Super Hero and Villain Progress

I have been working on my super heroes and villains for the All Dolled Up exhibit that I am both curating and participating in.  The show is less than 2 months away.  I am very much looking forward to seeing my co-softie makers work up close, and touching it with my hands after admiring it on the internet for years.  I agreed to do an hour long lecture after the opening.  I am very surprised by that last sentence.  It would be more reasonable for me to have written, "I agreed to do an hour long lecture after the opening, after drinking 2 bottles of wine."  But, I was completely sober and now I need to make it happen.  I am very nervous that I will be boring, and I also have a lesser, more irrational fear that students are going to tweet to one another about my butt being big.  Then, everyone will laugh simultaneously and walk out.  I'm not really concerned about that, I just needed to insert some comic relief to make myself feel better.  So, to prepare for the lecture, I decided to write out what I was going to say on this blog, that way I can get all of my images together for the Power Point (sophisticated!) presentation and also (hopefully), you can help me by telling me what parts are terribly boring, what parts need elaborating on and what parts would benefit from the addition of pyrotechnics.  I am just going to keep it very down to earth and talk about my journey through art school (this is a lecture for art students (mainly) at Vincennes University), post-school shenanigans, how I began sewing dolls, and also the bios and backgrounds of the other artists in the show.  My face is red now after  writing this, not the best of signs! 

STUFFED (!)

Peek-a-boo

Thank you so much to the lovely people at STUFFED magazine for publishing three of my stuffed friends.  They are famous now.  What if the fame goes to their head and they start demanding little stuffed lattes from me?

Merry Christmas

I hope you all have twinkles in your eyes all day today. Merry Christmas and thank you so much for reading.

Sketches and a Masking Tape Railroad

It's going to be a handmade holiday gift giving year for us. It's fun for me, and really our only option after a baby's broken arm and bad, private insurance. I hope the recipient's like their gifts. They involve felted sweaters turned into body-part warmers (sounds kinky, but no, I am just trying to be vague in case the recipients peek at the ole blog), photo contraptions, stenciled t-shirts (FUN), and special fluffy bed adornments (again, trying to be vague).

In between those projects and during Walter's napping sessions, I have been planning some new dolls for an exhibit I am curating and also taking part in. More on that and the lovely participants later. I wanted to do something thematic for the show, so I settled on Villains and Super Heroes. Here are a few sketches. I want to keep things simple, but also I want some extra detail to make these dudes (and dudettes) special. Also, I am not married to the idea, so it may change. However, I was really inspired by these photos of old super hero costumes---click here to see them.
I like the idea of my villains already in their jail garb, but fancified (bow-tie). I really am into the sketch below of the guy in the half bear mask and furry unitard. You know that when he is done fighting crime that he drinks a bottle of merlot in front of a fire place in his super hero cabin.


Lastly, it is a jittery time for my family. We are waiting for some news that could either bring some immediate change or not. Waiting is not one of my strong suites. Although, it does make me very productive in non-productive types of things. Today, my play time with Walter became very involved. We made masking tape choo-choo tracks going through multiple rooms. At one point the giraffe shown below functioned as a type of tunnel. Wild fun.

Ziggy

Ziggy can roar like a dinosaur. He is certain that his roars are louder and more fierce, but it can't be proven because there are no recordings of dinosaur roars. But, he is still certain based on a gut feeling, which his mother tells him always to trust. Ziggy loves his mom more than a T-Rex is super-huge. He loves her to the moon and back. When she asks him to roar like a dinosaur for her, he inhales really big, so his belly stretches out and then he opens his mouth and lets a ginormous "Roar!" rumble out. She gets the loudest roars because she is awesome.

Ziggy is headed to a friend (thanks Ellen) who is giving him to her nephew. He is made of soft, huggable fleece which is a fabric I haven't used in awhile. It sews like butter! Like buttah!

Herman

Herman believes in peace at all cost. When people speak with voices raised, he solemnly holds up his two fingers in a peace sign in the hopes that the arguing parties will notice and then lower their voices and hug. They usually don’t notice though. So, Herman now wears a ridiculous furry bear mask on his head in an effort to call attention to his peaceful ways. Now, not only do people take notice of him more, aggression has gone down drastically. He thinks it’s because people are too busy laughing at his outfit. That’s okay.

Herman is for a great customer of mine that lives in Canada. I have two super awesome Canadian customers. They are so great they make me want to tattoo a red maple leaf on my back and eat some Canadian bacon! And, I am vegetarian, so that is saying something. Truthfully, I am not sure what Canadian bacon is... Is it simply bacon made from Canadian pigs? That can't be right.

I have been thinking a lot about Pink Cheeks Studios. Market season was fun, but I do much better online, I think because people usually go to these markets to buy smaller gifts and my prices are usually higher than people want to spend on their nephews, no matter how special their nephews are. I can relate. I like to support the handmade movement, but I am at the economic level where I am supporting the soap makers, but only offering my compliments to the painters and jewelry makers. I put a lot of care and love into my dolls, and I don't want to change that---care-less, and then lower my prices to sell more. That seems like it would upset the stuffie muses. I still really enjoy Markets, even though this season was just so-so. It's great to be in the three-dimensional world and away from the screen and mouse clicking. I like seeing peoples eyes when they are excited about what I make. My favorite is when people run through an assortment of emotions in a matter of seconds:

Seconds 1-3 = bafflement
Seconds 4-5 = wonderment
Seconds 6-10 = amusement

It's a little disheartening when people simply get to the bafflement stage and then march on to find a hand knit scarf for their Auntie Bess, but that's okay too. Life has been strange, but I am glad I have the luxury to sell Pink Cheeks as a job. I am more comfortable walking around with a giant trunk full of stuffed stumpy mustached gentlemen and little deer ladies while wearing my holey sneakers than I would be carrying a briefcase while wearing pumps. It's so fun. This is quite a tangent that I have been on, and I did have a point when it started, but now it doesn't seem to relate to everything I just wrote. Is this what happens when you spend all day with a toddler? My point was going to be that I wanted to make more mobiles and have an entire mobile line. One that would involve more than 2 mobiles (like my pillow line [which involves only 2 pillows, both drastically reduced in price and in my Etsy shop ((I need to make room for my new mobile line!))]).

Also, I just finished book one of Game of Thrones! So. Much. Fun.

Holly Jolly

Market season is officially over! Woo Hoo! It was over for Walter about a month ago as you can see. He maybe had patience for about 5 minutes into the Bloomington Handmade Market which was my first of three. You can see the evidence above.


This past weekend was Christmas in New Harmony which is this adorable town about an hour south of where I live. I just discovered it a few months ago. It is a magical, special place. It's like some sort of oasis in the mid-west. I participated in the Artisan market which was held in their Granary. I changed up my display after fierce display envy at previous markets. I wanted to have a subtle, soft forest environment for my Pink Cheeks. I like it a lot, but I am planning on re-doing it and making the trees taller because they get hidden behind my cuddly pink-cheeked friends. The market was wonderful. All the other vendors were delightful and I spent the entire time laughing and eating cake balls which were being sold one level down from me.


The ceiling of the Granary was beautiful:


Also one level down was Santa and Mrs. Claus. In between groups of kids I caught Santa taking a snooze. I don't blame him, it's a busy time of year.

I have several orphaned Pink Cheeks up in my Etsy shop. From now until Christmas you can get 10% off by entering the coupon code: hollyjolly. Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanza and Happy
Hanukka!