Studio Shots - Tuesday, As Is

The topic for this week's Studio Shots - Tuesday is As Is or No Tidying Allowed. I am getting ready for a teddy bear show in July.  I decided to do a mock-up of the table display, so I will have an idea of what it will look like at the show.

Here is one of my work tables set up with the great hatboxes I found at Home Goods.  As I finish pieces, I add them to the display so I can get a preview of the finished table display.  I have found this so useful, although it does take up a lot of work space.  It lets me know how full the table looks and gives me an idea of how many finished pieces should be on the final display.   I have grayed the photo out some so you can focus on the design and placement of the table display rather than the individual pieces (some are still in progress - can you tell which is still missing its arms?)  I see a lot of pink-peach-orange- red on the left side and beige on the right.  I'll have to play with moving around the pieces to get a better balance of colors.  Messy cutting table is in background.  I will also add a sign with my business name, business cards, a few magazines with articles that include my work, and a book for guests to sign.

I do a lot of my hand work, including hand sewing, shading, stuffing, and jointing using a tv tray table next to the couch to hold supplies.  I find I enjoy working while being curled up on the couch.  This does mean I am always finding pins, teddy bear joint disks, glass eyes, and other small supplies between the couch cushions.  Here are some tools and materials currently on the little tv tray table.

Here are jointing disks in a few sizes, washers, and cotter pins - all jointing supplies, a bag of vintage buttons for possible use on accessories, thread, faux sinew (tall gold spool) for attaching glass eyes, some shading tools, a bag of cut teddy pieces, a lone glass eye, and some vintage lace trim.

Here is a closer look at the vintage lace trim with pink elephant tail poking out from behind.

Spools of thread found in various places in the studios - gathered in one place until I have a chance to put them back in their tub containers which are organized by color and type and are on my sewing table.  In the background are vintage millinery flowers, silk ribbon, new Shiva Paint Sticks for shading, and my Holga camera.

Studio Shots

While working in the studio today, I started seeing photo compositions of various objects that struck me as funny or just interesting.  I ran and got my camera and quickly shot them so I would have a record of the images.  Makes me think I'll start taking my camera around more when I go out.

Hangry Dal doll

Teddy w.i.p. - in baggie

Assortment of mohair pieces from mohair gift rolled up to go into supply closet

Micro doll sneakers

Teddy leg w.i.p. with alligator clip toes

Luscious, Luscious Mohair

Mohair -- I love the stuff!  It's the fleece from Angora goats, sheared like sheep's wool.  In another life, it was my favorite fiber for spinning, my favorite hair for dolls, and now I use mohair fabric for my bears and critters.  It is soft, fluffy, stiff, matted, long, short, curly, straight, dense, sparse.  Like most bear artists, I have a stash of it. (A big stash)  I have found that it's not the easiest thing to store, as the fabric is wide, takes on creases where it is folded, and has a pile that I don't want to crush.  My mohair is stored on a shelf in my studio closet, each piece rolled (nap outward) into a tube.

When I go to select a piece of mohair for a project, I usually have an image in my mind of what I want to make and have sketched a drawing for reference.  I go into my studio closet and start pulling out pieces I think might work well for the design.  Soon the floor is covered in various shades of mohair.  Then I take 3 to 4 pieces to my work table where I play with and manipulate them into semblences of  three- dimensional shapes.  I want to see how they react to being curved and bent, how the pile moves and changes, and if the base fabric is visible when the fabric is curved, do I like the effect.   I pick one, but the others may be tucked into the back of my mind as possibilities for future projects.

You can read more about mohair here and here.