I'm Moving

I have sold my house and bought another in Launceston - with much less garden to look after. Five acres down to a suburban block! It will be very different living in town, but I'm looking forward to a new phase of my life. It has been hard deciding to sell the house and studio that Bob and I built and one I agonized over, but now I'm excited about new possibilities.

I may be a little unconnected for a while - I'm staying with my mother after leaving here on Monday 21st December and I will be there until early February when I move into my new house. The new place is in an NBN ready area,  but the house is not connected yet - I may have to wait a while. 

Needless to say, I've been putting in very long days: sorting, cleaning, culling, throwing out and passing on. It's been very cathartic, but I'll be glad when that removal van finally rumbles out of here to put my things in storage and I can rest for a while.

Thanks to all my supporters and readers of this blog - may I wish you Season's Greetings wherever you are and all the very best in 2016. I'll post again as soon as I am able.

SUSIE

Etienne

 

I was painting this little boy's face when news of the Paris terrorist attacks was filtering through.......I have called him "Etienne" - it seemed apposite, and also, I think he has a kind of European look to him. He is a 12' (30 cm) jointed cloth doll with a cloth over clay head painted with artist's acrylics. His hair was formed using cotton thread impregnated with glue and applied to his head. He sports some nice warm hand-knitted winter woollies, wool fabric shorts in brown with a fine lighter stripe and I made his socks with some new 2-ply merino yarn that I sourced from  

Morris and Sons in Sydney. 

 

He has leather lace-up shoes.....blue suede, no less! He is one of my "Pensive Children" series - no. 10.

A Little Christmas.....

 

 Here's a little Christmassy "Sukeshi" doll I made for an online show and sale.........you can get details from this blog: http://www.artistsofhandmade.blogspot.com   This is "Snowbird".
 

                                          
And here's a little boy "Pensive Child" that I am working on. I was painting him as news from the dreadful events in Paris was filtering through - I've called him "Etienne".
                                    

Pensive Child

My house is now listed, repairs and tidying up done, so now I can relax a bit and get back to my waiting work.......although keeping the house always tidy and free of clutter and ready for inspections takes a bit of effort!
I have a few orders pending for my "Pensive Child" dolls - both boys and girls, which is fun! I don't often get to make boys. So I've been busy making heads and sewing bodies to get these little sweeties out as soon as I can. I have other orders on the go as well, so it is nice to get a bit of uninterrupted studio time. Just chipping away at it........I do so love making these little cloth children with their serious but tender faces, sturdy jointed cloth bodies and no-nonsense unfussy play clothes!

 

Happenings........

I've been a little neglectful of my blog for a few weeks, only because I've been extremely busy getting my house and studio in order, as I've decided to sell and move into town to something a little more manageable.......I'm finding five acres a bit much for me to keep under control by myself. 

Bob and I built this little house and then the studio ourselves and it's always been a warm, snug, welcoming place, so it's not without a little regret that I am doing this. But the time seems right - I'm ready to move on and begin a new phase. I'm not getting any younger and the longer I leave it, the harder (in a physical sense) it will be to make the move.

Here are a few photos:

 

Cosy wood-fire

 

Dining room

 

My sunny reading nook

 

Lounge

 

Backyard tree

 

Kitchen

 

One end of the studio

I'm hoping someone will buy my house and studio, make it their own and love it as much as I have

 

How Nice To Be Home!

As wonderful as travelling is, it is always nice to get back home again and have a cup of tea made with the Right Tasting Water. I'm starting to realize how important that is!

I had a wonderful week in the West, teaching at Fibres West - what a great, well-run event it was! Kudos to Martien van Zuilen  for her first effort at organizing this event. The venue was excellent......here are some photos taken about the environs:

                                                                  
                                                               Here's my class:

 

And some work I managed to get completed while I was away:

"Principessa" 

And "Sweet Pea" 

 

Doings........

As I am about to head off interstate - this time to Western Australia - for a stint of teaching at an event called FibresWest, I have been busy preparing for my class and for my slide talk presentation........but I've still managed to get some of my own work done as well as completing orders, like this one. This was how they looked nestled in the box of padding before I sent them......cloudbabies!

And here is another mixed-media piece, which I've called "My Back Pages" (yes, I stole that!)

 And with Spring coming on, there is lots to do outside in the garden. At least I am mostly on top of it!

A Foray Into Zebradom

It's amazing how a very small thing can trigger an entire body of work, or an artistic detour.......for me it was this birthday card ("Baby and Zebras" designed by Suzan Visser for Edition inkognito) given to me recently by one of my sisters:

 I love zebra patterning, but what triggered something and set the thinking-wheels in motion was the tiny child on the zebra's back. A series of anthropomorphic animals! The first would be a zebra: here is the planning drawing and the head I made for it:

 

I made a cloth body with hip knee and shoulder joints - it needed to be as well-made as I could make it, as the doll would be unclothed and the fabric body would be on show, albeit with a striped livery that might disguise a few flaws! Here is the doll assembled before painting:

 

Then I went to town painting the stripes - that was fun! I used lots of zebra pictures as references and made a bit of it up as I went along. I cut a slit in the top and the back of the head to insert alternate pieces of black and white fur fabric for the mane......I never realized before that a zebra's mane follows the stripes in colouration.

 

 

 

I'm planning a fox next.

 

 

 

A Girl and her Hen

I've been experimenting a bit just lately with cloth-covered paperclay birds. This is the same technique I use to make many of my dolls' heads and in this case, for the hen, I used a woven cotton fabric that was fairly open, to give an almost canvas-like texture. This is a lovely surface to paint onto.......and as you know, I love to paint! This little hen needed a human companion, so I gave her an egg-loving little girl. The girl is a 12" (30 cm) jointed cloth doll with a cloth over clay head painted with acrylics. Her wig is hand-knotted Lincoln wool and she wears a cotton dress and pinny. I knitted her cardigan using 4-ply cotton yarn and her sun-hat is crocheted from cream and blue cotton. Her sandals (which were very fiddly to make!) are leather and I had to make the buckles, because I haven't been able to source tiny metal buckles for quite a while. And she has a little basket for the eggs. Brown ones, of course!