A Sweet Baby Dragon for the New Year

This is the time of year when I feel like I need a vacation after all of those holidays. You see, not only do we have Christmas with extended families and New Year's, but we also have both my son's and my birthdays smack dab in the mix. This year, my oldest child turned 18 and I turned 40 just four days later. Add that to the fact that another year has slipped by PLUS Seasonal Affective Disorder, and you end up with one melancholy mama.

To ward off the winter blues and the feeling that I'm approaching the top of the hill, I decided to create a cuddly, pink baby for the New Year. But this is sort of a Chinese baby-- a Chinese baby dragon, that is! Her name is Li Mei, which means "pretty rose" and she has a spunky attitude. She has just been vaccinated and is ready for adoption! Her horns and wings have just started to grow and she's cutting her baby teeth. 

 Li Mei has an articulated jaw which opens slightly and she can carry her mouse in her mouth.

 Li Mei is very posable. She is about 7 inches long and has a 9 inch tail. Her mouse is a little over an inch long. Li Mei has a removable beaded collar with bell and a padded blanket-bed.

Li Mei is very playful! She loves her blanket bed.

Li Mei's dragon wings are just beginning to bud!

Li Mei's lower jaw is articulated, so it opens slightly.

Look into her beautiful gray-blue eyes and feel the love. She even has a heart marking on her forehead.

She has a tiny mouse and removable collar.

Li Mei is now available for adoption in my Etsy shop. Her hands and feet are made of air dry paper clay and her body is the softest Merino wool needle felted over padded wire armature. Her head and feet have been carefully painted and varnished.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

It's finally time to sit back, sip some hot chocolate, and enjoy the beautiful spirit of this season. I wanted to show you a couple of the handmade gifts I made this year-- upcycled pine trinket boxes. I painted the boxes and faux distressed them, made paper clay embellishments and painted them, glued them on, and varnished the final product. These were VERY fun to put together! In fact, I'm planning on doing some more of these fantasy-style for my Etsy shop. These can also be personalized with special words, dates, or names.

The paper clay embellishments were made using various methods. I sculpted the moon, the leaves are reliefs of actual leaves, and the star and the words were done with stamps. The moon box was made to house the moonstone and lapis lazuli necklace that I also made, which has a matching paper clay moon pendant. Unfortunately, I wrapped the necklace up before I remembered that I wanted to take a picture!

The "garden" box has a dried pansy that was pressed in the spring adhered to the inside of the lid.

I traced the box's lid onto wax paper, then sculpted the moon directly on the paper before transferring to the box.

Leaf Sprites, Part II

The Leaf Sprites (or Green Men) have been completed and worked into beaded necklaces. I've got my new(est) Etsy shop up and loaded up with eight of these guys (there were ten in all, but I am keeping one and giving one as a gift).

This photo shows how I reworked the orange leaves by adding paper clay right on top of the paint.

This is an actual leaf being pressed into the paper clay. This is also called multi-tasking, or "I can't take too much time away from crafting to cook." 

Leaf Sprite Pendants

I'm taking a little detour from working on Sidera to pick up a project I had started earlier. Before I began working with air dry paper clay, I did some research to see what I could do with the stuff. I ran across this tutorial for leaf pendants. This was interesting to me because a while back, I was experimenting with homemade paper mache "clay" and wanted to make some leaves like this, but was unable to get my home brewed product to work in such a way. As it was (technically still is) fall when I ran across the tutorial, I decided to hurry up and press some leaves into my new clay before they were all gone. I did not follow the tutorial for painting, which suggests using water colors. I like to use gesso and acrylic paints for several reasons: 1) I find that applying water color can mess up the surface texture of the clay because it is so...watery, 2) I like the added protection that several coats of acrylics gives the clay, and 3) colors seem more saturated when applied over white gesso versus added directly to the clay.

Here is what I have done with the pendants so far. The yellow/orange/red leaves where the ones I painted before starting Sidera. The other leaves now have faces-- they are Leaf Sprites or Green Men pendants. These will be put on chains and possibly some on hemp with coordinating beads and/or stones. I like the faces so much that I'm thinking about adding some to the orange leaves and repainting. That's the wonderful thing about paper clay-- you can rework your piece after you thought it was finished!

So Thankful!

Happy Thanksgiving! This is just a quick post to share Sidera's new look with dress, hair, and eyelashes. We will be rushing off to our relatives momentarily so I don't have time to write much of a coherent, reflective post. But I do want to say that I'm so thankful for so many things: family, friends, the warmth of my home (considering how cold it is in Northern Kentucky today). I'm also thankful for the ability to use my eyes and hands to create some of the things from my over-active imagination, to bring to life and to share those characters and emotions that inhabit my dreams.

Sidera is one example of the outcome of these abilities. Here she is, with her dress, hair, and eyelashes. She is not finished-- she still needs shoes, a jeweled circlet (hairpiece), an elegant robe, and of course (what every Elfin Moonbeam Traveler needs): her needle felted whippoorwill!

Making progress (WARNING: Minor nudity)

I've been working on Sidera for a few weeks now and she's finally starting to look like a person...uh, I mean, doll. The theme for this doll is based on a dream I had, which is the theme for the November doll challenge from the Art Dolls Only (ADO) group. The dream was a sensual experience revolving around the moonlight, the night, and the sound of a whippoorwill's call. There were a few more components in the dream: irises, frogs chirping, the feel of a summer night's air. I've chosen to focus on the moon and the whippoorwill elements of the dream and to try to portray a sense of inner calm and knowing in my doll's expression.

My doll's name is Sidera, which means "luminous" in Latin. She is an Elfin Moonbeam Traveler, which means she travels along the moon's beams to commune with nature's creatures on the brightest nights of the months. On summer nights, when the moon is bright and you can hear a chorus of frogs and whippoorwills calling, Sidera is nearby.

Here is an updated pic of Sidera. She is ready for her hair, eyelashes, and costume now! She will also be holding a needle felted whippoorwill.

Sidera, the Elfin Moonbeam Traveler

Something Old, Something New

Hello. It is nearing the end of the year, and here in Kentucky, the leaves have turned colors; many are floating solemnly to the ground while others are well into the first leg of their journey of rebirth. This is the time of the year when the days are noticeably shorter and I tend to find myself turning inward. I often find myself in melancholy thoughts about bygone days spent with friends I've not seen in decades or distant, tropical places that continue to provide much needed glowing warmth in my dreams on cold, dark winter nights. Another thing I tend to notice about myself during this time of year is that I become hyper-creative.

As this year's end coincides with the end of the first three decades of my life, I've found myself to be particularly reminiscent while I'm working on sketches or sculptures. I began to remember so many of the fairies, animals, elves, monsters, gnomes, and other creatures that I've made over the years, and I realized that it would have been nice to have a picture of each one tucked neatly into a photo journal or a scrap-book of sorts. As a result, I've decided to start this blog to chronicle my makings.

In addition, as a sort-of early New Year's resolution, I've recommitted myself to my old love-- making art dolls. I've joined Art Dolls Only and am working on my very first challenge, "A Dream I Had." This doll is truly a challenge for several reasons, but mainly because it is experimental in construct; she is made from both air dry paper clay and needle-felted wool, and I am trying out ball-and-socket type joints that use both media. Here's hoping I can finish her by the end of this month!

Here is a pic of my doll in progress (more pics and info to follow in the next post):