Watch this

You may or may not have ever heard of Chris Ware, an artist who created Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid in the World (which is a fantastic and appallingly brilliant graphic novel). Well, whilst trying to find out more about Chris Ware I found this cartoon he animated for This American Life.

It's about kids, a playground, and the video cameras they made. It's slightly disturbing. I strongly recommend you click here which will take you to the video so you can watch it... because, I am not tech-savvy enough to put it here for you...

Dude.

POST UPDATED -- Click HERE for the link to the video

Disturbing Head

I tried messing with the head tonight, to see if I could get it to work the way I wanted it to.  I had thought I made it too small for the body... and I really did.  I figured I should needle sculpt it anyway, get some more experience making a face look like a face.  I drew on it with the awesome blue marker... but it looks so skewed and funky, not to mention too long in the wrong direction.  It's not wide enough either.  I'm in between being irritated with it, and accepting of the fact that the first head pattern I designed simply didn't work out.  It's okay, really.  So, now I'll probably have a doll head laying around until I make a better body for it later.  It's even funnier looking on the body, but that will be the next post since blogger doesn't seem to want to work with me tonight.  Poop.

Doll Arms, Doll Legs

On the right is the muslin as it originally came out of its tea-bath, and on the left is the arm turned right-side-out. It's three (?) shades lighter turned out, and I first I wasn't sure if I liked it -- but with everything stuffed it really doesn't look that bad.

The torso, arms, and legs all turned out fabulously. It's one of the first times I've designed a pattern and had it turn out the way I wanted it to. The torso shoulders are a bit pointy, but they may work out just fine once I've got the arms attached.


I sewed the knees for "joints." I was going to do it on the sewing machine -- yet that is somehow too complicated for my head to understand... So I sewed them by hand. I know, it takes longer but I had total control of where the stitches went.

I plan on tying the elbows by wrapping a string or something around them to create a joint. I'm not quite sure how it will look. But I didn't want to stitch the joint there too. It just seemed like too much.

The head pattern could use some work. It came out a bit too flat, so the face looks long and thin. It looks fine on the doll, but I'm going to take some time this next week and make a few head patterns, make them, and see what works out better. I think the nose worked out well. I want really big noses on my dolls, it just feels like it gives them more personality. I kind of have a big nose, so I definitely have an affinity to pass that bit on to the stuff I make. That just sounds strange.

Hopefully I'll have this put together by the end of the week. It may take longer since I want to try out different heads... Who knows, you'll just have to check back, yo.

Questions

Part of me really wants to hang this in my future classroom, the other part tells me that would be a very stupid thing to do. I'm torn. What do you think? Would high schoolers find this funny or offensive? And how much time should I spend caring about their "feelings"?

Progress: Warning Detailed crafting info follows...

Progress made! I've never used one of those markers that you can wash away with water, but it was awesome. I prefer to trace patterns directly onto the material I'm using (usually muslin) so that as I'm sewing I can follow it exactly. Otherwise I'm all over the place and it doesn't look the way I want it to.

In the past I've used color pencils or regular pencils, which (of course) always left anger-inducing stains on the fabric -- which is part of the reason I usually paint it after it's stuffed.
This time, I just ran the pieces under water and the blue line disappeared! I'm such a moron for not using it earlier, as many of crafters I follow use it. I'm just a slow learner.

After rinsing the blue marker away I deliberated on what to do about the color. Plain muslin is great to work with, but makes for a pasty sad-looking doll. Believe me, I have one, and it makes me gag with disgust everytime I look at it. I had tea-dyed an earlier tiny doll I did with chai. It made it smell really good, and the color turned out great. I used it on a larger doll too (which I'll try to post photo's of later) but ended up painting it ... long story. I'm sure it's too boring to tell you about now.



Anyway, I went the tea route again. I used 3 English tea bags and soaked the pieces in it all day. Now they're hanging up in my bathroom to dry. I'll iron them tomorrow to try to lock in the tea "stain" and then I'll stuff it all. I'm thinking I should have those photo's up later this week. And maybe my post will be more interesting then...

Slowly, maybe surely

I have been wanting to make my own doll pattern for quite a while. I doodled something (because I don't draw, not well anyway) in class a couple months ago that I really liked and figured I would go after it.

I drew up the body, messed around with my sweet new compass, and then hesitated on the rest of it for a long time (read months). This is the head to the left. I literally had to talk myself into cutting the pieces apart today because I really like the design and didn't want to mess with it. Which sounds really silly, since I have to cut it up in order to use it. You may ask why I just don't trace it onto the fabric... well, my brain doesn't quite work that way. I like to put the pattern pieces on the fabric and use a pencil to trace them on -- from the thick edges of the pattern. Because I HATE tissue paper patterns.

I always feel like I can never use them again, and then what is the flippin point?

Anyway, I told Alex to tell me to get over my strange phobia and cut the head pattern already. So, I did. You can see the pieces here. It's going to be a relatively simple doll, and I'm thinking
the chicken fabric (behind the pattern) for the legs. I bought this forever ago because I thought it was hilarious (hello, chickens saying "bonjour") and haven't been able to cut it. Because I'm obsessive and neurotic. But, I know for a fact that other fabric hoarders do the same thing. You can love a fabric so much that you never bring yourself to actually use it. It's sad, but true.

Anyway, I hope to get started in earnest on this in the next week. I will get some more photos' up to show progress, so if you don't see any in the next few days -- please PLEASE nag me about it. I need that.

She so totally captured it...

Dylan Meconis is a cartoonist/artist that I've been following (read blog-stalking) for a little while. She posted about how seriously a trip can get messed up and posted the following toon:Click on it to make it bigger (or this).


This also captures the way I felt when Alex and I missed our flight home from Oregon. So ANGRY! Plus, the Delta "customer service" lady didn't help at all. She repeated several times that they had overbooked and oversold every flight, so we couldn't wait stand-by for any flight home. They could, however, put us on the plane leaving the next morning if we were willing to shell out $1200 -- seeing as how they would have to charge us $100 for transferring our original tickets to a new flight, and $550 each to upgrade our seats to first class. As those were the ONLY seats available on the freaking plane.

Lianna told me I should have taken a picture of her to post here, but I was so angry at the time I wasn't seeing straight.

So, we had stand in line at Southwest to buy new tickets for $500 to get home the next day (which was a Monday, and this all happened Sunday, July 27). Southwest was awesome. They were all polite and helpful, and more than willing to offer us the help we needed. Fly Southwest, screw Delta. Seriously.


Okay, that should be the last any of you hear about Oregon, at least for a while.

Random Post, because I can...

this is me scratching myself in the eye after missing our first airplane home from Oregon. I am an unhappy lady in this photo. I hate Oregon so much. Can you tell? Dude.