Dia De Los Muertos!

We spent yesterday at the Day of the Dead festival at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. There were so many talented artists there selling work!  It was so awesome to be surrounded by wonderful costumes & beautiful art. I LOVE the folk art look of the altars, sugar skulls, masks, & skeleton figurines. The festival was such a celebration with live music & dancers... even though it was in a cemetery!

Most of these skeletons are hand-made of paper-mache or clay.  I just LOVE them!! So fantastic & so inspirational!  I wanna make skeletons now!

Totally Back on ETSY!!

Yep, That's Right!

I'm officially BACK IN BUSINESS!! It's been over a - year? Maybe a year & a half that my shop has been on "Vacation Mode". I only have a few things up right now, because I want to reshoot all my photos, and I have to go through my inventory to see what I still have. Check in to the shop to see all sorts of stuff that I'll be adding!

Here are a few more photos of some pieces that I have up in my shop!!

Lights... Camera... Fish!

LIGHTS...

So I finally invested in a Photo Studio Kit.  It came with a HUGE light-tent & lights.  I've been thinking about it for a while, but was hesitant about spending the money.  BOY, am I glad I did it!!  Still learning how to use it to it's full capabilities, but I'll figure it out.  I'm already happy with how my first photos have turned out.

CAMERA...

We also invested in a new fancy DSLR camera!!  It's actually more for my husband & his photography, but takes AMAZING picts of my sculptures.  I never thought that camera quality made that much of a difference, but it does.  This is a Pentax K-r, an entry level camera, but still a huge upgrade to my previous point & shoot.  


*I took this photo with my iPhone in my Studio!  Looks like a stock photo, but it's totally our camera!

FISH!!!

So this was my first attempt at taking photos with my new set-up.  I think they came out WAY better than before, but still am learning how to use the camera & lighting.  I love the colors & detail the camera picks up.  That is one thing I've always been frustrated with, how do you show the real texture of a needle felted piece?  Most of the time it just looks fuzzy.

This Felt Koi I made a while ago, but he always seemed unfinished.  One the project before this one, I experimented with some Clear Casting Resin.  That inspired this "pond" base.  I colored the resin & left some texture with the aluminum foil I poured it into for the "water" texture.  I then made a few Felt Cherry Blossoms (the ones from my previous post!)

Usually I like to finish sculptures right away, but I'm learning that if something seems unfinished, don't push it.  Let it sit & stew for a while (a year with this one).  Then maybe you'll come up with the perfect solution!



***This weird picture layout is kinda a "happy mistake".  The layout for my blog has changed & I'm still figuring out how to use it, but I kinda like how the photos created a nice collage look.  Don't know how or why it happened, but I'm okay with it....