Sunday, December 27, 2009
Making Christmas Lalala
The family matruska portraits, commissioned by Edwin at work:
Edwin's family, painted in acrylic over matruska dolls he purchased at Target. They were a Christmas gift for his wife. Cool idea, I thought. He always has cool ideas.
Meanwhile I was working on my first pair of human-sized fairy wings for Paige's Christmas present. I am eventually going to make several different variations and sell them in my Etsy store and in The Junkman's Daughter. People always told me that they loved my Glam Fairies' wings, particularly the more punk-rock inspired ones (as seen on Hickey and Puke), so I figured it was about time that I made some large wearable wings. Here are some in-progress pictures of the ones I made for Paige:
The frame is shaped so that someone could slip the wings into a corset or tight-fitting shirt if they didn't feel like wearing straps. The veins are super lightweight wire which I sculpted and then covered in some old red acetate I found in my closet.
I draped fabric and scraps that remind me of Paige over the framework.
Then I sewed it all together, added more scraps and baubles, and set the wings on fire several times to add visual interest. Well and I just like lighting stuff on fire. The wings are complete now and Paige has them. As soon as we hang out again I'll post pictures of the finished product.
The other thing I was working on was Hutch's Christmas present which Paige has been asking me to make for him forever. It's a Glam Fairy of Klaus Nomi, an avant garde German singer, performer, and pastry chef that was a friend of David Bowie's. Hutch loves him for his distinctive look and operatic voice. This is what the real Klaus looked like:
And here are the obligatory in-progress photos of little Klaus:
I don't have many of these because next are some quick snapshots of the finished product before he went to Paige and Hutch's:
More photos soon to come.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
He's Behind You!
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Marc And Jack
'Neath a strange star when the earth was young, in England in the early seventies, legend tells of a small man called Marc Bolan. The band that he formed, Tyrannosaurus Rex and later T.Rex, was said to have a sound that was so original it was hard to believe that it had come from this world. That may have been because it was not from this world, but another realm altogether. Perhaps Marc himself was not a man at all, but a child star, a changeling child sent here for a purpose. After discovering an abandoned acoustic guitar, a foreign hollow box with a neck and strings, Marc may have tamed the strange beast into song and realized that what had resulted could not be kept to himself. The fairy folk have a natural gift for music, after all, and although their melodies may sound odd to human ears, they are far more moving and powerful than anything a mortal man could create. Marc's lyrics were often about magical beings and a place called Rarn, perhaps songs about his homeland. The people took to the music almost immediately and Marc quickly rose to fame. Although he enjoyed his new found ability to reach so many people, Marc was not made for human customs, for frightening metal machinery, dangerous human substances and the spotlight. He inevitably began to fall victim to his environment and realized that there would be no escape as long as he was still living amongst mortals. And so Marc made peace with the human realm as he prepared to bid it farewell. Then on September 16th, 1977, Marc became lost to this world. The alien, man-made, four wheeled contraption that had previously held him captive made contact with an old tree, and Marc returned home without anyone ever knowing what really happened.
"Sad to see them mourning you when you are there within the flowers and the trees."
Marc is the fifth doll in my Glam Fairies series. He is sculpted out of a mixture of Cernit and Super Sculpey polymer clays over a strong metal armature, and would be approximately six and a half inches if standing (excluding his top hat.) The wingspan of his swan while hanging, from tip to tip, is approximately eighteen inches. Marc’s green eyes are made of glass and his curly dark brown hair is Tibetan lamb’s wool. Marc’s skin has been lightly blushed with Genesis paints; his makeup and glitter painted with acrylics. His pants, vest, shiny floral tuxedo and top hat have been crafted from satin, lame and brocade and then sewn by hand. On the bottom of his right shoe you will find the signature red kiss of Quarley that identifies Marc as a one-of-a-kind edition to the Glam Fairies line. Marc’s wings are crafted from white wrapped wire, plastic baubles, iridescent film and peacock feathers. Marc holds in his right hand a miniature porcelain teacup filled with faux Jasmine tea, which was Marc Bolan’s favorite variety. Next to him you will find a corresponding miniature metal tea tray and a whole slew of cloth gardenia blooms, which were Marc Bolan’s favorite flower. In Marc’s left hand he holds a metal chain leash that leads to Mickey, his pet baby Tyrannosaurus. Marc’s swan is very lightweight and crafted from Styrofoam, pipe cleaners, feathers, leather, and rabbit pelt, with a Fimo beak. It is held aloft by clear fishing wire that has been firmly sewn into the neck, back and wings. Marc comes with a ticket of authenticity that has been autographed by the artist and a copy of the original sketch when he was still in the design phase. If adopted, he will surely grace your home just as he did Rock and Roll.
Now available for adoption in my Etsy shop!
GLAM FAIRY #6: JACK
I found this curious little guy on my front porch the morning after Halloween. I think he crawled out of one of the rotting, rainwater-filled jack o’ lanterns that had previously been his home. Somehow he got into the last pack of cloves, decided he that liked the taste of them, and ate the entire box. This is a problem because they were a gift for a friend and have just been outlawed in retail stores, so we can no longer buy him another pack. I have always hated the morning after Halloween. It brings with it soggy candy wrappers littering the streets, discarded wigs and eye patches on my living room floor, half empty pumpkin ale bottles on the coffee table, and apparently this smelly squirmy critter. I couldn’t understand a word he said, but I think his name is Jack.
Jack is doll number six in my Glam Fairies series. He is sculpted from a mixture of Studio by Scupley and Sculpey III over a strong metal armature. His spiked two-tone hair is made from a recycled Halloween wig and his eyes are red glass. His skin has been lightly blushed with Genesis paints, his tattoos then inked in acrylic. Jack’s tattoos include sleeves on each of his four arms—his upper right arm features jack o’ lanterns, his upper left arm Jack bears an image of Skellington from the film The Nightmare Before Christmas. His lower right arm has a playing card deck and a Jack of Spades, and his lower left arm has a kicking donkey (or jackass.) He also has the signature red kiss of Quarley on his left pectoral, identifying him as a one-of-a-kind edition to the Glam Fairies line. Each of Jack’s sixteen fingernails has been carefully painted with real black nail polish. He is munching the remnants of a Djarum Black clove cigarette with his toothpick teeth. He is crawling out of the discarded cigarette box to which he is permanently attached. Jack’s two pairs of wings were handcrafted from hand-torched black and white striped scraps of fabric left over from my boyfriend’s Ziggy Stardust costume. Jack comes with a ticket of authenticity that has been autographed by the artist and a copy of the original sketch when he was still in the design phase. He is relatively well behaved but he does like to chew on things, so I wouldn’t recommend leaving him unattended near anything of value. He is also a bit of a pyromaniac, FYI.
Now available for adoption in my Etsy shop!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Nice Package
Yesterday I mailed her off. Now she's on her way to Germany, a place that I have scarcely even seen in photos. It's strange. Also strange that in a way I will miss that little bugger, who has been a bright dash of color atop my fairy supply taboret for quite a while now:
Someone also bought another one of my Chinese Golden dragon hatchlings on Etsy a few days later. I'm going to mail him out to California today.
I love selling creatures to people online. And I admit, I'm a bit of a nerd in the way that I also greatly enjoy packaging them and shipping them out. Every single aspect has got to be pretty, because there is something very exciting about getting stuff in the mail.
Now THAT'S a nice package.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Halloween Jack Part 3
Martyn as Halloween Jack.
Me as Marc Bolan.
Glam Fight.
Those two are actually pictures from last year, I didn't get any photos of the Justice League costumes this time around. We wore them to a Trader Joe's party at a bowling alley and then to Intermezzo's afterward. Devon was with us as Hawk Girl again.
I love this series of photos from the Corner Tavern last Saturday, but I still wish I got a decent full body shot of the Sarah and Jareth costumes this Halloween. Again, here's some crappy ones from a few years ago, when we had lame wigs and no wigs at all.
Pretty pretty petticoat!
Halloween Jack Part 2
Our pumpkins:
Martyn was so excited to carve a pumpkin--he'd never made one all by himself.
Inside he found...GUTS!
This is me. I hadn't carved a pumpkin since I was like five.
I discovered it's hard work, but fun!
Ew, guts.
Our pumpkins outside as we got ready to see Where the Wild Things Are.
This is my pumpkin. It's Aladdin Sane.
Close up:
This is Martyn's pumpkin, Bender.
And a close up:
We even custom designed the smoke chimneys in the lids, cause we're awesome.