This life os not easy sometimes

        Today I went to a nice man's house that I work for. I am a companion for an elderly man. He has slight dementia, like repeating a story over and over again or being forgetful but he pretty much can take care of himself. But today when I went over and fixed him lunch he went into the garage and started complaining about a little girl in there, so I went to take a look (just in case) but I could not find a little girl so I knew he was becoming delusional. I called his daughters and they called an ambulance. So I hope he'll be okay, he does not take his meds regularly and this is what happens, though he never has hallucinated before.

   So I keep thinking about starting to sell on line again. And thinking and thinking and thinking.....

Updating my life story

    This is not just an art blog for me, it's a journal of my journey (how poetic).  I need to get this blog a little updated to my circumstances. I was living in a lovely area in Ormond Beach FL. with my boyfriend of 15 years. He had a lot of faith in me as an artist and would supply me with whatever I needed in order to start earning a living making art. I am thankful to him for all that time to work without having to worry about money until I started to make my own. I had fits and starts with selling my art, at times thinking I was on my way to a pretty steady income only to start having insecurities about my abilities. That is a common theme throughout my life, insecurity. I have had countless opportunities given to me in many areas only to shy away and sabotage myself. This was a bit upsetting to my boyfriend who had money but not nearly as much as he had in the past and so grew uneasy about our finances. He had sold his business back in the 90's for a tidy sum but has since lost a good deal of the money from projects that fell through, people's dreams who he invested in (other then me) and were to pay him back (that never did) and just some investment mistakes. I tried to get him to buy some enchanted dolls in the beginning when they were priced much lower than they are right now because I knew they'd become very valuable. But he insisted he'd make money HIS WAY and declined to buy. I guess he may have thought I wanted them all for myself (which I did) but I also understood them to be an investment and one day would have too be sold (except my own personal girls).

  He was 12 years older than I. And always told me he'd make sure I was taken care of if something happened to him. And so after this whole Covid scare, right when we were to go to Europe (April 2022) he was found to have an extremely bad type of brain tumor. His cousin was a big shot in the immunotherapy type drugs for cancer and contacted us about something that might work to save him, but it did not. So on January 3rd 2022 at 5:55 in the morning he passed away.

Today is the First Day of the rest of your Life!

    

                                      This is a little lady I made with polymer. I later put a love letter in her hands.

I have been very inactive for quite some time and have questioned if there is something wrong with me. I watch the profusion of artist being so productive, "doing drops"and selling out they're pieces in record time. The internet has made it a golden and fruitful time for artists. For those who don't know what a drop is, it's when an artist or craftsperson (is there a difference?) makes a lot of art pieces and shows everyone her/his progress with pictures on social media like instagram. Everyone gets to ooooo and ahhhhh at each step they display, and decide if they might like to have this or that particular piece, sometimes downright staking a claim on it or better yet exclaiming that they "must have it!". The artist informs everyone that the art will all be released on a certain day at a certain time and in which time zone. Whoa to those who get that wrong! Going to the online store of a favorite artist and finding that the event is all over with and the cubbard is bare can be a devastating if not a heart breaking experience. Collectors and fans of the artist nervously wait for the very second they can get in there and buy their particular favorite item and things go fast. 

ANYWAY!

   Every time I start to write on this blog I seem to feel it's a new day for me, at least I hope so. So here I am yet again, so we shall see. I am into so many projects I can't quite make up my mind. I finish very little or I become impatient with my progress so I then get careless and messy. I started seeing a therapist because I feel I have some kind of weird block, but I needed to see a therapist anyway because of the last few years with covid, cleaning out my home so it could be sold, and the illness and death of my boyfriend.

Pictures

 

 It's Dec 7th 2020. and I have been working with watercolor pencil/ watercolor/ acrylic on paper. I really like the 3 together. First a sketch with watercolor pencil and with a wet brush I soften it, using the colors to lightly color the picture. Then I use water color before putting in detail with acrylic. I will be putting up pictures.

Porcelain ball jointed elf doll.

    I like to show my dolls naked. For those who think it's odd, it's just my way of showing what the body and joints look like and I don't always realize that this disturbs some people, my apologies. I've gotten so used to it that it does not even register to me that they are naked! I will put picture up of clothed dolls as well and try to be more sensitive.

Had fun this summer messing around with polymer, but now come fall, back to porcelain!

Flumo Halloween Pumpkin Person

  Experimenting with Flumo and one of my old miniature molds. Painted with acrylic.

              Received my "Award of Excellence 2014" from doll magazine. Yippee!
                                         I won in the artist ball jointed doll category.

 

Painting on Flumo is much faster then porcelain of course, and it's nice to be able to finish a face in an hour. Always a learning process, I'm sure I'll get better at it.

  Put Together

I put her together quickly but I did not line the joints with leather or finish painting her arms and legs. I'm making new hands for her since I'm not happy with the ones I have at present time.
 

                Maybe making some flumo dolls would be interesting, it certainly is faster!

    FLUMO

Flumo is an interesting medium. You have to use plaster molds, but it air dries,

which is nice because you need no kiln. It's pretty strong too, and can be polished to a porcelain finish. I use it mostly to make prototypes but have considered using it to make actual dolls because it's so easy to use.
   Here is a prototype I decided to paint. I usually never paint prototypes because I use them to make molds for porcelain. But I love to experiment and am somewhat pleased with the result. I painted the eyes with acrylic and pastels. The pupil and eyeliner are acrylic, but then I used wet pastels with a brush to color the rest of the eye and lips, not to mention a bit of shadow around the nose and nostrils.

    Working on little mermaids

A jewelry store near by wants little polymer mermaids to put in with the jewelry as decoration and also to be for sale. So here I am, after being a little rusty, getting back to making polymer figures. I'm taking a little vacation from porcelain to just get creative with clay and have fun. Sometimes porcelain can be such drudgery because you feel like your doing so many none creative things all the time, like cleaning and sanding.
  Here is what I have so far.

      Working on the Cat

   I was trying new ways of doing the cat's face, I have not painted them yet. I wanted to try primitive for the body, not doing too much detail like I always seem to. Kind of funny! Skinny little legs and arms, ha ha. They seem to be saying "what's the big idea?"

   Messing Around

Messing around with polymer clay making prototypes for porcelain. I can't work on my regular girl until I get some flumo. Made a little cat, burned it a bit, looks like a Siamese now, lol!

                          Maybe I'll use it to make a porcelain little black cat for Halloween.

      Having A Look

  I love having a look at everyone's work, it always gives me ideas for my own. Many times I see work in which I think "I sure wish I had thought of that style or character first!"But I know all I can do is work on my own ever evolving style and characters.
 There are also times in which I have to stay away and shield myself from looking too much, there are so many talented people and I can get discouraged always comparing myself to them. We can only be as good as the amount of work we put in. No one plays the piano very well the first time they sit down to it! And so it takes making plenty of ho-hum dolls to learn to make the really good ones.

   Well here it is 2014 already! Much has happened! I think I will start posting again.

First I'm going to put up a picture of my doll that won the "artist ball jointed doll" category in Doll Magazine's yearly competition.

    Well it's good to be back! this new year will be a very exciting year!

                                                 Millicent my doll on ebay till June 17th