I have spent the morning finishing off some drawings, above are three animal ink drawings. Then three woodland children and three Hollywood inspired drawings. I have also made a lovely group of traditional peg dolls that I will try to photograph today although the weather is rather grim and the light very grey.
These are some dolls I am working on alongside the painted and embroidered dolls, they are the same size but have printed faces. The little Pierrot and lady in a felt hat are even smaller, hand size.
When the children are away I get a chance to think. I carry a lot of my ideas around in my head and on scraps of paper, if I find time they might make it into a sketch book. But this is the time, when the house is quiet that I can let those ideas start to grow and formulate. The bears and rabbits have waited for a while with lots of unresolved details, yesterday between cups of coffee and reading the newspaper (this is my weekend off!) I began to put them together, in fact the luxury of quiet uninterrupted hours is blissful, I never stop thinking about my work but it is often in the quiet moments reading the newspaper that I look over at a doll or drawing and know what it is I want to do.
These are pictures from yesterday so I will post more images of these tomorrow, as I have nearly completed them today, I have also been working on a pattern for cats and other animals. These new characters are similar to Mr Fox who was made from wool felt, I want to work out a cloth version and so far they are looking pretty good, pictures tomorrow, it gets dark so early now! I have to remember to take photos in the morning.
I have worked on these dolls over the past couple of weeks, I’m hoping to have a couple finished for the weekend when I visit Liberty’s in London. Their bodies are made from vintage cashmere inherited from my mums dressmaking business. The faces are printed on cotton from my drawings.
Everything is a bit crazy at the moment, trying to keep the kids entertained in hot muggy weather and with dwindling funds, working part time and keeping all the child care organised, working as much as I can on my Etsy shop, keeping it up to date, posting orders as well as some messy family stuff that is truly horrible and not something to darken the pages of my blog with.
So among all of this I am trying to keep up to date with my work, new designs for the shop, autumn & christmas ideas need to be finalised soon. These cloth dolls are what I have worked on this week as I want to have a couple of these to take up to London for the Liberty’s new designer open day in a couple of weeks. I’m also waiting to hear about the London Renegade craft show, so fingers crossed on that one.
These are made from cashmere inherited from my mums dressmaking business. The faces are printed cotton from my drawings, the large pink buttons are made from polymer clay.
Yesterday the kids and I hopped on the train to Bath, it was a gloriously sunny day, we strolled by the canal, went to the Holburne museum to see Peter Blakes A Museum for myself which was great fun and then sat in the Parade gardens and had cream teas, it was a welcome break from all the stress. I forgot to take my camera!! here is a link to flickr where someone else has taken a lovely picture.
On to work, here are the early stages of my Victorian children clay brooches inspired by this book.
And some felt brooches in progress, several new designs, I hope to list some of these later today in my Etsy shop.
Circus Cat above and Baby Elvis below.
Boy and Old Bear below.
I packaged up a couple of orders this morning and popped to the post office, I also had a Bristol customer collect her Rachel rabbit clay brooch. So a good start to the day, then back to my little canvases for some more painting. Still just playing around and re acquainting myself with the medium. It’s been fun to just translate some of my drawn characters into paint, I don’t try to copy a drawing but use it as a starting point and see where it goes.
I would like to do a couple more paintings and whilst they dry get on with some new brooches, both the clay and the felt/ shrink plastic. I also have a lot of finished items to list in my shops, so keep checking here for updates. I’m undecided about what exactly should go into the new Big Cartel shop and may take a little longer to complete this one, but Etsy should have new stock soon.
I worked on the little grey bear, the flying boy and a bit more work on the girl in red, I haven’t measured the canvases but think they are 4 or 5″ square. I don’t think I’ll really get to grips with my painting ‘style’ until I move on to slightly larger canvases, I tend to have strange narratives going on in my work, so the small canvases can only hint at this, I have a couple of ideas brewing for larger works.
