Category Archives: Photography

The Unveiling of Falerina, the Flower Fairy

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She’s finished, or just about.  I have her label to sew in and need to spray her face with fixative and stitch her basket to her hands.  Otherwise, she’s ready to take her bow!  She will be listed in my Etsy Shop late this week.  I have to haul out the back drop and the lighting to get her good pictures done, so that won’t happen until Wednesday. 

I am so pleased with her wings, which I finished up yesterday.  I saw a picture of wings by Deb Wood on the A-for-Artistic website and just missed signing up for her class.  I will definitely take it the next time it is offered.  I muddled through creating this wings with help from the class I took at Art Fest last year. 

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She has ears, unlike most of my dolls lately, because I wanted to use yarn for her hair that I got at Hill Country Weavers last weekend.  I’ll explain the relationship in another post.

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And here is Falerina with her basket of flowers.  I went shopping for the materials in my studio!  Gotta love it when you don’t have to buy anything to complete a piece!

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She got her gladiator shoes today.  She even has toenails, which you can’t see because she’s kneeling on them.

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Here’s a back shot of her wings, without her hair to get in the way.

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And a close-up of her basket.  Happy Spring! 

Speaking of spring – a few shots from my garden.  The flowers are definitely blooming.

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My patio at 10am this morning.

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Purple salvia in my back bed.  I will post more pictures of this bed a bit later.  I’ve got three varieties of salvia mixed together with rosemary, lavender, Mexican Petunia and a couple of trees.  The salvias are going nuts!  It must be the compost I added this year, cause the Hot-Lips salvia has already grown 3 feet from where I wacked it back and the red salvias have put on the longest flower spikes I’ve ever seen.  They are going to pop open any day now and it will be a stunning display.

The new flower bed is taking off.  The mist flowers and the copper canyon daisy are thrilled with their surroundings.

Flowers and Fairies

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We’ve been blessed with rain twice in the last week, with a chance for more in a few days.  We are back in extreme drought, which makes any bit of rain we get very precious.  The plants are soaking it up and putting on a bit of a show.

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I finished putting in the plants in the newest flower bed in my back yard.  I’ve been planning this bed for a while and I’m super thrilled to get it in this year.  It will help keep my foundation watered, if nothing else.  The rain helped the plants in this bed immensely, as well as making my garden happy!  I am not sure why, by my tomato and pepper plants in containers on my patio have already put on fruit while those in my garden are about a month behind, even though they were planted the same time.

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In addition to gardening, I’ve been working on the Flower Fairy.  She’s all dressed up and has arms now!  She has a linen petticoat lined with a ruffle and a second petticoat of embroidered netting.  This is topped with her skirt of a silky gauze.  She was at this point 3 or so weeks ago when I went to the last CTADS meeting.  I attached arms that night and the next and there she sat until this weekend.  I got her bodice and corset constructed and embellished this weekend.  Now I have her sleeves to make, after which, I’ll need to give her a face!  Her head is already sculpted but I’m waiting to draw her face until I finish her costume.

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Her skirt and corset have been hand-beaded.  The beading on the corset took me most of the afternoon.

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I designed her bodice with flowers in mind.  I wanted the impression of flower petals and leaves opening up around her.

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I really like the asymmetrical hemlines in the fashion magazines right now, which is what inspired her skirt.

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Flowers, Bees, Gardening, Fairies

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I spent the weekend working in my yard and researching costuming options for the Flower Fairy.  With the weather approaching the upper 80’s, it’s the time of year where flowers start blooming, the live oak trees drop their leaves and pollen, and the weeds start to take over my yard.

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I made a lot of progress on my back patio.  I’m really happy with how it’s turning out.  I added pots with veggies, herbs and ornamental plants, including 2 huge urns of Carolina Jasmine to grow up and over my pergola.  I got my fountain out of the garage, cleaned the pump and filled it up with water and it’s burbling happily just outside my back door.  I finally hung my birthday present to myself from last year (it’s been sitting in my house since May!).  I planted my tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and beans in the garden, and got it mulched.

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I spent a bit of the evening yesterday photographing the flowers in my front yard and trying to catch a particularly fat bee on a frame in focus.  He kept hovering around one of my daisies that survived the winter, blooming the whole time, but as soon as I would get him in focus, he’d zoom off.  Finally – I managed to get one frame of him in focus!

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I’ve been struggling with the direction for the costume for the Flower Fairy.  I want a costume that suggests flowers, but isn’t terrifically intricate as I intend to sell her in my Etsy shop and don’t want to put so much work into it that she gets really expensive.  Mom suggested going to Jo’Ann fabrics and looking at pattern books, when I complained that my normal sources of inspiration were not panning out.  I thought that was a great idea, so I headed there Saturday evening (after my trek for pots and potting soil).  Boy did I have a fun hour going through the pattern books.  I bought a few, since they were on sale for $1.00.  I also picked up the latest issue of Threads, which had more eye candy in it. 

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So, this evening, after watering the plants, and noting the growth rate of one of the vines (12” in 24 hours!), I headed into my studio to play with the fabric and try to puzzle out the costume.  I ended up swapping out the brocade for one a bit less pink and then decided to pull out my journal to work out what I wanted to do.  Thirty minutes and a bit of water color later, success!  So, tomorrow evening, I’ll begin construction!  All in all, it’s been a productive weekend and Monday evening.

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A San Francisco Adventure

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I had to travel to San Francisco for work last week.  I had about 7 hours of sight seeing between Sunday afternoon and Thursday afternoon.  The work event also organized an evening boat tour of San Francisco Bay.  I had an episode with my SD card and my PC that had me concerned I’d lost all of the pictures, but was able to resolve that this evening.  Here is a sampling of the sights.

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My hotel was on the edge of China town.  It wasn’t a long walk to get to the gate at the entrance to CT.

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Sunday afternoon, I hiked up Telegraph Hill from my hotel.  I didn’t realize it was Telegraph Hill, but I could see Coit Tower from my hotel and wanted to hike up there.  On my way back down, I passed this sign.

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A sight on the way up Telegraph Hill.

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San Fran’s city lights from the boat in the Bay.

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Golden Gate from the boat, after we had turned around.

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Alcatraz Island silhouetted by the Bay Bridge and the lights of San Fran at night.

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Front side of Alcatraz from the boat.

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Trolley crossing, with a San Francisco trolley in the background.  I rode one on the way back from Fisherman’s Wharf to my hotel on Thursday to avoid most of the hill climbing.

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To prove I was there. 

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On my way to the Maritime Museum, I saw this picture.  It’s quite the sight!

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Alcatraz, by day from the Maritime Museum.

Valentines and Flowers

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I had an internet conversation with a fellow Texas Tech graduate last weekend while watching a basket ball game.  At some point the conversation veered towards food and I decided I would bake cupcakes.  I had bananas ready to go into banana bread, but what fun is banana bread heading into Valentine’s Day?  So, I decided to make cupcakes with the bananas. 

The result, after I tinted the cream cheese frosting with red food coloring, was sort of heart shaped cupcakes, which accompanied me to work Monday.  My co-workers are often the beneficiaries of my baking.  They are most appreciative and the upside is that I get to bake without having to eat much of what I produce.

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February is the month in which we get to experience three seasons, sometimes in one day here in central Texas.  We get warm days at 85 degrees, followed by cool days in the 50’s or 60’s.  It confuses the plants, especially if we are above 70 for 4 days running as we were last week.  This is happening more, it seems, and I end up doing my spring cleaning in the yard sooner each year.  I got all of my pruning done weekend before last and last weekend got my front flower beds composted.  I planted a few new plants and bought a few more which are still awaiting homes.  The plants I pruned are budding out and I have an enterprising daisy that is covered in blooms. 

All of this leads me to think of flowers.  I’ve been buying myself flowers at the grocer store each week and they are starting to get Star Gazer lilies in which I love so much!  This weekend, I got my fabric club in from Treasures of the Gypsy and what a surprise!  It’s spring flowers!  I have the body and head of the doll I intended to make an angel from.  Now, I think she’s going to be the flower fairy and here’s the start of the collection of fabric and trims for her wardrobe!

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The next All Dolls Are Art Newsletter comes out tomorrow morning.  You can still sign up to receive it by visiting the website and signing up for the mailing list.  This month, I have a survey on doll making and an article written by Michele Lynch, one of our ADAA faculty.  If you have ever wondered about quitting your day job for your artistic journey, you’ll enjoy Michele’s thoughts on the topic.

There is still plenty of space in all of our classes for ADAA 2013.  I hope that you’ll consider joining me and sharing your creative journey!