Travis, the Malendolly :D

Art Dolls, Completed Dolls, Uncategorized, Work in Progress

 

So here’s an update on this piece. He was originally going to be a commission for another artist, but that fell through by the time I was just about done with him. I decided to finish working on this piece since I don’t have too many male dolls under my belt. The biggest challenge for me with working on guy dolls is the styling, there’s very little room to hide imperfections. The clothing such as pants and shirts have to be pretty much tailored to fit, unlike a dress that can be loosely wrapped around and sewn in place. Another thing that I don’t bother too much with is the ears or the head shape. Most of the time I just put hair on my pieces, so getting the shape of the back of the head to be perfect and creating ears isn’t usually a concern for me. I am also terrible at sewing, so I find the notion of making pants extremely intimidating.  With this piece I had to just face my fears, whip out the sewing machine, figure out how to thread it without help from mom, put my big girl pants on and get the job done. I must say that I love the way he came out, I need to get more practice in with creating more MALEndollies!

Eastern State Penitentiary, PA

Uncategorized

This weekend, I took a trip down to Philadelphia to check out an artist opportunity in their state prison. It has been out of commission since the seventies, and a non-profit took it over to allow people to take tours to learn more about it. In addition, the organization has been inviting artists to work on installations that deal with issues that are related to prison such as reform, life in prison and who is more likely to end up there. If an artist is chosen, they are given a stipend and a full prison cell to create their installation that will occupy the space for 2 years. This is by far, hands down, one of the creepiest places that I’ve ever visited, but I am will to accept the challenge if my proposal is chosen. Wish me luck!

More Experimenting

Art Dolls, Uncategorized, Work in Progress

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A cement sculpture that I colored with red acrylic paint. I’ve read in places that there are pigment dyes to color cement with, but I found them to be a bit expensive. I’m not sure if the paint that I used will break down the structure of the cement down the line, but I know that it didn’t hinder the cement curing process. I later added a layer of Bondo car body filler to test out the texture and see how it would perform outdoors. Seems to be fine so far and I love how smooth this stuff sands down. I will be posting more photos of my research as I find out more information!