The Traveling Doll Project!

I'm stoked.  Why?  Because it's time to mail Wren, my Traveling Doll...

AND it's time for my team mates to mail their dolls around the circle which means I get Jenna's doll very soon.  Can't wait to meet him/her/it--I have no idea who Jenna has made.  That's part of the silly thrill of this whole thing.

For those unfamiliar with it, the Traveling Doll Project is something that
Art Dolls Only has done for several years...and it goes like this:

We divide up into teams.  We each make a basic doll.  The bigger the team, the more unfinished the doll should be, because you want to leave something for each team member to add!  I'm on a small team, since this is my first year and I'm a big chicken.  We have three members, so my doll is basically finished, but naked.  Or, as we say down here in the south...nekkid.

She has underwear, for the sake of modesty, but my team members will add clothes and shoes and whatever else they deem necessary to complete her.  We each guide the development of our doll by passing along a Travel Journal.  In the journal, the doll muses about her travels, her wishes, dreams, avocations, breakfast menu, whatever.  :~)  In the meantime, while mine is visiting first Ohio and then California (kinda makes me jealous), I will be visited by each of theirs, adding and embellishing and taking pictures with the dog.

The end result is a collaboration between artists, each having blessed the doll with her creative talents and spirit.  Have I mentioned I'm stoked about this project?  It's not about making a doll to sell, it's about making a friend who will always remind me of other friends.

The Traveling Doll Project Blog will actually let you follow all the teams' fun, and I'll be sure to give a shout when new updates will be posted.

I'm on the Eager Eagles team, along with Martha and Jenna
...and this is Wren.

Her arms, legs, and trunk are carved of wood.  I used a Dremel for the detail carving.  In this first picture, her shoulder and hips are wire jointed, knees and elbows are string or ribbon jointed.  She didn't like this, and asked me how I'd like it if my lower extremities flopped around backward half the time.

I had to admit I wouldn't like it, and found the solution with the addition of some lace to stabilize those joints.  Kinda looks like she has lacy Ace bandages.  Her face, bust, and pregnant belly are paper clay, and her hair is curly mohair.  I've never used this stuff--at least not in a long, free-flowing style like this.  Not sure I ever will again--holy cow!  But she seems to like it, and I hope the team members will let her keep it down like this.  (Subtle hints were never my forte...)

As to the rest, Wren left clues in her journal about her favorite style of clothes, the lifestyle she leads at home (she's a hippy chick who lives on a homestead with a lot of like-spirited individuals) and something of what she'd like to accomplish on her travels.

I really hope you'll follow along as the dolls make their rounds.  We're having so much fun...it seems a shame not to share it!





(Click pictures to zoom...)

Sunday morning with my best friend.

We have two new .22 long rifles.  For those unfamiliar with guns, that's not a powerful gun--in fact it's the caliber we started our kids with.  But they're fun, don't kick at all, and .22 ammo is cheap.  We're planning to attend an Appleseed Project this May for rifle training, and the Ruger 10/22 is the best bang for the buck, if you'll pardon the pun.

We shoot at the Blackhawk range where we are members.  It is February in south Texas, which means everything looks dead, but at least the temperatures are nice...this Sunday morning it was around 60 and humid with a slight breeze.  The mesquite and oak sleep until April, so prickly pear, yucca and groundcover weeds are the only green.  By May it will be greeeeeeeen everywhere.

 We begin at the distant mark of 50 yards.  Since these are new rifles, we're testing and adjusting the sights, which is why we sit and prop the guns.  This always feels very unsporting to me, but the hubs assures me it's the proper way to get a rifle sighted accurately.  I believe him--he was an expert marksman in the Air Force. 

The targets look verrrry tiny from here.  His groups on the target span maybe three inches, whereas mine are all over the place.

After a while on the rifles, we move up to the 7 and 15 yard marks for handgun practice.  I'm shooting light today; two different .22's and the small .9 mm.  Phil is shooting the Glock 26.  We vary our practice between these, the .38 snubbies, larger .9mms, a Ruger .45, and an old .357 revolver (which is AWESOME with .38's--less kick.).

Each gun is a completely different experience to shoot--even guns of the same caliber.  Of course Phil would get a picture of me with the teeny pocket-size .22 instead of the target .22.  But the pocket Taurus is a comfort when I have to meet a strange man at an empty rent house alone.  Different subject, and I promise not to launch into gun rights in this post.  Nobody wants a political rant, right?

One very interesting discovery this Sunday morning.  Somehow we always end up with me shooting on the left and him on the right.  That's how we sleep, so it never occurred to me to wonder about it.  But this time, I'd set things up so that I was on the right.  As we lined up and began our first round, it hit me--quite literally--why he had always put me on the left.  He's on the right here because he switched our places during one of my potty breaks.

My husband is the ultimate quiet gentleman.  When we take walks, he puts himself between me and the street.  No muss, no fuss, he just does it.  Well, I'd gotten so used to shooting to the left of him, that I'd forgotten: the one shooting on the right catches the spent shells from the left-hand shooter.  He's never said a word...he just always put me over there, putting up with my hot brass pinging off his head and bouncing into his collar once in a while.

He claims it's not so bad for him because he's taller and catches less of it than I do.  I catch a lot so this may be true, but still...it's his way to downplay discomfort so I don't fret.  I was grateful to be reminded of just how lucky I am to have this man.

In large ways and small, I am so blessed.

A Fool for Gourds

This one may be my favorite so far.  I think he looks a little like Peter Lorre.  :~)

Giveaway Winner!

This situation cracks me up, because with Isobel being all sweet and lacy and pastel, I went in search of my drawing winner and found her blog again.  I say again, because I remember seeing it the first time and thinking...ooh, Isobel won't be of interest here.  ;~) 

I mean...our tastes are all different to some degree right?  What appeals to one might not appeal to another.  Every artist knows this! 

But it occurs to me that my own taste is all over the place...I have "granny's attic" in a guest room, "beach boardwalk" in the front bath, "fifties kitsch" in the kitchen, and "god-only-knows" with an Art Deco slant in the living room.  Actually, a look at my Etsy store window tells it all...my DOLLS are all over the place!  And I love Shelly's art, her crazy graphic style...

Soooooo...

Guess what, Shelly?  You won!  I've emailed Shelly, and will be sending Isobel off to Middletown Ohio very soon.  I hope everybody had as much fun with the One World One Heart giveaway as I did.  New people, new blogs, new art...what's not to love? 

Have a great Thor's Day, y'all.

Gourds again!

A couple of finished dolls...

Boanne, a tiny river goddess...

Erin, even tinier lord of mischief.

Gourds!

Between the wood dolls and the gourd dolls, I've been busy.

On some earlier post, I'd mentioned finding a monster stash of doll eyes at the thrift shop.  Then there were all these gourds laying around, waiting to be turned into something interesting.  Besides, I want to submit a gourd art doll to Art Doll Quarterly's gourd challenge.  I have gourd dolls already made, but decided to make something for the occasion.

Sooooo....  I gave them eyes.  And have sculpted faces.  Oh boy have I been having fun sculpting faces! 

The end result is a sort of cross between nature totems and spirit dolls.  Although I must admit having the silly things all lined up and staring at me was a bit unnerving at first.  It's better now they have faces. 

Some WIP photos... (don't be scared.  They'll get painted later.)
One of them looks a little like Peter Lorre, doesn't he? 

Well Puppy Visit

Time to take the Schultz to his well-puppy visit today.  

Five years later, he's not exactly a puppy anymore...but then, neither am I. 

Some days, we just wanna stay home, curl up, and ignore the world.

BUTT...

 

...today we don't get to choose.
Gotta do what we gotta do...

And make the best of our blessings.

Hope you make something great of today.  

Fast times at the Hermits' Garden

I had this idea, see...wooden dowels, some leftover closet rod pieces...of course it'll work!

So I had the hubs go buy a chop saw to replace his old one (poor thing, having to buy power tools on command).  Then I bought dowel rods--I think they're all made of poplar, but I had some oak ones already.  Then I measured and marked, and erased and re-measured and re-marked...so that I had enough sections (nine per doll counting the body) for 34 dolls.

Then came the sanding to round the ends smooth.  Yeah!  That'll save lots of time!  Way smarter than doing each one by hand.  This is true.  It is much faster.  See that bit that looks like a diving board?  It's a sandpaper belt.  You stand facing that part, and goes like a conveyor belt, away from you, only reeeeelly fast.  You don't realize how fast until you touch it with your knuckle when holding a two inch piece of dowel.  Again.  And again.  Things get messy.


The husband smirks but never says I Told You out loud.

Four hours and two boxes of band-aids later, all 306 dowel sections were sanded and drilled, and the Doll Blanks were ready to go.  So I had to make a doll.  Can't have baskets of doll parts laying around and not make dolls.  It's practically a law.

I had a cat's head already made. (Why a cat?  Why not?  Another experiment involving a thrift shop find of 70 pairs of eyes.  Really.)  I'd previously intended to put it on a cloth body, but...she agreed to a wooden one.  With a little skirt made from scrap fabric, a little lace, paint, crackle, some shiny copper wire...here she is.  This is Sydney.

I learned a lot from making her...but now I need to try carving some hinge-joints in some of the dowel sections.  Why?  Because I have a Dremel, and unlike with the other tools, I'm an old hand with the Dremel.

I kinda see why they like the power tools.

Meet Marcelle.

I finished her, actually the sealer went on this morning.  Our Mini-Monthly Challenge on the ADO (art dolls only) team was a Masque theme...and as I happened to already have her 5/8th of the way finished, and knew I wanted a sort of twenties, flapper-girl follies kind of face, she decided she'd cooperate and dress for the challenge.  Nice of her, wasn't it?  I get the feeling she's not always so cooperative.

She started with a child's building block, an old wooden spoon, and a couple of clothespins.  The bottom stick of the spoon became her arms.  Paperclay did the rest.  I love paperclay.  Have I mentioned I love paperclay?

I think the mask suits her.