Steampunk Suzy and Van Gogh

 I have been wondering--are the summers crazy for everyone or is it just me.  I have had so little time in my studio lately that I think that I am beginning to have withdrawals.  I usually spend at least one day of the weekend in my studio--sometimes two.  But, during the summer months, or especially this summer, I have had no time at all.  Sometimes I wonder if I should just pack away the artsy stuff for the summer and resume again in the fall months.  This summer, I have finished 4 projects and have one started.  The picture above is "Caretaker Pete".  I finished him last weekend.  It shouldn't have taken me so long to do, but I have been working on him for most of the summer.  Course, I had three other projects that I was working on at the same time.  I usually don't do that.  I usually concentrate on just one--maybe two projects at a time.  I have been working on too many and it throws my focus off.

 Caretaker Pete is made from an old tin, a croquet ball, forks, and some sort of handle.  I just used all kinds of odds and ends in him and had a good time putting him together.

 The piece below is called "Steampunk Suzy".  I found an old skull and attached it to a dowel and dress form.  Her dress is made from paper clay. I am relatively new to paper clay but find that I love the texture and simplicity of it.  No ovens--just texture and let dry.  Then you get to do the fun part--which is the painting. I used my Cuddlebug blanks to make the texture in the clay and just stuck them on the dress form. I find that Apoxie Sculpt from Aves is the best product for sticking the head to the dowel and to the base.  It dries very hard and durable.  It is also moldable, like clay but doesn't have to be baked.  I use it for alot of my assemblage projects.  The skull on this sculpture was broken just beneath the glasses.  I used some of the Apoxie to sculpt a new piece and you can't tell the difference between that and the bone.

 This piece I call "Tribute to Van Gogh".  I have a friend who brings me old stuff.  What ever oddities that he finds, he brings to me. He brought me this old wood root ball about 3 years ago and it has sit around since then. So, that is what the body is actually made out of. A  dried root ball.  It had the greatest swirls and valleys in it. It cried out "Starry Night", so that's what I did.  I painted a tribute to "Starry Night" on the wood, decoupaged the arms of an old doll and attached them to the wood with screws and E6000 and drilled a hole in the top of the wood to insert the dowel in the head and glued it also.  The base is made from a sardine can that I had hubby saw a wood wedge for so that it was a little more sturdy.

Tribute to Van Gogh

 I took an inkjet photo and placed it in a microscope slide and soldered the edges for his necklace.

Hope that you all have a great week.
F.