Family Statue progress

This piece is almost finished.  Need to make some clay to finish the base and add some repair work here and there of cracks from drying. Then I will apply gesso, paint and sealer,
I am very pleased with how this came out considering it is the first time I have ever tried to do anything like it!

My grandson suggested a mohawk for the child standing and I liked it when I tried it so thanks Myles!

 I love braids so knew this woman needed to have one :-)

 I really like the simplicity of this. The "story" is left to the viewers since I didn't supply any clues by adding facial features. Are they happy? Sad? What do you see when you look at it?

Be on the lookout for more sculptures, I have already started my next piece!

Time to finish this statue!

Gathered up this family sculpture, the clay and the sculpting tools, (NOT that I know how to sculpt, but lack of knowledge has never stopped me before!!) now just need to find some uninterrupted time to work on them.

Totally from curiosity since I pretty much know where I am headed with these, what would YOU like to see?

• A. Them dressed in actual fabric clothes?
• B. Painted in simple folk art style clothes?
• C. Left as is with a paint treatment that would have them resemble bronze statues?
• D. Painted the color they are now after the clay dries?

Please leave answers in the comment section 

grin emoticon

Almost done with the shrine for my Mother

I have been doing a bit of work here and there and have almost completed the first of what I hope will be many shrines from old eyeglass cases. Ideally if I were to do these for people it would be great to use eyeglass cases from the loved ones they would be made for. 

IF they had one of course.

Because this little shrine is in memory of my Mother, the items I chose represent things she loved.
Mom loved roses, and reading. Autumn and the ocean. Owls and angels. Cameos, Easter and Christmas, She also believed in and loved LOVE...although like me she wasn't very lucky with it...so one of her wedding rings had to be included in this shrine. 

The chain around the outside is from one of her necklaces. I have a few more things to add to this, like photos and some fine tuning.

I think Mom would have loved this little shrine and it will be displayed on the shelf next to her ashes.

I have learned a couple of things about making these. What not to do and what to do first for instance, but overall, I think it is coming out pretty nice for my first attempt!

What do you think?

Progress continues on the eyeglass case..

After making about a dozen rough copies of the owl and trying different colorations using colored pencils I finally decided on this one. So colored it in a bit, of course it does need more work as does the whole blue area. But it's starting to look a bit like I envisioned it.

As you can see, this one has feet, others may not.I also have a lot of ideas for embellishments to use on and in this. This one is for my Mother, who loved owls. Since she has been gone for six years it is going to be a shrine in her memory.

I am hoping that maybe when it is done others may commission one for their lost loved ones. If not I will make them for people I know and give them as gifts.

The joy of creating is in the making after all!

Altered eyeglass case

Have been so full of ideas lately that I can hardly wait to finish one project before starting on another. I have been collecting eyeglass cases for awhile now, and actually started this one the same time I started the pastry blender soft sculpture.
Did the base painting of both the outside and inside today. Eager to see where my muse leads me with this!

DONE!

I was determined to get this project finished this weekend and I did!

I am really pleased with how it came out, especially considering that I started it with no clue at all of HOW to do it. I just decided to make an oversized pastry blender (10.5" in length and 9" in width) from fabric and other things and then did it.

Here's the finished photo.

I have ideas for other small kitchen utensils that I want to do to add to this. But first I want to finish the other project I started when I began this one.

So what do you think of this?

Moving right along!

Here is a progress photo after two days of late night stitching...by hand. This one is now about 3/4's done and with any luck at all will be done by tomorrow night. I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out and have learned a few things to do differently on the next item in this series.

The most important thing I've learned is to never assemble the pieces until AFTER all the sewing is done! This would have went much faster if it was all separate pieces.

Another is to never tell anyone what you are making, four of the five people in this home have asked me what I am making. When I tell them, they look at me with this ...look.. You may be familiar with "the look" I'm talking about if you live with others. If not, you're lucky!

After the look, comes the question. "WHY?" I have several answers to this but it is usually either "Because I can." or "Because I had an idea and I wanted to see if it worked."

The truth? I am making it because it makes me feel GREAT to be creating something. It may be the most ugly thing in the world, and maybe nobody would ever buy it, who am I kidding nobody will ever buy it , no maybes about it, (I have a house full of unsold creations to prove my point too!) But I enjoy making it. It is what I do and a large part of who I am.

I just wish that after all these years I wouldn't have to keep explaining myself or my art to my family.

Which leads me to wonder how many of you go through the same thing and how do you handle it. Also how do you keep from getting discouraged when you never sell anything?

Comments on these questions would be great!