Found a Treasure

I'm still working on clearing out my stuff from my mother's place. While doing so this past weekend, I found this doll. At first I thought about selling her but then I realized her provenance. I'd made her over 10 years ago during a workshop at Arrowmont School for Arts & Crafts. The teacher was renown doll artist Akira Blount. Akira passed away several years ago. It was a week long workshop and I learned a lot from her. And I had been making dolls for about 15 years then. The one important thing is how to give a doll a layered look in clothing without actually making each individual piece. I've carried that with me from then on.  Looking at the doll, you can see layers of clothing but she doesn't have them. Her shirt is her body.  I couldn't afford one of her pieces but I could afford that class. She was such a kind and giving person.

She had us come up with our own profile pattern, even though we followed her design. She wanted to make sure we got the full affect of creating our own doll from start to finish.  Her face is needle sculpted and then painted. So I will keep this doll because of her connection to Akira Blount.

Thank you Akira for your time, experience, and laughter. I will miss you always.

More Soft Sculpture Pics

Here are a few more pics I took of Lisa's work. The pics are mine, the work is hers, so please respect that and no copying without permission. Thank you.

This is Lisa's very first soft sculpture. Her art teacher at the time told her during an entire art session how bad it was and how she would never be an artist.

This is one of her latest pieces. Angel of Destruction. And those are real turkey feathers. She even made the sword out of paper clay.

Soft Sculpture Workshop Pics

I was going to do this post yesterday but friends invited me over for a bonfire and snacks.  So I went.  It was wonderful being with friends, making new friends, and hanging out with my soon-to-be eight month old niece.  She's a stitch.  It was a little warm for October in North Carolina but the evening sky was clear and the stars were amazing.

Lisa allowed us to take pics of her work.  The pics are mine, the figures are hers.  She does fantabulous work and is continuing her soft sculpture classes the rest of the year and scheduling for next year.

A close up of a head Lisa was working on to show the stitches of the eyebrows.

Jump.  She's so cute and playful.

The hands have plastic mittens on them because Lisa said the finger tips get dirty fast and the dirt shows up when covered with the panty hose.  A good tip to know.

You can just make out the stitches in the torso and thighs.

Some of Lisa's earlier characters.

This old gents eyes are painted to have cataracts.

Love this biker dude.  The hair on his chest is thread.

A cute little baby.  I'm going to have to learn how to make an open mouth.  We did get a quick tutorial.

Soft Sculpture Workshop 3

Day one of the workshop produced a nice face padded with foam and a layer of batting.  Day two was spent covering the face with panty hose and tacking it in place.  That was a long day and by the time it was over, my eyeballs were protesting.  A lot.  I think that was the toughest day.  Day three we worked with eyelashes, learning to mix paint for the lips, mixing pastels for the finishing.  Lisa likes to paint very light because she wants the modeling of the foam and batting to show through the hose.  I painted my miss (no longer a guy) and got her lashes on.  I will probably trim her lashes again and add a bit more pastel to her face.

Don't you just love those alien eyes?

The marble eyes have been turned around so as not to get glue or scratch the painted eyes.

The eyebrows are stitched on in layers and several different colors.  I want to add a bit more color to her face.

Me and her.  No name just yet.  I will add the back of her head and a very large body.  She'll be the only one.  I don't have much room in my apartment but she is bugging me to be finished.

Me and Lisa and our faces.  It was good to see Lisa make one along side of us so we knew what was going on.  Lisa also gave us a DVD of all the steps of what we did that weekend because we didn't have time to take notes.  Is that cool or what?

Marcia and her work.  Sorry about the pics because this one was a cutie.

Dawn and her piece.  Also wonderful.  She had wanted to make a male and hers did a change too.  Actually, her face still can go either way.

Patty and her cutie.  Patty was the one who asked some good questions that Lisa will add to her next class.

The gang.

Soft Sculpture Workshop 2

This was a crazy week.  Heck, the past two weeks were crazy busy and dangerous.  Last week I almost got hit five times by cars and one city bus.  No one was paying attention.  It was Jupiter's fault.  Yep, that's it. Darn that Jupiter for being so close.  Any hoo, here is more of my workshop.

This the second day where we started to cover the foam face.  And yes, it is pantyhose.  The eyes have been rolled back to protect Lisa's wonderful paint job.

Alien eyes.  My marbles were green.  So out-of-space like, don't you think?  Once it was pinned, we had to carefully slit the hose.  That was scary.  Then we had to stitch the hose into place around the eyes and then the nose and mouth.

Right here, he still looks like a guy.  I was trying to channel a pirate.