Meet Baby, the newest addition to my Creepy Cuties.

It's a rainy cold weekend in the PNW so what do you do when it's icky out? You paint! Well, at least that's what I did.  I spent the weekend creating a couple of new Creepy Cutie's and finished this one today.  Below is my process and what I used to create this piece.

 

Here is the sketch I drew out.

 

 

I transferred the drawing to a birch panel with carbon paper.  I love to paint on wood panels more so than canvas. It has such a smooth feel and I like how the paint and inks lay on the wood.

 

My next step was to go over the drawing with pencil and then spray workable fixative. I then used masking fluid to cover the girl so I could work on the background without worrying too much. (I'm a messy painter!)

 

Time for the details. I worked markers, washi tape, stencils with spray inks, stamps, rub-ons and some of my own doodles onto the background.  I painted her knit cap smoky grey and for her hair I mixed some white with bubble gum pink.  I used black and white for her stripped shirt.

 

Here is the finished piece. Baby is on a 11 by 14 birch panel. Her sides are painted with the neon red used in the background as well as some black.  If your interested in a print of Baby I have some available in my Etsy shop just click the shop button on top of this page and it will take you there. I will also have this on society 6 as well. http://society6.com/LesaBarry

Hope you enjoyed taking a peek into the process of making Baby!

 

 







Creepy Cutie doll Samantha. Playing with Paper Clay.

I have this fascination with dolls. Big eyed and a little creepy are my favorites.  I think this goes back to those 70's Margret Keane prints that were up on my bedroom wall when I was a kid.  I love drawing doll faces but I wanted to try to recreate one of my creepy cuties with paper clay.  Sometime last year I started playing with paper clay and I created a couple of dolls.  Then I played around with polymer clay and created another but with not much time to create I decided to put the focus back on drawing and mixed media. Like always I can't seem to focus on doing one thing and so I kept thinking about creating another doll.

When I first started looking to make a doll I searched you tube to find tutorials and I had found one by mlbetterly.blogspot.com called, " How to make a paper clay doll".  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAQys7HMZT8&feature=share&list=UUSJeidDM4rUO9wdBZUgyHsA&index=10  This was a really fun and easy lesson on how to create a doll out of styrofoam eggs and paper clay.  I decided to use this process to create my creepy cutie.
Items needed to create the doll:

• paper clay
• two styrofoam eggs 1. for the head smaller than the body and 1. for the body.
• chop sticks for the legs
• wood block for the base
• acrylic paint and pan pastels
• washi tape
• music sheet or another type of printed paper
• ribbon, buttons and tulle
• felting fabric for the hair
• varnish
• tissue paper and a tooth pick for the the lolly pop
• E6000 to glue the legs into the wood block and tacky glue for the hair and clothes

When I was playing around with doll making last year I created a bunch of my own eyes by using paper clay and small dot stickers sealing then with uv resin.  It was way cheaper then buying eyes since I am still a beginner.  I used a set of the eyes that I had created before for this doll.

I started by sculpting the head and face then attached it with part of a chop stick to the body and covered the body with the paper clay. I created her arms and hands out of the clay and left the left hand down with an opening to be able to hold the lolly pop later.  I inserted two chop stick pieces for the legs and covered them with paper clay. 

I let it dry for a few days then I sanded the doll. trying to smooth out some of the rough spots. I painted her face using titanium buff for the face and black for the body. I painted stripes for the stockings and used a little pan pastel to color in the cheeks and around the eyes.

At this point she is looking more like the character from Despicable Me!

After I finished painting her I drilled two holes into the block base and put a little glue in the hole to hold the legs into place. When the glue dried I created her shoes out of paper clay and let dry.  I sanded the shoes and then painted the shoes and the base black.

Time for the hair, dress and the rest of the details. I glued the hair on the head with the tacky glue then tied them with string into pony tails.  I then glued small strips of sheet music around for her skirt curling the ends with a pencil. I then I used tulle around the skirt then covered the top part where the glue was in a layer of polka dot washi tape and then red ribbon.  I used the washi tape on her stomach and created a collar with with it as well.  I finished embellishing the doll with small buttons on the collar, a heart button and piece of black ribbon on the front of the red ribbon. I covered the base with the polka dot washi tape and then sealed it with varnish. I also coated her body with varnish as well to help hold the washi tape in place.   I created the lolly pop with paper clay a tooth pick and wrapped it with a piece of a lime green napkin.  Ta-day! My creepy cutie is finished!  My son Jackson named her Samantha.  So please meet Samantha my Creepy Cutie Doll.  Samantha ate too much candy and has a little tummy ache!

I think I might try some more doll making, it was a lot of fun to bring something that you have put down on paper to life.  

This years school auction item turned out beautiful!

This year my sons elementary school held their second PTA auction.  My girl friend and I were in charge of our children's 3rd grade class project. Last year I spent many hours and many $$$$ on creating a piece so this year I was really happy that one of the kids in the class grandfather offered to build us whatever we wanted out of wood! We decided a table that we could have tiles in the middle for the kids to decorate it. We really wanted it to be something that although it was kid art it didn't look like KID art.  Since this year the kids are studying Australia we decided to do a little lesson on aboriginal art work and had the kids create some aboriginal artwork of their own.  .

The grandpa created the most beautiful out door table for us and I went to Home Depot picked up 24 4 by 4 black tiles for the kids to decorate.  

We used acrylic paints and cotton swabs.  They started with making dots for the small inner circle and then used another color for the next circle. They were told to go around no more than 5 or 6 times and to make different size and colored circles . They were also told not to let any of the same colors be next to each other and to have the circles go off the tile if needed.  After the tiles dried I sealed them with a varnish and glued them to the table.  The kids really enjoyed making their tiles and I think they did an excellent job!

The auction was held last week and the table sold at the live auction $350! I am really happy how easy it was and how beautiful it turned out.

Busy with "The Year of the Fairy Tale" and "Life Book 2014"

Can't believe it's almost February! This month has gone by really quickly.  I have signed up for two online classes this year, Life Book 2014 over at willowing.ning.com and The Year of the Fairy Tale with Carla Sonheim carlasonheim.com. 
This is my third year taking Life Book and I can't tell you how much it is worth the money! So many teachers and lesson for a little over $100 you can't go wrong. I have promised myself to do each lesson this year and so far so good.
New to me this year is Carla Sonheim's class, " The Year of the Fairy Tale". I am so excited to be taking this class, I have really wanted to explore more of the illustration side of drawing.   This month we are studying the fairy tale called, " The Frog Princess".  This week we have been practicing drawing frogs and princess or princes.  Here are some of my practice pages. 

 Below my son Jackson decided to sit with me on the couch and create some creatures of his own.

I was inspired by this weeks fairy tale theme so I created this one below. A new Creepy Cutie, meet Gracie (Jackson my 8 year old gave her the name) and her Prince.  Jackson created a story that goes with her and it goes like this. Once upon a time there was this girl named Gracie and she found her Prince in a pond deep in the woods. When she brought her home her father said she couldn't keep him and she had to take him back to the pond. She was so said and couldn't bare to let him go...  To be continued.

In Life Book we are one week 5. Week week 4 was with Kelly Hoering and I created this piece. It was a fun lesson, I enjoyed creating this.

Week 5 was with Marike Blokland.  She has a great style, she creates girls with big eyes and mouth.  It was a fun lesson and I LOVED using the neon colors! It must be the 80's girl in me. Here is my journal page from this weeks lesson.  

It's been a fun filled artsy week for me, just the way I like it.  Today I will be finishing up my pieces for a commission that I am doing and then off to my daughters house to watch the Seahawks WIN the Super Bowl.

Happy Creating!