Showing posts with label Ride a White Swan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ride a White Swan. Show all posts

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Marc And Jack

GLAM FAIRY#5: MARC

'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!













Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Ride A White Swan: The Marc Fairy

Hey--I just thought I'd drop by to say what I'm working on now. I don't have much time to write before I go to work but it's going to be a Marc Bolan fairy riding a swan. First I made the swan out of a large styrofoam egg, rabbit fur, feathers, fluffy pipe cleaners, wire, leather and Fimo. Before:

After:


I wanted to take in-between photos but I had lost my camera until yesterday. The swan is pretty big, in case you can't tell--not quite life-sized but about the size of a large seagull at least. I need to get someone to hold the camera for me next time because I can't even get the whole thing in the shot!


Unfortunately it really looks like a dead bird on my desk.


And a close up:


Oops, gotta go--to be continued!



Ok, I'm back, and I plan to spend today (my day off) working on Marc. So far I've just made his head. Here are the pictures I took of it yesterday after I found the camera:


The likeness is alright I suppose, though it's hard to tell with no eyebrows or his signature hair. Also keep in mind that his face is roughly the size of a thumbnail, so it was pretty difficult to sculpt a portrait that tiny. I made this out of a half and half Super Sculpey-Cernit mix, by the way, and the color of the Cernit clay is 'biscuit'. It's a really nice mix since the bisquit is a little too light for Marc's skin tone and the flesh color of the Super-Sculpey is a little too dark. Also I've found that the Cernit is super hard to mold but helps retain small details because it stays in place so well, while the Sculpey is really easy to work with normally but can be frustratingly soft for realism at this scale. The mix I'm using has the best of both clays.


Marc after I gave him ears. If you've ever seen a picture of Marc with his ears showing you might know how they're a little elfish naturally, though I did exaggerate them a bit. His eyes are glass and from Jerry Hutchins at glasseyesonline.com, the same manufacturer that sent me his defects for my Ziggy fairy. Eyes from this guy always look unnervingly realistic when they are in a sculpture. He's also really reasonably priced--this is his store.
Marc's eyes are his '3mm green'.


Now that he is baked the Marc head is awaiting me on my desk in a creepy fashion:


Better get back to work.