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.

Trapping Spirits in Dolls

 

Holiday Fun and Doll-making

    Happy Christmas to those who celebrate it!  Also happy Yule a few days late!  I celebrate both, so if I ever have kids they probably will get to too. . . this would mean more presents, so I can’t see them as having any problem with it at all.  I got more cool things today than I was expecting, including a huge cage for Brown Jenkin- my rat, one of the Pendergast Books, a penguin pillow pal thing . . .and a pair of Nepalese Wool Glovemittens!  I’ll keep the holiday updates brief though so that I can get to what I’m really blogging about - Dolls!

    I have recently begun making Art Dolls to sell on my Etsy.  I have been sculpting them with Paperclay which is - for those of you who don’t yet know - an air-dry clay made from wood pulp and volcanic ash.  It’s sort of epic!  They are going far better than I had originally expected, and they’re super fun to make!  For now I’m just making little Fae dollies such as The Scare-you Crow, and Freddie the Key Thief.  It is my hope, however, to begin making and selling Ball Jointed Dolls made from resin eventually.  First of course though, I will make them with the Paper-clay so that I can get good enough and then make the master dollies to cast the molds the same way.

    I have been looking up tutorials on this, and I will include several links of note here.

    A Russian Site which is translated with Google Translate
    A series of You-tube videos where an artist is sculpting a head
    A step-by-step tutorial on making and casting the molds and resin
    And another English site which deals with hands. <3

    I seriously can’t wait to get started on these guys!  I may need some tools I don’t have yet, and I’ll definitely need to get a proper job so I can afford the sillicon or latex for the molds, but for the time being I happen to have a good 15 lbs of Paperclay at my disposal, which means a good amount of BJD’s depending on the size.   (The Non-Ball-Jointed Art Dolls so far only take about an eighth of a lb each.)

    I’ll post some more fun and interesting tidbits as I learn or find them, and probably some photos of my journey along the way.  Hopefully the faerie folk will get more and more epic as I go! Currently, I am working on developing wing-making technology. 

Body Parts Strewn on the Kitchen Counter

So, the latest fun things going on in the Tatterpunk’s life . . . .include body parts all over the kitchen counter, Art, Winter Solstices, and teeth!

Some people are Crafters, some people are Artists. It is interesting, talking to so many people on Etsy, because it has really let me see the difference between artist and crafter. I for instance, consider myself an artist. I make things because I need to make them, true they are multimedia works, or accessories, or generally things people would consider “crafts” but it’s all about the approach. I don’t do it to sell them. If I did, I think I might have gone crazy and quit by now considering I’ve sold all of ONE pair of glovies (though in one month, that’s pretty good).

I make things because I have to make them. Because I want to create some sort of illustration of the things going through my bizarre and insomnia-addled mind. I just happen to have a shop where I sell them. Therefore I don’t care if they’re marketable pieces or not, or if they scare the crap out of everyone who sees them (in fact that would be awesome).

I think that many folks who still consider themselves “crafters” are probably also artists, but I think the difference lies in the approach. What I consider a “crafter” is someone who makes things to sell specifically, lots of the same thing maybe. Thoughts?

I bring this up, because recently I began using teeth in my pieces. Specifically the Spirit Medium Ruff ( the Ruff ) and the Jenny Greenteeth cuffs ( The Cuffs ). I love these pieces, but initially when I showed the former to people, they started suggesting that I use canine (sharp pointy not dog) teeth instead of molars, because “molars are just creepy.” That sorta bugged me.  . . lots. It got me thinking though, that I really don’t care if this stuff sells - I mean.. . I do . . .because I need money (lots), but I don’t because it’s just my art and I’m doing what I love.

I guess I should explain the body-parts too . . . I’ve decided to make a few art dolls. . . or try my hand at it anyhow 0_o. I’ve been sculpting the head/chest, lower arms, and lower legs out of Paperclay. I have three dolls made. See if you can see what’s odd about the picture at the top!




Happy Yule folks!

Salmony Goodness and Chilly Winds

There is a chill wind blowing through the Storylands today. With it, I think shall come something stranger than has occupied this space previously.

The shop is coming along nicely, which is most excellent - though I still have yet to procure my first sales >_<.  I am hopeful though, for with the winter come the holidays and thusly the need for awesome things for people to wear or gift.  I have a solstice sale going on in my Etsy shop - The Tatterpunk Carnival of Curiosities 20% off before shipping when you use the coupon code SOLSTICESALE.  Alright, now, enough business business is boring. I will now proceed with the glorious madness!

Today I am going to talk about..... salmon. Yes. Salmon.

I had this for brunch today. I really enjoy baked salmon, and I am sure it is relatively good for me (except for the mercury). The trouble is that I have to bake it. This would not be a problem if not for the fact that the oven takes a long time to pre-heat. That bugs me.

Salmon bear a long mythological history. Loki turned into one to escape after killing Balder... but he was caught by Odhinn of course . ..  Also they stood for wisdom in Gaelic countries - in one such tale, a young man eats but a little smidgen of the juices from cooking a salmon and gains all of the wisdom of a man 100 years old. Salmony goodness here the story is recounted in a rather long-winded but assumedly accurate way. I, unfortunately, have not managed to gain any massive knowledge from eating salmon. But it sure does taste good in my tummy.

That said, I would probably like it better if salmon were a vegetable. Though they too have feelings and should not be thought of as lesser. Respect your food folks!

The Faerielands and what one may find there

As is customary with any first blog - or first thing that I do in general. I am writing this at 2:07 in the morning. This ensures that the utterances shall be in a word - quite mad.


To begin I will tell you what to expect from this blog. That, my friends, will be my first task here. I will expound upon the future contents of this working and allow you to know its innermost secrets. . . . . or I will just babble on about that for three sentences without telling you anything useful >_>

In this blog I will post anything and everything that I deem awesome. Tatterpunk, I might add, is a whimsical, dust-saturated fashion.... like shabby chic steampunk. It is filled with desaturated colours, tattered old lace and silk, faerie-like, carnivalistic,  and frayed. I came up with the term myself and I'm hoping it catches on. . . . I will most likely post about my newest crafts on Etsy as well as about other shops or blogs that I think need to be blogged about.

I also expect that there will be strange carny lore and urban ironside faerietales within these tent-walls. I am a bit too sleepy to make much sense anymore so I will stop this post now.

Goodnight, Gentle Reader. May you awaken on a bed of moss.