Really Scary Costumes - part 1

About a month or so ago I was talking with Jack and Black Cat about making some really scary costumes, well needless to say it took off from there. Marty of "Marty's Mercantile and Great Goods" came up with this costume. At first I didn't think that this costume was very scary but then I realized that if you are a vegetable, a lot of my friends are, a caterpillar is scary.

I must go back to the studio and work. Black Cat and Jack have finished their costume so I will show it to you in the next post in a few days.

Another piece for Hallowe'en and Vine

I wanted to show you one the latest pieces for Hallowe'en and Vine. There are still a few areas to touch up on it but here it is.

The piece is called, "Decorating for the Costume Ball". It stands 17" high. The JOL has a handmade fabric collar and cotton bow tie. I was thinking for a short moment of giving him cuffs but decided not to, he would have looked too much like a Chippendale dancer.

There will be more posts of pieces as they get finished. I have about 6 figures that I am working on at the moment. There are also "Some Really Scary Costumes" coming up as well.

Well this was a short update so back to the studio!

Book inspiration and some paper lanterns.

Last year I bought some books that I had been wanting for several years. I love children's books, and books with a lot of pictures.

One of those books was a picture book called "The Truth About Jack-O-Lanterns" published by Green Tiger Press. This book has been in print since 2006. They have also published  "The Truth About Easter Rabbits" and "The Truth About Snow-People", both of which I now own. The books are created using vintage and antique illustrations to show the likes, dislikes and the daily routine of each subject. There are one and sometimes two illustrations per page so it is a great inspiration source.

This image has been a source for quite a few ideas. It is the feeling of fun and childhood innocence that I find so inspiring as well as those paper lanterns.

Here is another page from the book. The bottom image is the one that is so intriguing, that garland is wonderful.

Years ago I borrowed a book from the library about Japanese crafts. In the book was a section on how the paper and cane lanterns were made, unfortunately I did not photocopy the directions. I have forgotten the name of the book and have tried to find it ever since. These small paper lanterns are made to look like a large size rice paper lantern. I am very pleased with them. They will be held by a large figure in the process of decorating for the costume ball.

I must get back to work. I will post items as I have time.

A mini update.

This is just a quick update about how things are progressing in the studio. I work on a whole lot of the same thing at one time, I think(?) it saves me time working this way. So when I am working on things that tend to be detailed not a lot seems to be getting done over a week or so, think making fingers, then hands, applying papier-mache, making toes, making feet, and finally applying papier-mache to the feet. It doesn't make for an exciting blog post.

Here is a photo of the way that I go about building the feet for my standing characters. Everything is wired together and then papier- mache placed over the wire armatures. The two wire prongs at the bottom of the feet will be glued into holes in the base that the figure stands on.

That is about all for now, I'll keep you updated as to goings on in and about the studio. I also haven't mentioned much at all about Black Cat and Jack for quite a while. Black Cat pointed this out to me the other day. Check these 4 links if you are not familiar with my two friends - link 1, link 2, link 3, and link 4.  I must get back to work.

Another studio update!

Here I am, back again with more pictures of my studio goings on. I am feeling rather full of myself at the moment, this is my second blog post in a week! After my hiatus I figure this is great.

Here are a few of the figures in the works. The old man on the left is going to be the Man-in-the-Moon. He will be sitting on a large crescent moon. This sculpture keeps getting more intriguing as I am thinking/designing/physically working on it.

The two squash guys... I have no idea what they will be up. Well, that is not exactly true, one will be... no you'll have to see in a later post.

In 2009 Amelia Schaefer, Lori Rudolph, and myself did an online sale called "Trick or Treat Street". One section of the items that I had for sale were characters from the Man-in-the-Moon's magic show called "Princess Rosamund and the Attack of the Pie Zombies". I was originally going to have three pie zombies but time constraints allowed me to only produce one. The papier-mache pie shells have been on my studio table for the last two years. I will have two pies this year, a pumpkin pie and a cherry pie.

I did check with Amelia Schaefer about doing the pie zombies because she does wonderful figures and ornaments all based on candy, cakes, pies, and ice cream. I did not want to infringe on her area of expertise. She didn't mind at all and said that everyone interprets things differently. While I am talking about Amelia's work, check out her work at "Sweet B Folk Art", you won't be disappointed. Then go over and check out Lori Rudolph of "Retro Rudolph's", she is one talented lady. Don't leave just yet, I have more to show you!

I am making 6 party horns. As you will see from following pictures I never stop at a simple party horn. They make a wonderfully loud, for a party horn, siren noise.

I took this picture at the beginning of the week, a lot of fingers, hands, and arms. After testing the finished hands with the size of the party horns I found that they were too small, they will be used on other figures.

More fingers! At the bottom centre you can see the finished hands from the previous image plus the larger fingers/hands for the party horns. There are also wires lying on the table waiting to be bent, wrapped, and glued, ready to be assembled into larger hands for the figures in the oval frames. Have a look at this previous post about the oval frames.

I forgot to make fingers for the pie zombie. I have five finished, so all I have to make is five more.

On the subject of making fingers, you do realize... of course you do, that each figure has ten fingers. So far I have made 150 fingers! That is a lot of fingers, but they look so good on the finished figures.

This last paragraph has so many "f's" in it that if you were to say it out loud you would possibly have drool running down your face! On that note I had better get back to work.

A very late studio update!

My goodness, it has been over 7 weeks since I last posted on my blog! A while back I mentioned that I was going to be consistent with my blog posts, I suppose I will have to work on that one! I have been busy but there wasn't a whole lot to show you that I thought may be very interesting. I generally work on quite a few pieces at a time so I now have basic sculptures to show you... in my next post!

I want to show what I picked up at Salvation Army a while back, this plastic set of drawers almost full DMC cotton in the most wonderful colours. This is a sample of the colours, there are more in behind the ones that you see in the picture. All of the cotton cost about 50 cents a ball.

I will be adding handmade cording and tassels to anything that stands still, even for a moment! The salesman in the magic shop has handmade cording and a handmade tassel added to his cloth fez. Go to this link to see the finished sculpture.

I made as short piece of cord with wooden bell shaped ends to add a little bit more detail to this figure. Go to my Etsy shop to purchase this sculpture. While you are visiting my Happy Holidays Facebook page have a look around and "like" it if you feel so inclined.

Before I forget, my Happy Holidays website is down. The web server resonsible for happyholidays.ca suffered hard drive failure. Due to a problem with its backup archive. The data on the hard drive was unfortunately unrecoverable. The backups that were made were also corrupted. Management intends on contacting a third party company to attempt to have the data from the platters recovered, if at all possible. Evidently what may be recovered will be corrupted. We have a backup here but I have been wanting to revamp the site so I suppose now is as good a time as any. It will be a while before it is up and running again.

I had better get back to work. I will be back soon with another post.