Wendlyn at the Pumpkin Festival

"Wendlyn's Doorway"

This evening starts the 2013 Milford Great Pumpkin Festival. For lucky people like me, (aka, those setting up their booths in the town hall auditorium) we don our festival game-on faces tomorrow morning at 10 am and can't relax again until 8pm. I'm also there from 10-3 on Sunday. (Monday? I'm crawling under my giant fern on the balcony and falling asleep in a fetal position until Tuesday.) I never got to make my steampunk faery in time for this event - I just wasn't inspired enough by a storyline. BUT! I did create this cute little girl. For your viewing pleasure: "Wendlyn's Doorway."

Wendlyn is a bit of a ragamuffin, bohemian sort of gal. She started with an antique key, a couple of pieces of wood and some fabulous ribbon I found at Michaels of skeleton keys. Not being a huge wood-worker, my father went to work cutting and connecting the two boards to create a stand and backing for Wendlyn's portal to the realm of Faery. I created the door out of copper, silver and green clay, cut the keyhole by hand and -magic!- you can peek inside the keyhole to see the lush magical forest beyond. Want to see more? Well, Wendlyn is the keeper of the key to unlock it. Maybe if you ask her really nice...

Her skirt is half clay, half real ribbon and lace.

Wendlyn is also a special addition to The Silver Branch OOAK faery line because she is a teaching piece. I took pictures of her throughout the creation process (when I could remember to! Sometimes momentum is everything in sculpting). And I will soon be taking down the ridiculously stuffed fan art board in the hallway to post pictures and explanations of her creation. This way, I hope more visitors to Riverview Mill and my studio will understand how special these little faeries are because of all the work that goes into them! Here is one of the creation images.

Working to position her head. Forgetting to give them ears is one of my worst habits. Ears are so fragile when the clay is wet that it's best to leave them off as long as possible. I've sometimes had to rush sculptures out of the hot oven before they've cured after realizing they're missing their ears! I didn't forget this time. Once her head was positioned, she got two cute little pointed ears.