Tag Archives: steampunk

Art Doll Getting Ready

Where is this art doll off to?

This week I completed “Getting Ready”. This art doll is obviously on her way to somewhere very important, but not quite set to go. I’m sure she’d like to have her dress ready too, but her undergarments are pretty interesting all on their own. Besides, her attention seems to be firmly concentrated on her hair at the moment.

Getting Ready

I may change the mirror she is holding a bit. It is one of those details that you need to look at before you feel it is exactly what you want for a piece. Sometimes time and distance are the most useful items you have in your toolbox. I can’t even recall the number of pieces I’ve changed or even completely reworked before they appeared in the gallery. A couple of the dolls that will appear in my feature show in May are very different beings now compared to what they were a few months earlier.

back view of Getting Ready

As you can see, Getting Ready is tightly laced up, and even has a little bit of boost for her bustle. I worked more metal through her shoulders and bust line and defined her waist with soft sculpting techniques. These shapes are created through costuming with most of my other art dolls.

I’m still left wondering where she and her striped stockings are off to next.

Art Doll Cometh

Snow Day

“Snow Day” is an art doll sculpture born from a string of snowed in days. Normally, each of my figures starts life in my metal studio where I hammer a face out of copper stock, and forge hands from copper tubing and wire. A couple of abnormally cold and snowy weeks kept my garage metal studio a bit cooler than I like to do this small scale metal forming.

During one of these days I remembered I had a stash of polymer clay. I decided to create a face that could be stitched on to a bit larger scale cloth doll. This doll body I created in the same manner as my very first figure sculpture to cross into art doll territory, “No Rag Doll”, with a soft sewn body over a posable wire frame.

The nordic theme of the doll came out of the weather on the days in which I created her, and the addition of iridescent clay into her face that lends a slightly frosted appearance. I had all of the fabrics and trims used on hand in my studio, and she came together quite smoothly, but seemed somewhat incomplete when I finished her clothing.

I noticed that this art doll could stand unaided. I had enhanced the ability to balance for several of my other art dolls with the addition of a staff, or walking stick. “Snow Days” snow shoes and ski poles were born from that bit of brainstorming.

“Snow Day” will most likely stay in my studio until my feature show at the end of May, though I may be convinced to bring her to the gallery earlier while she still matches the season.

Art Dolls and Patience

Now that the winter holidays and working on extra jewelry pieces for Valentine’s Day has past, my attention turns to putting together my feature artist show for the gallery. This year, I will be part of the show opening at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts on the last Friday of May .

One of the challenges of this preparation is holding back recently completed pieces until the installation of the show. This is where blogging about what is going on in the studio is very helpful. I can share previews of the work without having to succumb to the urge to bring it in to the gallery right away.

Two of my most recently completed art doll sculptures are “Spring” and “psyche-Delia”. I will take the time to tell you more about them and their companions who are as yet just sketches when show date nears. For now, I just thought I’d let you get a peek at them devoid of any artist commentary.

psyche-Delia

Spring

Let me know what you think.

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.

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.

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.

Mermaid’s Song

Mermaid Song

Mermaid Song is my newest art doll. For an earlier mermaid doll I forged an all copper tail. I decided allow materials to drive creation with this siren of the deep. I source some materials for my work at a local “creative reuse” center known as the Scrap Exchange. Upholstery samples provide a great inspiration starting point. Within a stack of faux-leathers I had several colors of materials with a dappled pattern impression. They reminded me of fish scales, and called to be part of a new mermaid doll.

I tried some other new things with the construction of this sculpture. Along with my last, “Barre-ing Degas”, this doll has hands created from a narrower diameter copper tubing. I think this brings the hands into better proportion with the rest of the doll. It does require I work to an even more exacting tolerance when cutting fingers in the end of the tube I flatten to form the palm and fingers. Another new technique I employed was making a small sandbag to include within the doll to ensure that she would sit up while still having her head tipped back singing.

Mermaid Song will be off to the gallery soon.

Art Dolls Around the Gallery

I find myself working at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts today. I always try to take images of the art around the gallery when I’m here, and make posts to share all the wonderful work a visitor may discover. More often than not, I take shots of the work of artists other than myself. Today I thought I would walk around and look at my art dolls with the eyes of a visitor to the gallery.

Nobody’s Fool

Nobody’s Fool is sitting on a high pedestal grouped together with others that all have art dolls on them. She appears to be holding court from that position.

Future Thoughts

Future Thoughts is sitting in the gallery’s front window. From this angle she appears to be a bit sceptical of the viewer. Good thing most visitors look at her from the front through the window.

Fly Girl

Fly Girl stands beside a beautiful carved pottery vase.

Bird Girl

From this angle, I think that my art doll Bird Girl looks a bit surprised that you can look down upon her swing.

Lily

Lily is perched on a shadow box on the wall in the print room where along with cards and prints, a visitor to HGA can find an example of work from each of the member artists and handy bio-cards that describe the work of each.

Steam

Steam is in the same pedestal grouping of art dolls as Nobody’s Fool. She looks commanding as well.

Ziggy

Art doll ZIggy adds a bit of sparkle to a pedestal by the wall.

There are a few more of both my art dolls and other sculptures around the gallery, but I guess you’ll have to stop by to see the rest.

“Barre-ing” Degas

My latest art doll is “Barre-ing Degas”, and yes, she is a steampunk riff on one of Edgar’s Degas’ dancer pieces titled “Dancer at the Barre.” I like the behind-the-scenes casual feel of that painting. The young dancer pictured is not performing some grand athletic move, or spectacularly costumed. She is instead relaxed against the barre and appears to be contemplating the angle of turn out of her foot. You get the feeling that you are looking at a candid photograph rather than a posed composition.

Barre-ing Degas

My figure has a few more bells and whistles (gears and rivets, actually) in her attire, but in her defense, she is much smaller and needs to work harder to attract attention.

Where Did That Post Go?

As I was adding some images to my Art Doll page, I noticed that the post being shown as my most recent, was from a couple of weeks prior. My last post “A Pair and Repair” was back in the draft folder. Now, I’m not sure how that happened, but I’m guessing it occurred somewhere between using a laptop to do one thing, a tablet another, and updating in between the two. So, I decided to share the new piece from this week, and re-share last week’s too.

This is Nobody’s Fool, and you can see she is just that. Stitching the hat was the greatest challenge with this art doll. I actually made two, as the first wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be.

Nobody’s Fool

Last Week, I shared “Future Thoughts”. It is the second in a series. This piece takes the concept of looking forward while keeping an eye on the past (“Driving in Reverse”, the first in the series) a step further and is concentrating firmly on the future.

Future Thoughts

The second art doll from last week was “Fly Girl”, decked out in her brass goggle steampunk finest.

Fly GIrl

I also gave an update on my three out-door Garden Dolls at the UNC Botanical Gardens show. Two required some minor repairs, as overly interested visitors tried to remove parts and pieces. One of the three, “Tend” has already sold and will be going to a new home when the show closes.

More Work in Progress

The next steps in creating my art dolls depend on where and how the sculptures will ultimately be displayed. I have been working on both outdoor “garden dolls” and some new pedestal top pieces for gallery display.

A garden sculpture obviously needs to be constructed to withstand the elements, and live happily outdoors. The skeleton of the figure below titled “Tend” will be kneeling in a garden space tending to the plants around her. Her dress will consist of cast concrete that will fill up the chicken wire frame.

Skeleton form of garden doll “Tend”

“Contemplate” is a gallery doll that is a reimagined version of an earlier piece titled “Driving in Reverse.” This steampunk styled doll has a padded wire skeleton and hand stitched clothing. A pair of boots and some additional mechanical elements will complete this piece.

Art doll "Contemplate" still under construction.

Art doll “Contemplate” thinking now about some shoes and accessories.

Next time… some finished pieces to look at.

Back to the Gallery

My weekend forray to the land of re-born baby dolls was an interesting experience. I must admit that the ultra realistic baby dolls there were not my cup of tea, but there does seem to be a very dedicated group that practices the craft and/or collects the “babies” as they refer to them. My sculptured art dolls were most definitely different from everything else there, and they did receive a very positive response from those walking around the exhibit floor.

Yesterday, several of my pieces returned to their usual venue, the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts. They do look much more at home atop their pedestals than all grouped together on a table. With a little visual room the viewer is allowed more time to take in all the details of each figure.

Steam wall display

I did take the time to do something different with the display of one of the returning dolls. In the gallery we have a room that we use to display member artists’ printed pieces like prints, note cards, books etc. Along the walls of this room, we have acrylic card holders that hold artist bio cards for visitors to help themselves. Above each card bin there is a bit of wall space where each of us can display one or two small works.

I usually hang a mixed media wall sculpture, but this month I decided to put one of my seated art dolls there. Steam looks pretty comfortable atop her shadow box display, and the interior of the box provides a great space to store the display block she usually perches on, and her information label.

Now it is time to get back into the studio and create a few more pieces for my featured artist show that opens at the end of July. I’ll be sure to give you a sneak peek right here.

Wartski Art Dolls and Sculpture

Art dolls and mixed media sculpture