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Saturday, November 19, 2011

A Face in the Crowd

I spent the morning getting studded tires on my van for the winter (the hills are starting to show off a little snow and the temps are dropping) and shopping for groceries. No Thanksgiving dinner for us, as we'll all be working. It's not so bad working this particular holiday - most folks stay home and stuff themselves. It's working the day after that I dread ~ it's a consistently busy day in the ER.

When those necessary chores were done, I spent the rest of the day and evening watching movies, sewing a third Sally doll and baking faces for the class. I'll pick out one of these clay faces for this newest doll, and the rest go in the bag I've designated for class stuff. I made wire armature to include in the kits, too.

Tomorrow will be spent stuffing doll parts, painting, and assembling the doll. I've found it's so much easier to finish dolls when the costuming is done before the doll. Of course, that only applies to dolls who have costuming that isn't sewn onto their bodies.

And then it's on to the annual Santa doll for the ER Christmas Party and Auction. I probably won't get to this one until next weekend.

Addendum: For those who have experienced the drawback of using polymer clay faces due to the weight and density of the clay, don't forget to make the back a little bit concave. This occurs naturally, if you use your thumbs to firmly press the center of the clay into the pressmold. By doing this, you make sure the clay goes into the facial features of the mold, making the concave indentation, and squishing clay out along the rim - which is the perfect handle by which to grab the clay and gently work it out of the mold. Of course, you'll trim away the excess. These faces now weigh just over an ounce.

3 comments:

  1. You are so ORGANIZED, Deanna! Looks like the class will,be a corker........wish I could be in it!

    Can't imagine having to drive around with studded tyres (whatever they might be - I have to use my imagination) because of snow and ice. I guess I'm lucky here - never too cold and never too hot.

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  2. Deanna,
    That looks so very organized! I guess one gets things DONE when organized; lol. Did you make the faces from a mold? Someone gave me a doll head mold and I'm trying to figure out just what to do with it. So far I used some air dry clay. Well, that hardened and will make a great paper weight! I ordered some Hearty clay hoping that will not be as dense.
    Anyhoo, have a great day and Happy Thanksgiving!

    hugz

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  3. Good morning, ladies!

    I'm trying to be organized and get as much done in preparation for the class (even though it's not until May) - because I'm lucky if I have one day a week that's not spoken for.

    This was a marathon day in the studio. The television cable in my studio is on the fritz right now, so I just put on movie DVDs that I've watched a million times for some background noise.

    These faces were made from one of my molds. The mold, however, has closed eyes, so I had to modify each face before baking. I like the polymer clay for this type of doll, but it is dense and heavy. I added a little blurb to my blog post about that issue.

    Susie ~ I wish you could be in the class, too. Better yet, I wish I could attend one of YOUR classes.

    The studs (imbedded in my winter tires) make me feel extra secure driving in snow and ice - not that we get a lot here on the coast (though it's pretty cold and frosty today). Living where I do, I've got to drive over the Coast Range to get anywhere, and there can be quite a bit of snow on the passes. Plus, we enjoy skiing on Mt. Hood and Mt. Bachelor - so it makes those trips safer. In general, through, the temperatures in Astoria are pretty mild.

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