Zeb and Calee in Florida

(Text and photos by Moriah Betterly from MLB Studios)

Zeb and Calee arrived on my doorstep and when I opened the box I was smitten.  Martha and Lezlei had done a fabulous job on these little cuties and I was dying to work on them.  However, they arrived when I had out of town family staying with me so I couldn't do anything with them for awhile.  Once I was able to work on them I decided to focus on Calee since Lezlei had done such a fabulous job with Zed.  Calee was looking a little bare so I stitched up a green tutu to match her fabulous green boa.

I decided she just had to have black and white striped leggings (because I love them so much myself) so I painted those on with acrylics.

Then I decided she needed some eyelashes and make-up.  After all, what circus performer doesn't have make-up?  I so wanted to keep adding stuff to her but I had to force myself to stop so the three people after me could work on her too.  :( 

Zeb and Calee in Texas

 (Re-posted from TDP blog, text and pictures by Lezlei Ann Young)
Zeb and Calee Learn More about the Circus: They talked a lot about other famous circus people while visiting Lezlei in Texas. They learned about Daisy and Violet Hilton, famous circus twins from Texas whose life was documented in a movie.  They learned about Baby Sun, the youngest clown on record and some REALLY tall circus guys. They collected some souvenir “faux cabinet cards” of the performers they learned about in Texas. They talked about clowns – Lezlei loves them! She made Zeb a little clown nose to wear so he might be less afraid of them.

Zeb Decides to Become a Ringmaster: Zeb was most impressed by the famous ringmasters. They are in charge of the center ring and look very handsome and commanding as they directed the performances in center stage. Off-stage they were equally commanding with their waxed mustaches and impressive grooming.

Calee Trysts with the Trapeze: As usual, Calee was attracted to all the beautiful shiny costumes of some of the women in the circus. Lezlei told her about some women trapeze artists from Gainesville, Texas. Calee tried the trapeze, but decided that the wires were too high from the ground and no one would be able to see her beautiful costume. She kept the costume, but decided to look for another circus job closer to the ground.

About the changes in Texas: Zeb and Calee were created by Martha of Ayala Art. They arrived in Texas safely with their faces sculpted with Paper clay over a soft body and painted with acrylics. The pair had minimal detail in order to protect their identities as they had left California with somewhat “tarnished” reputations. They made some changes in Texas to change their looks as they began to build their new careers in the Circus. Calee really missed Tobias and wished he had come along on the trip.

 First Lezlei gave Zeb and Calee matching blue-green eyes and added a few shadows to Zeb’s face. Zeb learned of the very famous Ringling Brothers and noticed that they all had mustaches. So Zeb also received a mustache and a pair of stern eyebrows so he would look more like a ringmaster. Calee laughed at Zeb’s mustache. Since Lezlei had sewing experience from years of making clothing first for her dolls as a child, then for herself, she made Zeb a shirt and a little red jacket with tails like a real ringmaster.

Zeb told Calee, “We’re going to be famous!”

The twin dolls

Since I got carried away painting my doll for the Traveling Doll Project I decided that it was just fair to send two. And although they look nothing alike, they were to be twins. (Reminds me a bit of the mommy dearest story! LoL)   So well, those 2 have been traveling since February 2011 for my 5 other team mates to play with.  They are made of cloth and clay and this is how  their begins:

Zebulon and Caledonia

Zebulon and Caledonia are boy and girl twins. Since early in their lives people kept asking them if they were identical twins but they would explain that they were not, simply because one of them was a boy and the other a girl. But still every once in a while, somebody will ask if they were identical. Now they just make a funny face and say nothing.

They both love the Circus. Zebulon’s dream was to be a Star in a circus. But he’s a terrible juggler and he’s afraid of clowns. Caledonia just likes the fancy outfits and the pop corn. They wanted to work in the Circus so badly that they decided to be Panda Bear Trainers, but they could never find a Panda bear, and renting one was too expensive! Not to mention, bamboo is quite expensive these days.

So they changed their act into Cat Trainers. At first Zebulon wanted to juggle cats, but it was too painful and noisy.

Finally, they made an appointment to talk to the Circus Director. The day of the interview they brought their cat Tobias to show how good they could train a cat…. Unfortunately, Tobias took off running to catch a mouse, who turned out to be a very special Talking Mouse, star of the Talking Mouse Show… Thank goodness the little rodent only ended up with a big shock and a scuffed tail. Zebulon, Caledonia and cat were kicked out of the office especially after remarking how the mouse never even squeaked despite his talkative attributes. After that, no one would give them a job. They had to leave California with a tattered reputation. So they came up with a plan…

Zebulon and Caledonia would disguise themselves and start traveling through out the whole country. The plan was fantastic; they would change their looks a little bit at every town.
They could bring nothing since they were in a hurry, but Caledonia said she could not live without her green feather boa so she brought it along. (I think she just likes it because it makes Zebulon sneeze).

After shortening their names to Zeb and Calee, they just needed to mark some important destination points in a map. First stop: Texas! 
(Originally posted in February in my painting blog)

Dolly tragedy and a solution

So I finally sit to work on little Victoria (From Moriah and the Traveling Doll Project team BBQs) And as I picked her up, her leg popped off from the knee. Aaaghh!!! I was in shock! I immediately tried to find a solution and see what could cause such a thing. Also went to tell Moriah because I was so moritfied that I had such a thing hapening to her dolly...

Well, Poor Victoria was very brave. She listened to our options and we decided that we were not going to use more pipe cleaner, as that would need a bigger hole and glue and all sorts of things that would probably not look so good.
The other option was to make her some long boots and cover the mishap, but she said that she kind of like to move her knees, so we went to a third option, which was to drill a hole in a new location and add wire.

She was very concerned that her skirt was climbing up, and that a garage shop was not really a place for a doll. But I told her we were going to be quick, and my son helped us to drill with precision. The last thing we need is to drill on the wrong spot, right?

We all were quite stressed, but things went smoothly and rather quickly. We did both legs so they would match. Right now we are waiting for the paint to dry in her new stripey nylons, and her new make up. I will be posting more pictures shortly!

Too hot!

I have not been close to the oven, it is hot enough as it is :o)   I have no new polymer sculpts, as I don't really want to leave them raw for a long time. So I guess it will be fall when I go back to it.
I have however, some little paperclay dolls that I need to finish. I had tu put them on the side because of the last school days, then the kids out for summer... then I went back to painting.
But they have been patiently sitting waiting for me. I have the hair, I just need to get the right glue. And selected the fabric too.

Reorganizing and listing goodies!

If you follow my other blog, you know that I'm listing all kinds of goodies after going through my artsy craftsie stuff. But in case you didn't know, well here I go! (✿◠‿◠) 


Check HERE for my auctions, starting at 99 cents. I'm listing soft baby fabric, Angelina film, premature diapers, polymer clay... feathers and glitter and yarn, oh my! (sorry, I couldn't help it...)
I wish I could list it on Etsy, but unless I have it in supplies? I don't think it would go there.

Anyway, I have been busy with that and trying to stay cool in this heat. I don't think I will make anything with polymer and the oven until the fall!

Oh! My adorable baby from the touring babies group arrived! He has so many cute things!! I have to take a picture with all his treasures to show you, we had so much fun! By now all the babies are coming home. Please visit their blog HERE and see how cute they turned out.

Tiny polymer baby WIP

Look this WIP polymer baby pictures. She is one of the tiniest I ever made ♥

And some more pictures ...

Sculpting tutorial

I want to share this cool video on sculpting with air dry clay. There are many ways to make a doll head, and this is one of them:



My friend Mary has so much great info in her blog, don't forget to pay her a visit:

http://www.air-dry-clay.com

Traveling doll from the BBQs

Lola arrived here with a lot of bling but no limbs.

She said she wanted to cha-cha and dance the night away, so she needed legs. Well, legs she got, and a nice pair of shoes in the same color as her dress, and a fancy fur stole.

I made the legs out of polymer clay, and painted the shoes with acrylics.  Now she is unstoppable! But I told her not to ever go to the "Copa Cavana"... just in case (Lola and Rico...?)

And as Lola was dancing and swinging, the next traveling doll got here. Moriah's doll arrived all dizzy and pale, poor thing. She said being shipped in a bumpy box at 107 weather was no fun:

Desperate to get out of the box:

Don't worry little doll, you will get a tan in California in no time!

Miss Rat and a tutorial

I finished more little things for Miss Rat. She now has a bib (in case she has an accident with her baby bottle), a big white bow,  and she has socks. I was seriously considering to make a puffy skirt, but it looked like too much already, so forget the puffy skirt. She will be ready to go back home to Barb after I take some more pictures.... I will miss her :o)

I also want to share this super cute tutorial on how to make a bunny hat:

Adding hair to a doll

I am bringing this tutorial from it's old location (In my other blog) to share here. If you have any questions feel free to post them. Click to see larger image.

Moonie tutorial

I brought this tutorial from my other blog to share it in here as well. Thanks for visiting and please post a comment if you have any questions or suggestions. (Click to see larger)
I'd love to hear if it helped you!

Waiting on my table

I have 2 dolls on my table waiting for me to work on them.
One is Miss Rat, who will now own a big bottle I made for her yesterday. I will give her a couple of more baby things and publish a post in the Touring babies blog. This was her last stop and now is on her way back to Barb!

And the other doll is from my BBQ team in the Traveling Doll Project from ADO, which keeps me thinking what to do for her. I want to give her limbs but since she has no way already to add them, I will have to drill a hole or come up with some other way to attach them. So I have been thinking and rethinking how to go about it...

She told me she wants to dance, so hopefully next time you will see her doing the cha-cha :oD

Stay cool my friends! We were 102F yesterday, will be warmer today... so enjoy some nice ice tea (unless you live in the south and are starting your autumn!)

June already!

I can't believe it is June already. The kids will be out for their summer vacation tomorrow. Raise your hands any mom that is ready for that?? LOL

This is a quick recapitulation of my traveling doll team Eager Eagles, from Jenna in Ohio, Jan in Texas and me in California:

Jan's doll as she arrived to my house

Keep reading more after the brake line!

Doll Pile

I want to tell you about Doll Pile. It is such a nice website for dolls only. It looks nice, the members are doll makers that you have seen before, with their shop there. And Dave, the owner, has been working on upgrading the website recently.
Have a look and why not open a shop while you are there? It's totally free!

Clicking on the logo will take you to my shop there :o)

changed the name and all!

After much deliberation and balancing of pros and cons, I decided to make this new blog about dolls and not paintings... and leave my old blog about paintings and not change its name, since it was going to delete ALL links, followers and basically lose 5 years for work.

So.... welcome to my new doll blog!! I am planning to have a giveaway and will post about it when I finish moving things around in this blog, and in my Paintings blog too

Back in April. . .

I made her a dress, bonnet and that's the hardest part of all, not being a seamstress... But what do you all think? I picked a very cheerful orange color :o)

Here's with the other baby girl and a Teddy bear to give an idea of size.

Another picture:

I am not sure yet where I'm going to list them. I guess I can try one in each site? (Etsy and ebay)
Thanks for visiting!

Paints on wood

These are some of my older paintings on wood. They are all sold and have been posted before in my other blog, but I thought it would be a nice start for this one. All of them are small format, about 5 inches tall.

 

Test

Just a quick test.
Paraskevidekatriaphobia.

How to add glass eyes

 

She is such a funny girl! The first thing she said when she came to visit me was “Are the lights out?” I thought she was kidding, but then I realized she still didn’t have eyes! So I told her it was a sunny day, and she was soon to see it. We found a nice pair of glass eyes and after getting Emily’s OK, we removed her eyelashes and started to work on her face. This is the "how to" do it.

The first thing was digging out the clay to make room for the new eyes. It was a scary thing, but this doll is very brave. She was telling me it was almost like going to a doll Spa:

We measured the eyes in her face and decided that she needed to restructure her cheeks so not to look like a gold fish.

Once she had the cheeks it was imperative to have a new mouth to match and that lead us to a new nose, of course!

The only thing original left in her head, is pretty much her ears!

When the clay was dried, it was time to sand. She said it tickled and kept giggling. With a little bit of more clay and water, all the bits of bumps were soften and sanded again:

Usually I mix oxide red, ochre, white and a bit of purple to make flesh tones, but since more people will work on her, and not everyone is into painting, I decided to use colors really easy to find everywhere.

When the painting is dry I will add a protective varnish, hair and her eyelashes. Will she have black hair? Blond? Brunette? She will decide later, for now she is just relaxing after all the hard work. :o)

After that she will be ready to keep traveling and get to see more places.