Totem Dolls

Messing around with paper mache again. These little totems are decorated with colored sections of the newspaper. Twine hair. The larger one (about 5" tall) is a rattle. The small one woulda been a rattle, but I got impatient and dried him in the microwave, and he ended up not having a hollow inside after that. Oops. :)

Here Goes Nothin'!

I joined The Sketchbook Project 2011. While waiting for my sketchbook to arrive, I started stressing badly over having joined. Didn't have any ideas for pages (the ones I had when I was thinking of joining had all flown the coop), couldn't believe I'd spent money on joining something I couldn't do (I'm not a sketcher or a drawer), etc. I'm just coming out of a loooooong creative block and I felt like this stupid idea of mine was gonna throw me right back into it.

Well, thank goodness I got past that. It's only a silly little sketchbook and a few measley dollars. It's supposed to be fun. So I'm just gonna fill my pages with whatever strikes my fancy at the time. My theme is "Coffee and Cigarettes" and, since playing in the sketchbook is something I do while drinking coffee and smoking, I figure anything I come up with falls into my category. :)

So here's the first spread I've made for my sketchbook.


It's mostly watercolors (watercolor crayons, which I love) with some pen, magic marker, and cut & paste. I used all my fave colors.

Collage

I'm not a very good collager, but I was messing around with it the other day. Trying to come up with some background material. Here's what I made from magazine bits and a touch of paint.

A Black Tie Affair

Animal skulls, sticks, paper mache.

And she came bearing gifts...!

Not only did the Cool-Aberration gals do wonderful work on Bravura and her journal, but some of them also sent tiny gift dolls home with Bravura!



Thanks (left to right) Robyn, Mary Anne, Barb, and Yvonne! Your wee dolls are living in my doll display case and are much appreciated additions to my tiny doll collection.

Bravura's Journal

Bravura's travel journal turned out as wonderful as Bravura, herself. It arrived home chock full of art and treasures right to the very last page!

When I sent it off with Bravura last June, my journal cover looked like this.


Bravura came home all purples and greens. So I decided to redecorate the journal cover to match. Mary Anne was kind enough to send me a button like those she used on Bravura's cape.



This shot shows the journal with some of the fold-out pages showing.


If you wanna take a look at all the entries in Bravura's journal, check out our project blog here.

This has been a great round robin project. We managed to stay on track and finish on schedule, and everyone did really nice work on every doll. Thanks so much to my fellow collaborators: Barb, Mary Anne, Karma, Em, Jeanne, Robin and Yvonne. I had a blast and Bravura will be cherished keepsake and reminder of the fun this has been.

More Bravura

Here's a couple shots of Bravurs's back view without her purple cape on, so you can see more of the cool 'skin' Barb gave her and the pretty fabric flower Yvonne attached. What a vain one Bravura is!