26 February 2016

Janine Postponed

And it was all my fault. I had an "emergency" doctors visit - ugh! However I am stopping at her house after the hospital and she IS coming over Saturday so in the meantime here are some ideas I had and followed through with.

I wanted to make some stamps and I had the idea exactly what I wanted. It wasn't until I was done with my little project that I realized it was another permutation of my obsession with the Drunkards Path. Hum... I feel more experiments coming on.

First I did some pencil drawings



Then I transferred them to stamp material and cut them out. Then did preliminary prints in my sketchbook to be sure I liked them.




Then I took a piece of old clean-up cloth and stamped using Pro-Brite fabric paint.


The pouncer made very textured designs on the stamps.




I used wine, brown, sage and gold paints all with micca (Pro-Brites)




I like the results.

Excess paint from pallet stamped onto a sketchbook page.


24 February 2016

Janine is coming to play




Did I tell you about my friend Janine who moved here from Ontario Canada? Knowing she would be in the area (Mid-Coast Maine), she looked on the internet for workshops in the area and signed up for two with me. She lives ten minutes away but is busier than me so we don't see each other all that much. What a great gal and I am so happy she is my "neighbor".

Anyway, Janine is coming tomorrow and we will do some gelli printing and monoprinting. I plan on making some special stamps so stay tuned for that.

I know I said I wouldn't mention the dolls again but I fell off the wagon and bought two lots of 5 and one lot of 10 that was so cheap I really had to buy them. The ten came from Canada as well.


The basket has 16 dolls all painted and waiting for clothes. As of today only 4 are still naked. The dolls on my ironing table are the 20 new recruits. I will mention that one lot of 5 had a redhead and a dark skinned doll with an Afro. Those are mine!! The other lot of 5 had another redhead with the really long hair like the girl I have kept. Her name is Colleen. (below)





Twenty anonymous girls with no faces. Unfortunately 2 of the dolls have stitched in eye lashes in places where REAL girls don't. See the blonde just left of center. I will probably put them aside and conduct experiments on them. Below is a doll that I tried to "fix" after attempting to tear out the eye lashes.



Twenty girls who just had shampoos, conditioning and facials


WOW! Look at that Afro on the bottom left. She is such a prize.


19 February 2016

Gelli printing with Judith

Judith and I have made so many plans to get together to play but something always came up. Today we dodged the snow storm bullet by a day.

The first thing that happened is that my vegetarian printing plate cracked. I think I was supposed to cover it. The other thing that happened is that after remelting it and starting to print. the glycerin kept mixing with the acrylic paint. No matter how much I wiped and blotted, the paint behaved badly. Even today after 24 hours, I tried to bag the tray with the plate in it and the glycerin kept getting all over everything.

I did use this great registration tip about making a hinge out of tape for multiple colors.



This was the 3 color print I made with the vegetarian plate.


Then I got out my commercial gelli and did some prints on watercolor paper.


These are ghost prints I made trying to get all the paint off the gelli.


All in all I have to say I was disappointed with the vegetarian plate. It was very firm which was good but "greasy" feeling from the glycerin. I will really try to clean that off the surface AND the tray. We may make friends in the future. I also got out my 9 month old Knox gelatin plate and it was still fine. There was some evaporation and it had thinned out so I remelted it and recast it in a smaller ( 8X12) tray. I'm sure I will have more to say about the plates in the future.

16 February 2016

Back to surface design

Today I made a vegetarian gelli plate. I have made gelli plates with Knox gelatin and glycerine but gelatin is made from cow hooves. This one is made with agar and much firmer than the gelatin version. This one is 12.5" X 17.5".






I recently saw this on DMTV. Since all of their processes are their intellectual property I can't share the process. I CAN however plug DMTV. It is about $100. a year US dollars and is worth much more. There are about 30 shows in the active files so watching previous shows from the oldest to the newest ensures you will be able to see them all until they are deactivated. They have a new show every week and they vary between Laura and Linda. Most workshops costs way more than a year of DMTV and I have learned SO MUCH from Laura and Linda Kemshall. Here is one from YouTube free.




Now that the dolls are awaiting homes, I am getting back to my art work. Judith is coming over Friday and we will be using the gelli plates. Thanks for the inspiration Joke!


P.S.
My girl



12 February 2016

Back to Childhood - from start to finish


I have no idea if anyone is even interested in this but I am. I thought I'd do a short post on my process returning these dolls to childhood.

All of these dolls are used - sometimes very used and abused. Some have had "haircuts" some have had "custom painting" on their faces. This is a lot of five I paid too much for just because I was desperate for that red headed doll. 



The first thing I do is take off their clothes and shoes (feet), arrange them nicely, photograph them and put the shoes, clothes and accessories up for sale on eBay. This helps defray the cost.


Next everyone goes in the doll Jacuzzi to soak in hot water with soap up to their heads for an hour or so. 



drip drying 



I usually make under 6 dolls at a time. First I remove their factory faces (yucky) and wash their faces, shampoo and condition  their hair and let them dry for 24 hours. I use real shampoo and conditioner to get the hair soft and help with the brushing.




This batch had had their faces removed and hair brushed. The doll on the far right had actual red, red hair mixed in with a more natural color. I tried to remove some (not successful) when decided to do two braids that would meet in the back. This helped camouflage "some" of the colored hair.


Next comes face painting. Since I can't film myself I am embedding a great face painting video from Sonia Singh who was the artist I first saw recreating these used dolls and giving them a new more natural life.



These poor dolls had stiletto heels, boots and huge platform shoes when I bought them. Now I made them new shoes. I also learned this from Sonia Singh. They are made with a 50/50 mix of 100% silicone caulk and corn starch. I make mine in just the white then paint them to look like shoes. You can get step by step directions on Sonia Singh's YouTube channel.



I use the same 6 dolls over and over to make shoes because their legs and foot knob are coated in Vaseline. I call them the "shoe girls".








I think they look so cute as if they were baggy socks and soft shoes.



Now I have a doll that is ready to go except for clothing.



This is my redheaded doll with shoes. Soon she will have a face and clothes and a place on honor on my desk.



This tiny piece of batik with be a sun dress and a skirt and blouse.




Slacks, jeans, shorts and a skirt above and a knitted sweater below.



This is doll 41 finished








Doll 12 has freckles across her nose and cheeks as well as her forehead.


If you are interested in buying one of my dolls, just leave a comment and I will get back to you. They are 10" tall.

I think these are the last of the doll posts although not the end to my "making"

09 February 2016

One more and sewing


Doll 17



Poor doll 17 has been waiting for those turquoise shorts for a week. She was catching a draft with just the sweater on. I really love the long sleeve sweaters.



 Before and after. Hard to believe it's the same doll.


I made a second peach skirt so I will be knitting another peach sweater tonight. 



06 February 2016

This is for Patricia and Chastity

Here are the dolls in numerical order. The number is at the top of the photo


 3


 6




10 



Also here is another African American doll that I will work on this weekend and hope to have done in time for Chastity's viewing on Monday

Doll 41