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.

Happy Easter Everyone!

I hope you have a wonderful Easter with lots of family, friends, and chocolate!

Castle in the Air

The day after the Hallowe'en and Vine show last September, Amelia Schaefer, Tracy Dombroski, Lori Rudolph, and myself stopped of at Berkley on our way to San Francisco. We were window shopping but also were looking for supplies for future work. Everyone asked if I minded going to "Castle in the Air". I had never heard of it but said not to worry I would go where ever everyone else went.

I am so glad that I was taken there! This charming window display greeted us as we entered the store.

Just to warn you, this is going to be a long blog post. There was so much to look at and so much to photograph that it was hard to cut out excess photos.

The first thing that you see when you enter the store is this antique shelving unit filled with German toys.

They have pens, inks, calligraphy books...

and sealing wax in a rainbow of colours!

There is German crepe paper in a dizzying array of colours. Those bundles wrapped in gold ribbon are antique crepe paper streamers. The streamers are 3" and 5" wide, I think, with a 1/4" gold paper band sewn along the centre. I covet those I will confess. They are not inexpensive but I still would love them, so instead I will use them as inspiration for my work.

You can take a course on how to make faux candy.

Their card display was decorated with giant gold card Dresden trim, those lovely antique garlands, Giant handmade crepe paper flowers, and vintage silk lanterns.

 Here is a close-up of the central part of the display, I love it!

Everywhere you look is something else to purchase or use for inspiration. I had next to no room in my luggage or I would have bought some wonderful goodies

The store presentation of the merchandise is top notch.

There is enough cotton batting fruit from Germany to fill a faux fruit stall. Up in behind the glass canisters of fruit is more of the card Dresden trim from Germany.

That bird mask is wonderful but I want a pair or two of those wings!

Vintage millenary flowers, feathers, and cotton fruit from Germany for sale.

There are skeins and rolls of East Indian ribbon to entice you.

In behind the cash desk are handmade crepe paper roses...

vintage blown glass bead and floral crowns, fairy lamps, and many other delightful handmade curios.

Upstairs in the gallery are samples of work done by instructors of some of the classes. This botanical study is about 3' high and is made from the German crepe paper the shop sells.

Here is another botanical study.

All of these birds under the glass domes on the table are referred to as Vegan taxidermy, they are created with the same German crepe paper as is used to make flowers.

Ornate antique Mardi Gras style jewelry created from German Dresden scraps, beads, and chains.

A santos figure with a seaside theme.

This vignette of a shepherd and his sheep under a glass dome looks like it has been caught in time.

When you reach the top of the stairs to the gallery and turn to face the street there is this lovely huge carved lion facing you.

On the wall that leads up to the gallery are examples of marionettes and theatre vignettes.

Castle in the Air is located in Berkeley, California at 1805 4th Street.