Tag Archives: turtle

More Lights

1 Reply

New holiday ornaments

I’ll start with the new lights. For the past few years I have created “Solstice Lantern Houses” for the holidays. These little structures have white walls and colorful roofs. I place battery powered tea lights inside each house. The glow from the “candles” shine through the windows and doors, and make the walls softly glow. The balloon lights I purchased for Holly & Mistletoe provide me with an even more versatile light source to play with. I decided to use them to make an ornament sized version of my lantern houses. Another artist sometimes creates little house ornaments, and I thought that the two might be too similar. So, I instead went magical with my design. The result are Elf Cottage Ornaments, They are just the type of fairytale abode you might expect Santa’s helpers to dwell in.

needle felted elf cottage holiday ornamets with balloon lights
Elf Cottages
needle felted elf cottage holiday ornamets with balloon lights
Elf Cottage Lights On

Each cottage is slightly different. They have multiple window openings to allow light to shine through, and their small size allows me to keep the walls relatively thin. This enables the walls to glow as well. The switch for each balloon light is on the bottom of the house so the light can be turned on and off. The cottages are needle felted wool, with a base of foam core covered in sticky felt. The base is sewn and felted in place.

No Lights on Speedy

needle felted anthropomorphic turtle ornament with holiday package
Speedy

Speedy is my latest one-of-a-kind ornament. As you can see he is a little turtle with a present to deliver. Speedy is needle felted wool with iridescent glass bead eyes. He will be conveying his parcel to its recipient soon.

Some More Fungi

I will drop off a couple of additional mushroom mini-sculptures to HGA later this week. They don’t seem to hang around the gallery long. This week’s offerings are Mush 6 and Morell Wave. Like thier predecessors, they are needle felted wool over a wood (chopstick) core with a natural wood slice base. Each has iridescent glass bead eyes.

needle felted anthropomorphic mushroom mini-sculpture, magenta with orange polka dots
Mush 6
needle felted anthropomorphic morell mushroom mini-sculpture with waving arms
Morell Wave

Adapting On The Fly

I found myself staring at the keyboard for some time today. It wasn’t a case of writer’s block, but more along the lines of not knowing exactly where to begin. Along with creating and introducing new work, I’m adapting to an ever changing landscape for sharing and showing my sculpture. I should be at The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts right now installing my Featured Artist show, and the opening reception would have been this Friday evening during the Last Friday Art Walk. Of course, none of that is happening now. Instead, my show will open online Friday on the gallery website. That in itself is a bit anticlimactic for anyone reading these posts regularly. I’ve shared most of my new anthropomorphic art doll sculptures with you, and they can be seen on my Available for Purchase page right now.

Three New Friends Today

Stroll anthropomorphic art doll
Stroll

Stroll is another of those pieces that looks like he stepped right out of the pages of a storybook. He features a handsome walking stick that provides a him stability to stand on his own, and also appear to be in motion. The bright dotted pattern of his tie playfully reflects his own spotted patterning. His brightly colored waistcoat features embroidered embellishment.

Out of Water anthropomorphic art doll
Out of Water

I created Out of Water in different sequence from most of these sculptures. I didn’t have an idea of the complete composition to begin with, just the koi itself. Sometimes I like to let the figure take the lead and tell me where to go. Her Japanese parasol was a fun construction challenge, and presents a nice color contrast to the fish itself.

Secrets Locked anthropomorphic art doll
Secrets Locked

Secrets Locked is a quiet little piece. Turtle shells are such unique examples of nature’s engineering. They readily lend themselves to imagining other or additional purposes. My turtle serves as a lockbox for one’s secrets. He has several different types of locks’ and doors and gates. His hat style is borrowed from a woodblock print described as depicting a medieval locksmith.

Adapting the Gallery.

As I mentioned already, my Featured Artists show with Nell Chandler and Michele Yellin, Three Narratives, opens this Friday on the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts website. The HGA site should soon have several choices for you to view and purchase art. We are still working on and shaping how those all will look and work. I will share links and information as soon as we have it all worked out and up and running.