Wacky Hijinx Ensued . . .

I was going to blog more about my hats, but it’s about 6 AM and technically I should so be asleep. So I will keep this nice and short (ish).
I have a bunch of updates on the hatting, but I think that will have to come perhaps two posts from now. . . I’ll be then doing the feature of my photoshoot as well as a bit about the model’s super duper epic Etsy shop. So . . . for now. . . Just some fun! (hopefully not too offensive... and please know I have nothing against hoboes or train folk. In fact I shall be one at some point whenever I decide that I have the time and stability to run away and train hop . . . but I shall not be so fail at it!)

The above comic is a true account of what occurred today on our car ride to find food. It was sort of hilarious. . . A Witch, A Rivethead, and an Emo-kid in a car together is bound to make for madcap shenanigans . . . I drew this afterwards. The man’s sign was written not only with very small lettering, but with either pencil or silver sharpie. Fail. . . I mean, yes, I feel bad for him if he’s having troubles, but you’ve gotta make your cardboard signs readable!  Click on the pic to enlarge it.

The other awesome thing about this... is that for the first time in maybe fifteen years. . . . I did a page of sequential art. . . . 0_0.  I am the one with the round glasses.

The Maddening Process of Art

Greetings, gentle readers!

I am today going to tell you all about the strange creative process I go through in order to create my strange art.
As some of you know, I am currently making hats (Queen of Blood) with needle felting and just general oddness. This was started up because the doll’s torso was taking FOREVER to dry. (Hat Progress) The hats are all entirely one of a kind, mostly because they’re art and not a craft. They sort of have a mind of their own you see.

I will often start out with an idea. So, I grab my materials and start work, intending fully to realize this vision I have had. You would think that one day I’d learn. You see, that is where things change. Once i’ve started a hat or a doll or anything really... suddenly it takes on its own mind and I must work with it otherwise it’ll end up ugly. This is of course how I end up with real moss on hats.

My sister had a boyfriend in high school who told me something that I took to heart and have always considered when doing art since. The hilarious part is that he was just messing with me, but it was true. I was doing drawing lots then, and he said to me that you have to look at the page and then see what it wants to have drawn on it. Interesting advice, but so useful in the long run. Now, a good ten-twelve years later, I am applying this to fibre arts. Sculpture and fabric work exceptionally well for this.

Take the queen of blood hat for instance it began as a totally different concept. I was going to have a sculpted anatomical heart and a spoon involved. Then I began, and the vein happened, and then I liked it without any spoons, then I thought it looked very queen of hearts.. so I was going that way with it. But THEN it started looking vampirey. . . so somehow it ended up this way. I am very pleased with it... but if I had just forced my original vision on it, I might not like it as well I think.

This is another prime example, though it’s by no means done. (The Moss Hat) this is the moss-hat. It began ENTIRELY different. I was going to make a sort of low topper which would be greenish and all that, but then it just started becoming UGLY. I shifted things around a bit, made it a small hat, then it began to look mossy rather than camo, so I added some moss... That gave me the idea to sculpt some toadstools.. so I did that, and they are on there. Probably there will be some porcupine quills on here and maybe some faerie wings. . . it should be epic and STRANGE.

The same process generally goes into dolls as well. They are sometimes even worse about having their own minds though. I end up talking to them a lot and asking them questions as I make them. Fun when they answer!

I’ll be making more hats in the near future, and keeping you all apprised on the progresses. I also am going to try to blog a bit more often. Next entry will be a short story if all goes as planned, and then I may do a feature of an etsy shop I love.

That’s all for now!

The Green-eyed Monster (the doll, not jealousy)

Hullo Gentle Readers!

I am returned. Today we will talk more about doll-making as well as a few other odds and ends. As you may know if you like my facebook page (Yes, click here, you know you want to) or if you read my previous entry, I am working on making a ball-jointed doll for myself. I started sculpting her just after Christmas, and I’m technically still working on the head >_<. To my credit it’s a lot of detailed work and a lot of sanding and the like.

Her eyes came the other day, and I have been working on making the sockets so that the eyes will sit snugly in them. That is going rather well, I think. The eyes as you may see above, are a truly lovely shade of green.

I suppose right now I shall explain the title of the previous entry. “Trapping Spirits in Dolls”. I have always loved scary stories, and really I don’t think any have been quite so scary to me as the ones involving dolls. I don’t mean like Chuckie or killer dolls from hell or whatever... I mean like that episode of the X-files called Chinga, the one that Stephen King wrote, or the haunted creepy dolls that you hear about people selling on e-bay. Or even Harold from the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books.

Those are the sorts of doll stories that creep me out. The ones that have some tiny grain of truth that the story’s built around like a pearl around sand. (BTW, we decided in a fit of sleepiness that sky pearls are made when you put a grain of sand in a bird). Dolls have always had something eerily mystical about them, and of course they have long been used as magical effigies to represent people in spellwork.

The poppet is used to represent a person that the spell is being cast upon, they are used to heal or to manifest (and yes, for darker purposes sometimes as well). And then of course there’s the Golem, which is a sort of doll brought to life from earth and alchemy. Dolls look like miniature people, oftentimes exaggerated in ways, with large eyes and child-like faces. It is not too hard to imagine that they could come to life or change positions in the night. And this brings me to my title.

When I make art, I like to be certain that it has life. This is quite the same of course with my dolls. I know that some of you may think I sound absolutely barmy here, but I talk to them while I’m creating them, asking them what sort of colours they like, things like that. And of course some are slightly more demanding than others. Freddie for instance decided to tell me very adamantly that she wanted bright red silk bloomers. So of course I obliged. This care, I feel, gives license for spirits to come live inside of the dolls. In fact, sometimes I will put them in one position when I go to sleep and they’ll be in quite another when I awake!

I am not actually “trapping” the spirits per-se, as giving them a home.

That being said, I shall now proceed to take the picture you see at the top of this page. Her name is Virginia, she is of course one of the good neighbors.