Ash's Treasure - #1 from my OOAK Faery Collection

"Ash's Treasure"

#1 of The Silver Branch's "OOAK Faery Collection"

Created in January 2011
Not For Sale

Ok, I've seen far better. That self-depreciation out of the way early on, I will go on to say that while not nearly perfect, Ash is my first figure since I started claying again, and I'm rather fond of him. Sitting height: about 4 inches tall.

EVERYTHING was a learning experience! I learned a lot through Ash. First off, it should be noted that I'm not a fan of molds - so no molds here - all the clay is hand sculpted. I created him at the Riverview Mill, a place where free internet access is nothing more than a beautiful dream unless you sit in the parking lot, so I had no tutorials or images to help guide my figure forming. But aside that, the wings, the clothes, the hair - all a learning experience from scratch.

What everyone seems to like about him the most is his wings... probably the easiest part  to make in all honesty. Ah well. I have to admit, when I saw the amazing creations of my fellow artists in cyberspace, I was dazzled and enchanted by their wings too. It's one of those magics, that once you know what they are and how to make them, they significantly lose their luster. I won't jade you here - you want to know more about them? Shoot me an email. But, trust me, it's best to live with magic than without it. I will say that they are made with open flame - how can you not have fun with that? I make faery wing earrings too - check my etsy shop if you're curious.

His clothing taught me something else - ribbons are probably easier to work with instead of full swaths of fabric, and that I am easily frustrated when creating tiny clothes. How do all you art doll, barbie, miniature and figurine seamsters do it?! I loathe the idea of smearing glue all over the figure and sticking cloth to it. Ash's clothing is all painfully and clumsily hand stitched. His pants were the worst to make because of the way I positioned him. Heather from "My Sister's Closet" was a huge help and I eventually managed to create something presentable after a few hours - a few hours! Yikes! Anyone know any good doll clothing makers I could team up with? lol

Oh where, oh where is my hair?

His hair, while rather a fright in the end, was the product of impatience. I should have tried putting hair on a practice head first, but Ash was sitting finished and waiting for his hair for over 2 weeks. I just had to cover him up. I tried llama fiber on a practice head weeks before. It was a mercy that I did too because it didn't work. I needed llama wool straight from the fleece. I needed Tibetan Llama wool. It's tiny ringlets and fibers feels so real to how I imagined a tiny person's hair to feel, that it's well worth the wait for it to ship in from New Zealand. I order from Dollworld. So friendly and fast despite the distance. For some reason, that lovely country of LOTR was the only place selling TIBETAN llama wool. O.o Funny world, ain't it? Well, it's so fine that the special glue I use to attach the layers of hair to his scalp has a habit of leaking through the layers. Hence the girly headband. Now I had pipettes and precision syringes, so I'm hoping that is a flaw of the past.

But there you have it. Ash! And his treasures? That's an old bracelet I beaded for myself (to match one I made for my lovely friend Libby) and is now safely under Ash's guard. I also made for him a tiny leather pouch hanging from his belt. The pouch is adorned with a brass bell and a tiny head feather from my father's parakeet, Fleur. Inside? 4 raw garnets I mined from Wilton, NH. :)

How I started making Faeries

"Ash" - What a learning experience he was!

My focus at present seems to be on practicing polymer clay faeries. Yeah, I do spell 'fairy' in that geeky 'epic, fantasy' like way. Truth be told, this was the old english spelling and dates from texts at least as far back as the 16th century, so it's not as new age as many make it out to be.

Now where'd I get this desire? I do love my 'green girl' faces and faery doors and haven't abandoned them, I promise. But I've always had 'a thing' for faeries. It was about 2 years ago that I took a little ball of clay and tried to follow an online tutorial on how to shape it into a baby's face. I still have that rather scary baby. As you can see from the picture of it below, I was inspired from that point on to give polymer clay a long vacation: no pay and no guarantee that there will be work for it again once it returns.

About 6 months ago (maybe less) I picked up a pack of Sculpy again... mostly out of boredom I think. I was battling the worst kind of writers block. It was the kind where you have an amazing plot, and even characters to boot, but no idea where to start the whole darn thing! I needed some sort of release. I made a dragon. Note about Sculpy III - it breaks at the very thought of tapping it. Brittle, powdery bits of a young dragon all over my car! Well, I moved onto Super Sculpy. I made faces with leaves around them and painted them to look like antiqued copper and sunlight speckled forest canopies. My 'Green Girls' (so called because they look like the Green Man, but I always saw them as too feminine) I flatter myself that I grew better at making faces. Still, I remembered my little baby faery and put full figures on the back burner. I made faery doors, started a flower nymph collection (working on flower #3! Wooo!), gnomes, jewelry. Finally, I decided to try it out. I took some wire and created an armature.

Watch out for my upcoming blog post all about my first somewhat decent OOAK (one of a kind) polymer faery - Ash.