Monday, September 10, 2012

In The Studio: Steampunk Art Doll Faerie


As many of you know, I am an artist. I use the word loosely, artist, because when I envision those who fall in this category, I see classic artists, names like Andrew Wyeth, John Waterhouse, or Adélaïde Labille-Guiard.

I love art.

My favorite art form for expressing myself at the moment is sculpting art dolls and have been doing so since 2004. An art doll is more of a sculpture because you can not play with her.

I love faeries.

I am greatly inspired by fantasy artist's Brian Froud, Selina Fenech, and Linda Ravenscroft.

I love to sculpt faeries.


Here is my latest sculpture. She is made from Puppen Fimo polymer clay. I wanted to share a few pictures of the beginning so that you may see what her armature looks like. Steampunk seems to be highly favored at the moment in the art doll world, but I didn't originally set out to make her this. When I began shading and blushing her body, this is when the clothes design process is always focused on, the idea come to me to try my hand at Steampunk. I hope you enjoy her.

This is an armature. It is heavy gauge wire wrapped with foil and masking tape.

I do what is called series baking. When you series bake, it insures that the inner layers of clay harden and make a solid foundation for the art doll. This is very important for survival because polymer clay can break.


She isn't very pretty at the moment huh? See the little faerie in the back ground watching?


I get so lost in the sculpting process I forget to take pictures. In this stage I am blushing her. I learned a great tip from Deb Wood, a fantastic art doll artist, about using matte make-up blushes you get from the local stores for blushing. It works amazingly.



 I was very happy with her collar bones and shoulders. At this point I already knew she would need to have a see through top to show them off.




I hope you like her. If you are interested in purchasing her here is her auction link via eBay. Happy bidding and thank you for spending time with me in the studio!



xoxo
M.




Dear Readers, Bloggers, and Stalkers, please follow my blog! This blog is Uncopyrighted. I  have released all claims on copyright and have put all the content of this blog into the public domain. This includes all photography taken by me, including photography of my art dolls. That's right. Use it, share it, spread it. Credit is appreciated but not required. Here’s why.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Minimizing or as My Husband Calls It "What Are You Throwing Away Now?"


The title says it all really. I embarked on a new life mission to live a more simple and minimalistic lifestyle. The first step on this path was going through each room and assessing my possessions. You know what? I had a lot of shit.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a hoarder. Ask anyone who has been in my house, I lived an uncluttered clean house lifestyle. After all, I do suffer from mild OCD. All my possessions had a space to live, nice and organized. This is not minimalistic living though.

Organizing is a dirty word in simplistic living. Why? Most of the time you do not need more than one or two of the same item with the exception of dinnerware and underwear; so if you find yourself organizing twelve plastic food storage containers with only seven lids, you are just organizing your excess and this is not simple living. 

I began in my kitchen which was the perfect place to start. I mean, I am not a kitchen gadget addict so I was for sure this would be quick and easy. It took me nine hours to go through my kitchen. Yes nine hours of my life was spent on shifting through plastic containers, lids, unused small appliances, stacking and un-cluttering my cabinets. I was shocked to find that I had six decorated fruit bowls. Who knew I was addicted to buying fancy fruit bowls? I sure didn’t.  Here is a picture of the bags I donated from my kitchen clean out and a shot of my new simplistic kitchen and dinning room.


Only toaster and coffee pot on the counters to keep a clean look



I made my first big blunder during this time period. I threw away the coffee cup Michael used daily. I had already made the promise in the beginning of this venture not to minimize anything he used or any of his possession. Let me tell you something. If your mate is not on board with minimalistic living, do not touch their things, because they will complain. A lot.




Next I tackled the bath room. This was fairly easy because I do not buy in bulk. The medicine cabinet was the worst and I spent about an hour to get it cleaned out. I threw away all out dated over the counter medicines. My make up drawer was easy because much of the cosmetics was so old it and shades of hot pink and purple. I only kept the make-up I use daily and one nice compact of eye shadows for evening wear. I forgot to take a picture of the before but here is the after.  This make-up will have to be replaced soon because they are really old and it is good hygienic sense to replace your old makeup.




I also want to mention, that my second offense, happened in this room. I threw out an almost empty (I still say it was empty) aftershave bottle that I intended on replacing of Michael’s. Two days later I quickly replaced it because I was near insanity from his nagging constant reminders that I had promised not to minimize his belongings.
I removed a few pieces of furniture from the living room and moved our bedroom, into our spare room and left behind all the things that were still important to Michael in the old room. By doing this I respected his wishes and I was able to achieve a peaceful simple bedroom for my taste. The downsize of my wardrobe is covered here, because it was a challenge in itself.

I still have my craft room and I know this will be the hardest thing to simplify. I dread doing it, because a rule of simple living is you may keep the item if it is beautiful or brings you joy. And I am convinced my 20 shades of glitter are beautiful and I have 20 artist friends who are sure to agree. Overall I am happy with my first attempt and feel I accomplished a lot. I have been 3 weeks without the items I donated and we I haven’t stressed a moment without them.



xoxo
M.



Dear Readers, Bloggers, and Stalkers, please follow my blog! This blog is Uncopyrighted. I  have released all claims on copyright and have put all the content of this blog into the public domain. This includes all photography taken by me, including photography of my art dolls. That's right. Use it, share it, spread it. Credit is appreciated but not required. Here’s why.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Project 333 Making Pigs Fly

Project 333

I came across a challenge to show that living with less is possible and easy. As I have mentioned before I am not the average hoarder consumer. I did have an excess of clothes, way more than I could ever need in one given time period, but I didn’t have like 50 pairs of shoes or 3 closets full of designer clothes. What I did have was along the lines of 16 pairs of shoes, 4 drawers and half a walk in closet of clothes from Torrid, Roaman’s, Lane Bryant and Cato’s. I am, trying not to be, was a huge fan of online shopping. So the majority of these clothes did not fit well or at all and since I always forget to return items they hung unworn in my closets. 

The basics of this challenge is to live 3 months with 33 items. That’s right. Only 33 items in your wardrobe. Items like socks, undies, your wedding ring, sleep wear, lounge wear, and workout clothing are the exceptions. Since the rule with workout clothing involved only wearing it to work out, I couldn’t keep items under this because, well, I do not exercise on a daily basis. Luckily my “work-out clothing” and “lounge wear” are basically the same thing, because lounging is an action and classifies as a workout. in my head.

This challenge isn’t meant to make you suffer, but to free you from societies excessive consumerism by showing that you can live with less. When choosing your 33 items, you are instructed to choose the clothing that fits you or makes you feel at your best. Choose the items that when you see your reflection you think, “Damn I look good.”
This is my clothes pile before the purge. 


As I was trying on what seemed like an endless amount of clothes, I put together some outfits I liked and realized I hated the majority of my clothes. I knew even if I boxed them up for wear once the three months was over, they would still just hang there in my closet. So I decided to purge them. In the end my entire wardrobe was reduced to the following:

9 pants
15 shirts
3 dresses
1 skirt
2 pair boots 
(I am a Texan after all, y'all)

1 flip flop
2 dress shoes
2 tennis shoes
3 sweaters
1 coat
1 Renaissance costume 
(Mandatory Faerie Wear)



Now this adds up to 40 items; but 5 items are put away until winter, the 2 pairs of tennis shoes don’t count because they are exercise wear, so that leaves my 33 items.

I have less clothes to wash and spend less time standing stupidly in front of the closet deciding what to wear and more time for exercising  meditating. I have managed two weeks so far without replacing a single item or shopping online. That right there my friends, could make pigs fly.
 xoxo
M.




For more about Project 333 visit it's website.
 
Dear Readers, Bloggers, and Stalkers, please follow my blog! This blog is Uncopyrighted. I  have released all claims on copyright and have put all the content of this blog into the public domain. This includes all photography taken by me, including photography of my art dolls. That's right. Use it, share it, spread it. Credit is appreciated but not required. Here’s why.