New adventures with on-line classes

Clay Armature

I've been busy in the past few weeks with on-line classes.   What a great way to learn something new when it's convenient to my schedule.  I continue to try to squeeze 6 lbs into the 5 lb bag, I call my life.   But as they say that's just the "way I roll"....I think it may be hopeless at this time to try to change me.....especially since I'm having so much fun!!!

Although I've done some polymer clay sculpted heads before, I've never done the body.  So I took a class to learn how to build the armature (think skeleton and muscle) for a polymer clay doll.  The method used here allows you to pose the doll before you do the final sculpt of her body.   I think this is an ingenious idea.  Helps eliminate trying to figure out the pose as you are trying to sculpt.  The teacher is Deb Wood on the A for Artistic website.  http://aforartistic.com/classroom   She has promised to follow up with another class so we can finish what we started.   I still have to do the skull but here is a picture of the "posable" clay armature.   Note how you can bend it at the joint areas...... 

Drawing on Fabric

Angela Jarecki has an on-line class called "Windows" where you draw a face on cloth and then build a cloth frame around it.   Although I have drawn faces on cloth many times I thought that this would be a good opportunity to learn new techniques from another doll artist.   She had us start by shading in the shadows of the face rather than starting with the features.    I had never done it this way before and I found it to be rather enlightening.   I chose not build a frame but to actually incorporate it into a small 9 x 7 crazy quilt.   I also didn't want to draw a person that anyone would know so I chose a fashion photo as my inspiration.   I tried to mimic the pose in the photo and then embellished so that it actually makes it an abstract of the photo.   This mini art work will end up on a purse...