May Day, May Day!!

"May Day, May Day!" Isn't that what ship captains use when their ship is in distress? Well, it hasn't come to that yet, we've made it through April and it has come and gone in a whirlwind of research papers. (Deep breath) Now on to May!
That means only a few more weeks of school, and after helping with those papers, the next few weeks should be a breeze! (hahaha...guess I still have to get them through Finals!)

The first of the month means "update time" for me on the two selling sites I'm on: To Dwell in Primitive Thymes and Early Work Mercantile.

While researching Vancouver, BC...I did a little research on a doll bust I bought about a year ago. I didn't find anything about it in particular, but I did stumble upon an interesting doll made by a man named Joel Ellis. He was an innovator and patented many things. You can read more about him here: Doll History and here is a link to a photo of his dolls: Doll Photo

I became intrigued with his dolls and was inspired to make a Joel Ellis style doll ( very loosely based on his). Her name is Felicity Wellcome (I'm reading a novel now that had the last name of "Wellcome" for one of the characters and thought it was fitting.)

Instead of maple and pewter, I used muslin and paperclay to make Felicity. Here are a few photos of her process. I used the half a papermache egg idea again for her bust, neck and head area.
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Felicity can be seen on: TDIPT

and because I was so inspired by Mr. Ellis' dolls, I painted one on canvas. When my boys were younger, they had speech therapy to help build communication skills. One of the things they worked on were idioms. So, I thought it would be an interesting and quirky study in the "literal sense" to illustrate a common idiom. I've painted a Joel Ellis style doll slightly teetering on a pin cushion to illustrate the idiom, "on pins and needles".

"She Was on Pins and Needles" is also on TDIPT

On one of my thrift store runs, I found a large bag of wooden objects. I had no idea what they were, but $1.00 (plus it was half -off a certain color tag day)...so, for .50 I took home the bag and and emptied it out. I started putting pieces together and realized I had purchased a bag of small wooden boxes! It was a great find! And after I realized what I had, I remembered an old Tole painting book someone had given me a long time ago...before I even thought about painting as a possible hobby. The book is entitled "Treasure Boxes" and it had some ideas about painting these little wooden boxes.

Sewing Notions on EWM

I ended up going with a sewing theme....great for Mother's Day (if your mom likes to sew!).

Continuing with the "sewing theme" , I painted silhouettes of four sewing tools for Early Work Merc too.

Sewing Silhouettes are on EWM

~Happy May!~