A Family Portrait

For the past few months I’d been slowly working on a family portrait for a very special lady. She is celebrating the big 6-0 and I was tasked to paint a set of dolls of her and her family. Her friend thought it would be fun to put in 60 elements that represents her, an iSpy sort of situation. As someone who likes to be on all kinds of conspiracy (good ones, mind you), I was down.

The family are all Warriors fans. This reminded me of the time I had to paint a baseball team, twice, but at least there are a ton of varieties to the outfits!

Even the animals got in on the action!

Not the cat, though. I kind of have a cat now and I can see how difficult it is to wrangle one into a costume.

I don’t really sketch out any of my ideas unless it’s absolutely necessary. Luckily I was left to my own devices after given the brief because I had absolutely no plans as to what I was going to do with the iSpy doll until I sat down each night to work on it. It was almost like putting a puzzle piece together and all my previous leanings, such as writing teeny tiny letters, or making this crazy free writing journal, had given me the skills to work within the confines of the doll and get everything, all 60 elements, down.

As you can see, this is a highly personal project and I got to know this lady quite well despite not knowing her at all! Hey, anyone who works in a zoo, loves CSN, Joan Baez, lived in NYC, interacted with a chimp, and rode horses are definitely people I’d want to know!

The Wolf of Wharf Street

Happy Halloween! I am swamped as always this time of year and hadn’t originally planned on doing a Bob’s Burgers Halloween set but I had mistakenly ordered a tiny set of three dolls and decided it shouldn’t take too much time to knock them out after after after hours.

This year features only the Belcher kids in their costumes from season 8’s episode Wolf of Wharf Street where Tina is dressed as “Mom-bie” (a zombie Linda), Gene as a bunch of grapes, and Louise as Anton Chigurh from “No Country for Old Man.” She is so cool. For years I’ve been trying to talk my niece into dressing as a shirime, which is an easy enough costume to make (a body suit and a big styrofoam ball cut in half) but so far no joy. Louise would’ve been all over it!

A shirime is, as far as I know, is a step above a flasher. As you see no naughty bits are really on display as the “winking brown eye” is an actual eye but those who were flashed by a shirime find it upsetting all the same.

Okay. I never said I was a good aunt.

A Christmas Carol

What’s Christmas with the perennial favorite: A Christmas Carol? I’d been eying this one for eons now, having the tale told to me numerous times growing up, so imaging my joy when someone requested one! This is the George C. Scott version. I’ve only ever seen him in “Patton” and “The Firestarter,” the former being one of my Dad’s favorite. I never thought I would ever paint George C. Scott, especially a version wherein he sports mutton chop sideburns!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Hocus Pocus

It’s the most wonderful time of year in the sweat shop! I usually start planning for my Halloween sets in late August and the hardest thing to do is to put it on a manageable schedule as these are the sort of things I can only paint after the day’s work is done. Fortunately, my husband is on one of his expeditions, leaving me to my own device. His function as a husband is to make sure I get enough food and rest and go out once in a while, but without him here to mother me, I’ve regressed to my art school days (minus the heavy partying) and painting late into the night. The advantage of living this way is that I get my best ideas after 2 AM and it is lovely to harness it and jot it down while alert instead of clumsily pawing at my nightstand for a pad of paper and fumbling for a pen.

For Halloween this year I’ve been tasked with painting one of my favorite all-time horror/comedy movies in the world. This request came right after I had made up my mind to paint another fun and somewhat kid-friendly “Hocus Pocus” so I had the rare treat of working on two Halloween-y sets simultaneously. The idea for “Hocus Pocus” came about largely because I was rooting through my collection of hair and discovered I have the right shade to make hair for Winifred Sanderson. Stop freaking out! When I say I have a box of hair, it’s doll’s hair!

I hadn’t planned on making an Easter Egg surprise for this set, but after reviewing the movie again, I thought it might be fun to toss the spell book into it. The spell book was executed at around 3 am one day and I had been on autopilot at that point so I don’t quite remember painting it, which is always a great surprise in the morning when I see it, or a sad one if it didn’t turn out right.

Back to Reality

I recently took a much-needed holiday from both my life and work. The timing couldn’t have been better as I was able to traverse my way from the West Coast to the East with a few stops in-between, attending weddings and piano recitals, family reunions and hanging out with my best friends, all of whom I have known for several decades. I got to tickle babies and take older children shopping while instilling in them the best ways to navigate through the choppy waters of life. I got to get into the field again to do actual research for an upcoming project (David Bowie Is exhibition anyone?) and ate my way from New England to NYC. There were some revelations as to who I am in the great scheme of themes that’s nothing short of shocking but a simple DNA test (in which my mother has gladly agreed to take) should sort things out. I spent some time in the hospital as well, visiting, not as a patient, and got to work on the embroidery project I started a year ago and haven’t been able to complete. All in all it was a very well-rounded holiday although I can’t say I had done any R and R as half the time I was running around, trying to make every minute of my trip as meaningful as I could make it.

Edward Scissorhands

Although Edward Scissorhands isn’t technically a “Christmas Movie,” I always lump it in with my usual cache of holiday binge this time of year. And why not? I now live in a place where snow is non-existent, sort of like in the movie.

This set features Edward, Kim and Peg Boggs, Jim the hoodlum boyfriend, the Inventor, and a mini topiary dinosaur.

Well, Merry Christmas, wherever you are!

A Portrait Set

Everything about this portrait set is adorable. From the very handsome couple to their little doggies.

When the subject of an Easter egg surprise was broached, I more or less squealed and immediately made the mini objects.

Oktoberfest Revisited

When I look back at some of my earlier works, I would inevitable wish I have time to repaint some of them, especially now that I have better tools and equipment to handle some of the more complicated jobs. Fortunately, I got the chance to update one of my favorite sets of all time, a trio of dolls featuring some Bavarian folks celebrating Oktoberfest!

This time around I was able to print some hats for the folks.

Marie Got Married

Years ago, I happened to come across a fashion blog and gave it a read even though at the time, my idea of high fashion was making sure I have pants on when I leave my house. The blog caught my attention not only because the author was fashionable in a relatable way but she was hilarious as hell. I thought it would be fun to paint her as a nesting doll in her various duds and, even though I was well-aware of the fact that I would probably come across as someone with stalking issues, I took a chance and emailed her with my strange request. Come on, I had to! This girl owned a hat shaped like a pair of lips smoking a cigarette. And she owned a corn suit, for crying out loud.

She said yes and I devoted a week (this was back in the day when I actually had to take a week to paint a set of dolls) painting her in various outfits and had an absolute blast. Thanks to her, I was introduced to her BFF, who runs the most delightful little store in LA called the Pygmy Hippo Shoppe and thus history was made because I got to create so many sets of dolls I would not have done otherwise if it weren’t for these two gorgeous gals. And of course, when Marie got married, my first thought was to make her a set of wedding dolls.

Marie, her man, and her doggie.

From what I gathered, there was pizza at the wedding.

Aren’t they fabulous? Congratulations, Marie and Jimmy! May your marriage be long and full of laughter and joy!

Girl Power

There’s one good thing I like about the newer Disney princesses. They’re misfits and strong-willed, they kick butts, and they get things done. After being snottily told by my downstairs neighbor that I was weird, I feel like I have a few things in common with some of these princesses. If I’m not weird, I wouldn’t be who I am, would I?

This collection of Disney Princesses is for a little girl turning four. I sincerely hope she will see beyond the pretty outfits and gleaming castles and learn to be just as fierce and independent as these ladies!