kitschwitchery

2010-09-24T16:24:00.018-04:00

Halloween Is Coming....

So I decided to make another little witch doll. And here's the result:

If Miss Elizabeth Bennett decided to take up the study of magick, she might look something like this. I wanted to make a fledgling witch just learning to fly, and this one has a broom made of a maple twig and real broomstraws.

I had her all sculpted and painted and I was trying to make a decision about her clothing when my sister gave me a lovely old blouse, black cotton with swirls of light orange. (You can't really appreciate the pattern in these photos, alas.) And the cloth gave me the idea of giving her a Jane Austen-era dress and hairstyle, which I think turned out rather well.

She carries a historically acurate recipe for flying ointment. (No, I haven't tried it, and neither should you -- most of the ingredients are deadly poison!)

I added a tiny calico kitten at her feet, since every witch needs a familiar, and especially when she's just learning to fly. You can see more of her in my ETSY shop or on FLICKR.

2010-08-29T14:20:00.011-04:00

MY LATEST CREATION - SELENE

I just love it when people give me suggestions for new dolls. I never run out of ideas, it's true, but there's something about getting a nudge from someone else's brain that really amps up my enthusiasm and creativity. So when a friend and fellow craftswoman from Etsy said recently that she'd like to see my take on Selene, the ancient Greek moon goddess, I was immediately inspired. Here's the result:

Selene (also known as Luna to the ancient Romans) is frequently pictured as a lovely maiden carrying a torch and wearing a lunar crescent on her head. Many classic statues of Selene show her with a gauzy scarf swirling around her head. I incorporated all these symbols into my doll, which stands approximately 12" tall. She was crafted of Super Sculpey and finished with acrylic paint and varnish. Her gown, in the Greek style, is made of gauzy cotton, once a vintage nightgown, which I dyed by hand.

Not pictured in most classical representations of the Goddess, but requested by my Etsy friend, is the tiny moon hare sitting at her feet and gazing up at her luminous face. The hare is associated with the moon in many cultures, so this one should feel right at home.

This doll will be for sale in my Etsy shop later this week. To see more photos of Selene (as well as my other dolls), visit me on Flickr.

2010-08-22T19:20:00.005-04:00

My Newest Doll

It's been a year since I last posted here, which hardly seems possible to me. I put my doll making on the back burner to deal with some pressing family issues, and I've really missed it. My notebooks are full of sketches and ideas for new dolls, and I'm not quite sure where to start.

Here are a couple of photos of my newest art doll, the Greek goddess Athena. She's about 13" tall, sculpted of polymer clay and painted with acrylics. Athena was the goddess of both wisdom and war, so in one hand she carries her totem animal, the owl, and in the other, a spear. Around her neck she wears the gorgon-headed aegis, a symbol of her authority and power.

2009-08-13T17:10:00.008-04:00

Here Comes the Bride....

I began my Bride of Frankenstein doll with an eye to submitting her to the ADO Halloween Challenge, but I finished her so soon that I decided to put her in my Etsy shop and make another doll for the challenge. Anyway, here she is in all her finery, just perfect for a spooky Halloween wedding.

I'm about 90% happy with her, I guess. If I weren't such a sloppy, impatient Sagittarian I'd be a lot happier with my dolls, I'm sure. If I'm not cutting off a finger (mine or theirs) or giving myself a first-degree burn with my glue gun, I'm making a stupid mistake that could have been avoided if I'd been paying attention to the task at hand. Ah, well....

Elsa Lanchester's wonderful portrayal of the Bride of Frankenstein was my inspiration, but I wanted to acknowledge the old adage that every bride is beautiful on her wedding day -- even a monster cobbled up out of stolen body parts. I guess I wanted to give her the romantic wedding all women dream about -- hence the flowers, lacy dress, and gold wedding ring.

And even with her scars and electro-frizz hairdo, she seems wistful and strangely pretty -- almost like one of Jane Austen's heroines. Or like Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, as portrayed by Elsa Lanchester (in a dual role) in the 1935 film.

This was definitely a fun project, from the preliminary design through the sculpting and painting and on to the finishing touches. And that's what's important to me -- the process. Getting positive input from my fellow dollmakers is great, and it's undeniably nice to sell a doll, but the best part is creating, making thoughts reality. And now, I guess I'd better get started on something I can enter in the Halloween Challenge. Ghosts? Werewolves? Witches? So many ideas, so little time!

2009-08-04T17:32:00.004-04:00

THAT'S DOCTOR FRANKENSTEIN TO YOU!

For such a creative person, I can be really stupid sometimes. Behold one of my newest dolls-in-progress: the Bride of Frankenstein. She's one of several Halloween-inspired projects I'm working on, one of which will be my entry in the ADO Halloween Challenge. Well, last nite I finished wrapping my blushing Bridezilla from neck to toe and fired up the oven. I was particularly pleased with my decision to mold the doll's skull so that it would make a solid base for the Marge Simpsonesque frizz that is the Bride's signature 'do. Imagine my -- is horror too strong a word? -- when I discovered that I'd made her too tall to fit inside my oven! Horizontally or vertically!

So I whipped out my razor-sharp Sculpey-slicer and gave the poor girl a craniotomy. (I knew CSI would come in handy some day.) I sliced off the top half of her dome and baked it separately, then glued it back after it cooled. All's well that ends well, I guess, but I appreciate the irony of having to do brain surgery on my own little Bride of Frankenstein. Igor would be proud.

2009-07-29T16:15:00.006-04:00

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DOLL

Long before Harry Potter went to Hogwarts, a little girl in Indiana dreamed of going to Witch School. Who? Me! Every day I donned my plaid uniform and went dutifully (if not enthusias-

tically) off to my Catholic grade school, but secretly I longed to study potions and incantations and magickal spells instead of arithmetic and the Baltimore Catechism. Blame my favorite books at the time: Little Witch by Anna Elizabeth Bennett, The Blue-Nosed Witch by Margaret Embry, and The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes.

So I guess my newest doll is a self-portrait in more ways than one. The freckles and red hair are mine, certainly, but so is the idea of a little girl going happily off to Witch School. She wears a white-orange-and-black pleated skirt (with witches woven into the design -- how cool is that?!) and a white ribbed turtleneck sweater (made from an upcycled sock cuff). White tights and black patent Mary-Janes and a black tam-o-shanter complete her ensemble. She carries her schoolbooks -- Magical Words and Phrases (a nod to my sister's favorite Bugs Bunny cartoon), Potions, and My First Grimoire. Clenched in her other fist is a well-loved Teddy -- if you look close, you'll see that she's been using him to practice voodoo! Ouch!

I've been making art dolls for a while now, and this is the first one I've had a hard time letting go of. But yes, she is for sale on Etsy -- unless I change my mind first. (Am I crazy, or does she look like a young Nicole Kidman?)

2009-07-17T10:17:00.003-04:00

ADO ELEMENTS CHALLENGE

This was my first ADO challenge and I really enjoyed it. As a redhead and a Sagittarian, I had to choose Fire as my element. And since I make goddess dolls, what better subject than Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire, lightning and volcanoes? According to legend, Pele makes her home on Kilauea, so I tried to make her look as if she's erupting from the crater like a fountain of fiery lava.

2009-07-14T14:53:00.006-04:00

ARACHNE IS FINISHED!

Arachne, my little spider goddess, is finished at last and officially listed for sale on Etsy. I'm about 90% happy with her, I guess, which is pretty good for me. I molded her dress -- a first for me -- as I was sure I'd never get it to look slinky enuf if I tried using cloth. I was going for that spidery Morticia Addams look.

I really love her face. Every time I make a doll I'm amazed and delighted at how the doll seems to create her own face and expression. I know what I want to do, of course, and I have a plan for the figure. But once I begin sculpting, the doll takes over and gives herself the face she wants. It's eerie and wonderful at the same time. (No, my dolls don't talk to me -- at least, not yet!)

2009-07-08T16:12:00.004-04:00

A new month and a new doll in the works. The photo on the left shows Arachne, whose story was told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. A crackerjack weaver, Arachne unwisely entered into a weaving competition with the goddess Minerva. Although her weaving was superior to the goddess', Arachne chose as her subject the indescretions of Zeus, which peeved the goddess mightily. Arachne hanged herself out of fear and shame, but Minerva took pity on her and turned her into a spider.

I decided to portray my Arachne using a drop spindle (an ancient Greek loom was beyond me, I'm afraid), which legend says her son invented. I did a bunch of research on spinning yarn with drop spindles, a fascinating subject. If I had more free time, I might give it a try. Anyway, she's sculpted, baked and ready for painting. I dunno what made me choose Arachne -- I HATE spiders!

2009-06-26T13:22:00.011-04:00

Another obscenely hot day in northeastern Indiana, with fierce thunder-and-lightning storms last nite. A nice breeze today, but it's blowing 90-degree air!
I'm posting photos today of my completed Bast art doll, and she is listed in my Etsy shop. This one had a lot of detail work, but it was worth it. I'm pretty happy with the way she turned out, altho there are always things I'd do differently if I could do it over.

I went with a traditional pose and gave the goddess her signature sistrum (sacred rattle) and aegis with a cat head. Her collar was fun to make, and I'm glad I went with a shorter hairdo. Her dress was easier than usual -- just cutting and gluing. (When the Goddess was handing out sewing skills, I was off reading a mystery novel or something.) Her gold circlet is one of those plastic rings that you find on a twist-off milk bottle cap. Frugal, no?

The little gold cat on the base was an afterthought, made to cover an imperfection in the wood. It only took me a couple of minutes to sculpt, but I think it finishes off the piece nicely. A lot of the ancient statues of Bast show kittens sitting at her feet.

And now, on to my next doll.

2009-06-24T16:04:00.004-04:00

Ye gods (and goddesses)! It's 92 degrees here in northeast Indiana -- too hot to do anything but sit in front of the fan and work on my dolls. The cats and my sister's dog (I'm babysitting) are lolling on my bed like southern belles at a Tara barbecue. There's definitely an icy gin & tonic in my future.

Here is a photo of my latest project, the goddess Bast. I'm really happy with her feline face and the gold collar and sistrum (that's an ancient Egyptian rattle) I made for her. Now I just have to dress her and do her hair. The doll is based on a number of ancient statues of the goddess made in metal, clay and stone, altho most ancient representations of the goddess showed her with the head of a cat.

2009-06-20T13:40:00.005-04:00

GOOD TO BE BACK!

The past few weeks have been hectic. My dear mum has relapsing-remitting MS and the return of the warm weather always exacerbates her symptoms. As a full-time caregiver to said parent, my online activities had to be curtailed until things got back to normal. I did manage to do some dollmaking here and there, finishing my entries for two ADO (Art Dolls Only) Challenges. The photo-in-progress at the upper left is for the 4 Elements Challenge: my take on Pele, the Hawaiian Fire Goddess, erupting from a volcanic crater. She looks 100% better now that she's been painted, coiffed and costumed. You can see the finished doll here in mid-July. Click on the logo at the right for info about joining the challenge.

The other doll I completed is for the Ellen Degeneres Challenge, which has been delayed until August. If things work out, we'll be donating our dolls to Ellen's favorite charity.

I'm starting my next project, another goddess doll. This time I'm working on a figure of Bast, the Egyptian cat goddess -- my own moggies think it's a great idea. As always when beginning a new doll, I'm full of energy and enthusiasm. No wonder I love making dolls!

2009-05-11T16:53:00.004-04:00

Here is my Circe Invidiosa, finished and ready to list on Etsy. A bad photo, but the light had gone this afternoon when I took it. I'll shoot some more tomorrow. I had a heck of a time copying the transparent bowl in the painting, so I just gave up and put her poisonous potion in a shell. I like it, in retrospect -- it goes with the watery aspects of the myth and the idea of Natural Magick.

2009-05-05T16:46:00.005-04:00

Here is my Circe doll in progress -- sculpted, painted, varnished and mounted on the base. All that's left is to dress her, apply her hair, and add the bowl containing the poisonous green concotion that turned poor Scylla into a sea monster. I'm going to work on her tonite while I watch The Biggest Loser, so I hope I don't glue my fingers together by mistake. This isn't one of my better dolls, but I like her all the same. And there's always a point at which I look at a doll-in-progress and think, "What were you thinking?!" But they look 100% better when they're finished.

2009-05-02T14:45:00.014-04:00

My newest project -- The Three Fates. Reading from left to right: Clotho, Lachesis, & Atropos. I'm thinking of entering them in an Art Doll Quarterly challenge, which would be a first for me. I guess it'll depend on whether they cooperate or not. I've also started another goddess doll, based on Waterhouse's painting, Circe Invidiosa. She's giving me a bit of trouble at present. Those ancient Greek sorceresses can be divas.

2009-04-28T15:58:00.011-04:00

My first attempt at blogging -- hope I don't bore everybody to death! Here are a couple of photos of my latest art doll/ goddess figure: Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.
I've always wanted to make a doll inspired by Edward Burne-Jones' painting of the German sorceress, Sidonia von Bork. When I found a remnant of black-and-white skull-covered Halloween fabric, it seemed perfect for Persephone's dress, and the whole thing came together very quickly. I'll never be a gifted seamstress, but I think I managed to capture the spirit of the original. You can see more pictures of the completed doll in my Etsy shop.