Tag Archives: holiday ornaments

Holiday Calendar…

Where did the time go?

To the untrained eye it appears to be the beginning of November. For someone, who creates hand crafted art items, it is holiday crunch season. Over the next two weeks, the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts hosts the preview show for the Orange County Artists Guild’s – Open Studio Tour. When that show comes down on 11/13, HGA dons its holiday attire!

Each year I create new holiday/winter themed original pieces, and bring back items that have been favorites over the years. This year, I have a bit of both, and something completely new, for a special event.

Pointing North

Polar bear anthropomorphic sculpture with snow motif. Needle felted sculpture
Polar

Polar is the latest anthropomorphic figure sculpture to step off of my work table. He follows several predecessors, both as a polar bear, and my recent series of figures with patterned surfaces. I captured this bear mid-step as he looks up to greet his viewer. His coat bears distinctive markings of swirling snowflakes. Though he is definitely a denizen of the north, I think he’d be happy to be around all year long. Polar will be arriving at HGA on November 13th.

Holiday Pop-up!

I mentioned a special event earlier. This year, along with our usual array of art and gift ideas for the holidays, HGA is planning a special event for Sunday December 10th. This event is so new, the details are still coming together. So far, we are planning extra new and interesting items, some available just for that day. Some artists will be offering specials. We will have holiday treats on hand, and are planning a gift card giveaway. Keep checking back here, and I will update you as the plans solidify.

One thing I’m doing for the Holiday Pop-up, is making some one-of-a-kind ornaments. If you’re a regular reader, you know I make needle felted puffins and polar bears each year. And, yes, I will be bringing in several of each when we install the holiday show on 11/13…

But, this year, for the Pop-Up on December 10th, I will bring in these one-of-a-kind mini-sculptures.

polar bear on skis. needle felted 1-of-a-kind ornament
Ballet dancing bunny. needle felted 1-of-a-kind ornament
Chicken with snow shoes. needle felted 1-of-a-kind ornament
Donkey with winter blanket. needle felted 1-of-a-kind ornament
Baby emperor penguin with scarf. needle felted 1-of-a-kind ornament
Reindeer with ornament and lights. needle felted 1-of-a-kind ornament
ice skating racoon named for the Roman god of winter. needle felted 1-of-a-kind ornament
Mouse with cocoa. needle felted 1-of-a-kind ornament

Please meet: Ski Bear, Sugar Plum Bunny, Gallina Nix, Domin, Cozy, Deco-Deer, Aquilo, and Cocoa 2. Each is a unique design created just for this year. They vary somewhat in size and complexity. Don’t ask now, they are not priced yet, and they will not be available until 12/10.

Old Favorites Too

As I said, I will bring in some of my “old favorites” for the holidays as well. Some of these will be available in the gallery starting November 13th.

A selection of Lynn's holiday trees. needle felted wool with glass beads, or upcycled denim with felted embellishment
needle felted Lantern houses and Christmas trees
puffin and bear ornaments holiday

Already Looks Like the Holidays

Ok, I’m a couple of weeks late this year in typing up a post about the holiday items I have available at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts. So sorry for the delay, but there is still plenty of time for you to stop by and pick out that special gift or little remenmberance.

Mice are Stirring

For the past few years I’ve created some smaller one-of-a-kind seasonal mice sculptures for the holidays. The former pieces were trios or pairs of caroling mice. This year I chose to create a couple of solo mice figures.

Coco Nightcap anthropomorphic mouse with cup of coco and a nightcap
Coco Nightcap

Coco Nightcap was the first of these two small sculptures. As you can see he was an adorable anthropomorphic mouse figure wearing a nightcap, and holding a steaming mug of coco. I said “was”, as he was purchased and has moved on to a new home.

After Coco Nightcap vacated his pedestal position, his friend For You took over. For You is a seated mouse figure holding out a brightly colored wrapped gift for you. He also features a bright purple knit cap. He is still available as of the typing of this post (in fact, I’m sitting in the gallery looking at him as I write.)

For You is an anthropomorphic mouse holding a brightly wrapped gift and wearing a purple hat
For You

A Forest of Trees

The little needle felted trees I created last year seemed to be a popular choice, so I contunued them this year with the addition of some soft sculpture ones in denim. The new denim trees are hand and machine stitched, and feature hand needle felted “ornaments” on them. The needle felted trees again are snowcapped with white wool, and decorated with hand-stitched glass bead ornaments. All of these tiny trees measure around 9-10 inches tall, and stand on a natural edge wooden base.

A selection of Lynn's trees for the holidays. needle felted wool with glass beads, or upcycled denim with felted embellishment
Holiday Trees

New ornament

In addition to my puffins and polar bears I added some baby harp seal pups. The little bundles of fluff with the big black eyes are perfect for rendering in needle felted wool and glass beads,

baby harp seal holiday ornament
Seal Pup Ornament

A number of my original anthropomorphic needle felted sculptures can always be found at HGA. I also have a few non sculpture pieces like wet felted vessels, felted handbags, and needle felted wool “paintings.” Check out the gallery website for our hours during the holidays.

Feet on the Ground is an anthropomorphic reindeer wearing snowshoes art doll holiday sculpture

Holiday Sales Sites Up!

I suggested you to check back here for links to holiday sales sites. Your patience has been rewarded. The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts online holiday show, The Art of Giving, went live yesterday at noon! Here is the link to find the gift offerings from all of the HGA artists… https://hga-store.square.site/holiday-shop

Feet on the Ground is an anthropomorphic reindeer wearing snowshoes art doll holiday sculpture
Feet on the Ground

You’ll find Feet On The Ground under Holiday Items, my puffins and polar bears under Ornaments, and my felted brooches under Jewelry.

Take time to browse around the holiday show categories, there are plenty of unique gift ideas from all of my artist partners there.

And on Etsy

I also have ornaments, brooches, bags, and one-of-a-kind needle felted original sculptures available on my Etsy shop. They can be found at… https://www.etsy.com/shop/LWSculptedShop

In the Gallery

face of Moose Call, anthropomorphic moose art doll sculpture
Moose Call close up

If you are local, you can stop in to the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts. Take in all of the amazing artwork there. Some of the items in the HGA online shop are available for pickup at the gallery after purchase.

Hope you had a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving!

Sculptures in Motion

I strive to capture movement in many of my sculptures. I’ve also managed to make a few of them move on their own. Or, at least they appear to be in motion.

I’ve recently written about the fact that transitioning work to online venues requires more than one or two good images. I’ve started providing multiple angle views, scale views, and images of work “in use.” Now, I’ve decided to have a bit of fun with stop motion animations. The hope is that using these videos on my social media can help capture a few more looks during the holidays. Having work that resembles characters from classic holiday specials helps in their creation. They are also just plain entertaining and fun, though they are rather time consuming to produce.

Puffin Pyramid

I’ll start here with the most recent. I just created this playful video of some of my puffin ornaments forming a pyramid. My puffin and polar bear ornaments will be available on my Etsy shop, the HGA online shop, and at HGA. I create them several at a time following my own original design. However, they are each truly an individual handcrafted item, all just a little bit different. This allows them to be a small, unique, and very gift-able piece of original art.

A Winter Ride in Motion

The first stop motion I produced a couple of weeks ago is a silent short for my piece titled Winter Ride. This anthropomorphic sculpture is already available on my Etsy shop, and may be on view in-person at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts soon. Winter Ride can be that future holiday heirloom, but I certainly hope whomever takes it home would want to display it year round.

Winter Ride in motion

The complete sculpture assemblage is 12 inches long, 6 inches high, and 4 inches deep. Momma bear is needle felted wool over a wire and quilt batting frame. Baby bear is needle felted wool over quilt batting form. The miniature sleigh and harness I constructed from wood craft sticks, copper coated flat wire, leather, metal brad fasteners, and jewelry findings. Both bears have hand stitched iridescent glass bead eyes.

Winter Ride anthropomorphic needle felted art doll sculpture
Winter Ride

I will be sharing both videos on various platforms over the next two months. I hope that you enjoy them, and take the time to follow the links to their sales pages.

needle felted polar bear ornament

Storm Born Sculpture and Ornaments

Creating Ornaments in the Storm

Some may find being home bound for several days as a slow moving hurricane passes very frustrating.  I am fortunate enough to currently have power and materials close at hand. This presents an opportunity to sit down to some extended workbench sessions. This time of year part of my attention turns the coming holiday season.  In addition to my art doll sculptures, I create handcrafted original ornaments and some extra jewelry for the gallery.

Iceland Inspired Ornaments

Usually, these ornaments reflect what is currently occurring in my sculpture.  One influence on the items populating my sketchbook is a recent trip to Iceland.  A charming addition to the amazing and other worldly landscape one encounters is sheep everywhere.  In response to this, I have planned both art dolls and this season’s ornaments utilizing the technique of needle felting. I am still very much in the design phase, but thought I’d share a couple of works-in-progress images.

needle felted polar bear ornament

Polar Bear Ornament

Needle felted puffin ornament

Puffin Ornament

I snapped both of these quick shots in my studio with my phone.  There is one more arctic inspired creature, a reindeer, that I’m designing.  I will refine each a bit for production efficiency, and have a selection in the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts starting in mid November.

Surface Experimentation

I was also finishing up a small completely sculpted little figure piece this week.  In stead of wigging and costuming as I do with my art dolls, I sculpted minimal clothing and hair from paperclay. I decided to do a bit of experimentation with the surface treatment of this piece. I created a “faux bronze’ finish with the layering of metallic bronze paint and a moss patina glaze.

Seated figure with faux bronze finish

Seated figure with faux bronze finish

With any luck Hurricane Florence will allow me to get a bit more accomplished today as well.

Paper Penguin papier-mâché holiday ornament

Find New Holiday Ornaments at Hillsborough Gallery

New Holiday Ornaments at HGA

Monday I added some new hand crafted holiday ornament designs to the selection at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts.  Each November, we install our holiday show titled, “The Art of Giving”, when the preview show for the open studio tour comes down.  I always add two or three types of original hand crafted ornaments to what I bring in.  For several years now, I have created copper and pierced aluminum stars and hearts, and some small snow fairy figures.  Recently, I have found myself drawn to working more and more paper and text into the creation of my art doll figure sculptures, so I decided to create some new papier-mâché holiday ornaments this year.

Paper Penguin Ornament

Paper Penguin papier-mâché holiday ornament

Paper Penguin Ornament

The first papier-mâché holiday ornament I designed is this penguin who appears to be singing.  I start by layering recycled newspaper and office paper over a balloon with a twist in the top.  After the base layers dry, I pop the balloon, and add cardboard to form the beak and wings.  Patterned scrapbooking and origami papers are applied to create the surface color and patterns.,

Balloon Rider Holiday Ornament

Balloon Rider Ornament papier-mâché and polymer clay original

Ballon Rider Ornament

My balloon rider ornaments are a design I came up with last year.  I updated them this year and used polymer clay for the little figure sculpture.  Last year I modeled the tiny balloon rider out of paperclay, but that required a wire form inside the clay figure.  The polymer clay allows me to be a bit more efficient with my time. The balloon construction is the same as the penguin body.

Ball Dancer Ornament

Ball Dancer ornament

Ball Dancer

The Ball Dancer is my third ornament design this year.  It starts with a ball I create over a balloon like the other two ornaments.  I sculpt a small dancing figure out of recycled corrugated cardboard or scraps from my studio foam core stash.  Strips of origami and scrapbooking paper complete the surface.

HGA Holiday Show

My ornaments, art doll figure sculptures, jewelry, and the beautiful work by all 22 of the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts owner/artists will be on display and available for one of a kind gift giving now through New Year’s.  Join us on Friday, November 24th for the holiday show’s opening reception from 6-9pm for some decidedly non-stressed “Black Friday” holiday shopping.

Holiday Treats and a Circle

I have mostly been busy creating items for the gallery for the holidays the past few weeks. Along with new art doll sculptures this includes a few extra jewelry creations, and several types of ornaments. Even though these are smaller pieces that I make several of at a time, I do hand craft each as a distinct original piece.

holiday ornaments and ornament cards

ornaments and ornament cards

I think that my “ornament cards” illustrate this best. The small metal repouseé panel that is on each starts out as a piece of blank tooling foil. I sketch a design on each with a dry erase marker, and then use a variety of stylus tools to shape the design front and back to create a relief sculpture. A sparkly card stock backing is then attached by edging the two panels together with metal foil tape.  With the addition of an eyelet, a hanging ribbon, and attached to a card it becomes both a greeting and a gift.

I also forge copper stars and hearts from copper stock, and pierced aluminum. These are finished with a variety of found objects from my steampunk-y materials stash.

This year I wanted to add an ornament with a nod to my art dolls. I created the little “snowflake dancers” you see in the photo. Each starts out with a wooden bead and a couple of pieces of twisted wire. Brads for eyes, tinsel hair, a wrapped yarn leotard, and skirts of copper and tulle complete these miniature hanging dolls.

My latest art doll is also a hanging piece. Following our first ever Juried art show at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts (more on that in a couple of weeks); HGA will host “Art All Around” in January. This gallery group show will feature works that in turn feature circles.

art doll Cirque III

Cirque III

My piece for the show is “Cirque III”, she is the third in a series of aerialist dolls fashioned in the style of a “cirque” type circus. This doll I purposely balanced and positioned so that while hanging, the slightest breeze or air movement will cause her to move in a circular plane. This of course made photographing her all the more of a challenge, but I do like the effect. She will be in the gallery starting the last week of January.