clay beads on wire pendants I made in our metal jewelry classroom and how I strung the hand bead that I made of ceramics and PMC (Precious Metal Clay) that was featured in the previous post–here it is now.

 
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