Guess who’s coming to dinner?

Well, he’s already here actually. Got in today. I must say I was pretty excited to see him, I’d been waiting patiently. I think he’s going to be my new muse. .

Introducing Madison Wabash Bean. He is designed by Chris Chomick and Peter Meder, a professional doll artist/ husband and wife team and was made by the Robert Tonner Doll Co. I love their work even though I've only ever seen it in the Susanna Oroyan’s book series. Madison has a bean bag type body, resin hands, feet, and head, and a blush type brush for hair! He was a souvenir doll from the 2000 NIADA conference so he was a limited edition. He has been living in his box for 6 years now and, boy, is he ever glad to be out of there! I was lucky enough to win him on an eBay auction, mint, new-in-box. Don’t tell my husband though.

Getting obsessive

I’m making sleeve cuffs and I’ve been doing it for three days now. I don’t know why I’ve gotten stuck on these but I’ve made about 11 now. They are various sizes and shapes and are made of different materials. I’m learning a lot in the process though. It’s just a strange thing to do. Here’s half of dozen of them.

ATCs from Cloth Paper Scissors swap

A while ago I sent off some Artist Trading Cards for a swap sponsored by the Cloth Paper Scissors magazine. It was to be held at the Chicago International Quilt Festival. You had to go in person to swap but since one of my best internet friends, Heather, went to the show she was allowed to proxy for me. Okay, now this next bit is kind of terrible ....

Heather said she wasn't allowed to pick out the cards we were given - they were just picked in order from the ones posted on the wall. She said the ones we were given weren't comparable in quality to what we sent in. Then she noticed someone walking about with a basket saying 'Trade with the Editor"... so she traded in all 8 of our cards. I received four that were made by Patricia (Pokey) Bolton, editor of Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors, and another from Deborah - who also works at the magazine. The one from Deborah has the big pink heart - the other are from Pokey. They are all awesome - they utilitize cloth, paper, stamping, paint, all techniques taught in their magazines. I uploaded a huge photo so you can see the details - but you have to click on this picture to get to it ...

Artist bio's

Had a blast today making these artist bio's. I decided they really aren't artist statements as they don't have the usual pretentious artist blather. They just talk a little about us - so they are more of a biography. Karen and I got ours done but Susan forgot her photo and her statement so she will finish at home. They came out great!

I taught the girls how to paint a layered background. It was just like I was teaching a class - I stood up the whole time, LOL. This is Karen's - she took a baby Bendi doll and used the limbs for her body parts. It's bright and fun and just like her dolls!

Click image to enlarge


This is Susan's - the photo isn't her - it's a 'placeholder', LOL. Susan and I both used paper doll parts for arms and legs.



This is mine. Can't miss my name, eh? I'm thinking of toning the white down somehow.

Fancy background tutorial - paper art

This is for you Kai! I was influenced by the current issue of Cloth Paper Scissors - but did my own thing. Click on 'continue reading' to see the tutorial.

Start with a piece of shiny paper. The stuff I'm using is by The Paper Company and it was notecard sized - about 6"x9". I found it at Michael's a long time ago. I cut it to ATC size - 2 1/2" x 3 1/2". Pick two colors of ink (I used dye ink - pink and purple). Take one ink pad and put it directly on the paper and twist it. It will make a swirling design. Do this a couple of times - moving the ink pad each time.

Now take your second color and dab some ink on with a makeup sponge.

Next - take some text and glue it down to the paper.

Take your first ink pad and color the text - direct to paper.

Take a large stamp - one that will cover the entire surface - I used one with Italian poetry - ink it with black ink. Remember a big stamp should be inked by patting the stamp with the ink pad - not patting the ink pad with the stamp. Stamp the paper. When dry take your second ink color and blend the text in with the background a bit more.

Easy! Now just collage over it or whatever!

Art Squared

I had to do a couple of art squared pieces for my April swaps over at Embellished Circus. I hadn't done any art squared pieces before but it's not any different from ATCs or decos - just a different size. These two pieces are 4" x 4". I like the first one but not so much the second.

I used the same background technique I tried with the artist statement piece - I really like the way they come out. This piece is Live for Love .. pretty self explanatory. Kai should get a giggle out of the dictionary word I put across her lap. I didn't do it on purpose, it kind of happened that way.

click on image to enlarge


This piece is kind of Zetti inspired .. I just don't get it. This is called Flying Fish.

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Artist Statement in progress

Dalonna and Kris, two of the girls in my doll club, came up with an absolutely brilliant way for us to do our artist statements for our gallery show in June. I’ve actually started on mine - which is bad - because two of the girls are coming over on Sunday so we can work on them together. I just couldn’t wait, LOL. This will give you an idea of what we’re doing.

Dalonna's grandmother had made a few dozen dress appliqués for a quilt that never got made and Dalonna inherited them. At club this past Monday we each got to pick a dress. That was tough because there was a red checked dress I really liked! I couldn't decide between that one and this one. In the end I took this one, (duh, obviously) a cool retro polka dot fabric but then I did the fantasy fabric and free motion stitching thing all over it. It blended with the background so well I had to fuse it to a black piece of material so you could see it, LOL.

The base is foam board - I did a fairly complicated background following instructions in an article in the current issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors. Great fun even if I did end up wearing as much paint as the board did! I always use iridescent paints so the pictures are nearly impossible to take. To finish the dress, we are all taking a photo of our faces and we will be 'wearing' the dress. It will have arms and legs of some sort - beads, charms, paper - who knows. I’ll wait until Sunday for that.

The actual artist statement will be typed and glued to the page. At least mine will, my writing stinks. We’re doing bullet statements. These will look so cool on the wall - everyone’s board will be different but all the dresses will be the same shape. Neat, huh! I'll post another photo when it's done on Sunday.

Another strange doll

I stopped in at the little craft store in North Pole today and rooted around in their 60% off bin. Found this beat up green floral foam topiary for $1.80. Took it home and hours later this appeared ...

I'm getting really strange, aren't I? But it was fun. I collaged over the foam - the bottom is mulberry papers and the top is tissue paper - it's actually got some ancient Egyptian figures on it. She's got plastic doll parts from those inexpensive dolls you get at the craft store. I kind of finger painted her face - that's why she's blotchy, LOL. Her leaves and wires are from a Xmas tree topper. It's a very altered doll! It's a little tipsy but I'm afraid to try to balance it right now. Maybe tomorrow. I can't keep this so I will be selling it. Make me an offer ....

Click image to enlarge

Those darn postcards!

When I told my friend Natalie that I had 17 more fabric postcards to make for the current swap she stated "I'd run out of design ideas". Actually it's fairly easy when you do abstract designs. The key is color.

Take a look at this - it's kind of plain - it's just strips - kind of like a strange log cabin. But the blue and green are analgous colors as are the red and orange. Plus the red and green are complimentary, as are the blue and orange. It's simple but it works.

Another one just played off the colors in the main fabric. Purple and orange. Repeating the colors in different shapes. This works too. This is actually a really good thing to do if you aren't sure of colors. If you look at the selvedge of some fabrics you will see lots of little dots of colors. These are the colors used in the piece of fabric - so you can just match to that.

Dress Size Fairy ... in training

ummm... caught another of those silly little fairies in the bedroom this morning ... this is Chrystene .. Louella is teaching her to resize clothes ...

Click image to enlarge

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.. have I been busy today!!!!

Some days you just get on a roll ... I completed 3 projects today .. which is great! I can get one in the mail tomorrow, one still needs journal pages done, and one was just for fun. Here's the story on each piece ..

This little guy is for a paper doll round robin. This month's artist asked that at least two of the paper dolls be boys. So I cut the hips off, straightened out the thighs, and .. here he is ... as saucy as a little boy can be! You can dress them up but you can't take them anywhere! Him or his dog!

The heart is for last month's Member of the Month at Embellished Circus. I'm so bad. I had one heart left from January's doll club so I did some wire wrapping and beading. I think it came out nice. The double spiral hanger is a new touch.

This last piece was just for fun. I wanted to make another collage with my broken doll head. I took about 8 photos, moving the head in small increments each time, so I have a great variety of angles to use now. This one is for sale on eBay because I have absolutely no room to keep my art anymore! It's a 5"x7" canvas panel, painted with acrylics and lumiere, and has beads and jewelry bits on it.

Click here to see a larger photo of the collage.