I started a new conceptual portrait, this time involving stars and space imagery which I haven’t used a lot in the past – time to retire the flowers and forests for a bit. I am also going to be adding touches of art nouveau, one of my absolute favorite design periods. I’m not certain what main accent colors I will be using with the black and white as of yet, but I’m leaning towards navy and gold, we shall see. The tilted downward angle of the face is certainly more challenging then the classical head and shoulders portrait, but after much erasing, success! Even practiced artists are in love with erasers.

When I need a break from the more technical, detailed work, I’ve been having fun growing my little army of wooden dolls – currently two strong. Who am I kidding, painting those tiny little clothing patterns and facial features on wood with a couple-hairs wide paint brush is still technical and detailed :P. I have always loved the simple cuteness of Japanese kokeshi dolls, and I wanted to try my hand at designing my own take on them. I figured wood would be easiest to paint with acrylics, so I perused the wood crafts aisle at Michaels after teaching a class one day and found 2 bags of shapes, one conveniently labeled “heads”, the other “bodies”. What luck! It doesn’t get much easier than that. Along with glue, I ran a heavy toothpick through the partial hole in the bottom of the head and the top of the body for extra support. This would be a really fun project to do with kids as well. You could even glue on small googly eyes, and some yarn for 3-dimensional hair, cut pieces of fabric or patterned paper to glue over the body, some small buttons down the front … the possibilities are endless. I will post pictures of their friends once I finish some more, promise! I will also keep you updated on the new portrait. Have a great start to the week everyone!

Pretty simple supplies … it’s all in how you decorate them!

Two of my non-handmade modern kokeshi dolls

Each of them just has to have SOMETHING on her head. Yes, that is a real acorn on the left, brushed gold and sealed. I was on a hike and quite literally exclaimed to my boyfriend, “They look like mini hats!!!” and started frantically collecting as many as possible. I knew they would come to good use one day!