Updated Website!

I've just had a spring clean of my website, updated some of the pages and added dates and titles to the works, which I completely forgot about doing before.

I hope to add images of my most recent work soon....

www.nicola-spencer.co.uk

I've been thinking about different ways I could hang the dolls that I've been making, either within an installation or displayed in a similar way to paintings. In the images below the dolls are hooked onto nails, and because of the lightness of the materials that I've used, they hold well and don't require any further support. I quite like them arranged in a series, but perhaps I need to be more experimental in terms of the way the figures look?

Dainty Dolls

In order to further my exploration into puppets, instead of continuing making hand-puppets I decided to try making dolls. Ideally I would have used cotton wool or sand to fill the dolls and make them more solid but seeing as though I was just tested an idea, I used shredded newspaper in order to fill the bodies instead. I've tried to keep the elements of clothing that worked with the hand-puppet outfits - but add more details, such as lace.

I've kept the face white for now, but might add details at a later stage. I'm unsure about whether to add hair to the dolls...it wouldn't work if I used a material such as wool, so the other alternative could be hair used for wigs or human hair? This would add a slightly grotesque element to the dolls, and help develop their individual characters.

All work up for assessment - 30/1/2012

Here are some images of the work I put up for assessment yesterday, I don't think my studio space has ever been this tidy! Shelves were definitely a good investment, i've not really seen my work against a blank wall - a good practice for displaying work in the future!

The row of clay plaits below were a last minute addition but think they are my favourite piece of all the work that I've hung in my space. I think they could definitely do with being titled though...

New clay work

I had a a big clay head making sesh in the studio this afternoon before our assessments in the studio next week. The pressure seems to be quite good in making me produce loads of work and I got about 6 heads done and a few hair braids! It's annoying that they take a long time to dry but they should be ready in 2-3 days.

Hand Puppets

After making the clay heads and researching puppets and their history, I decided to try out making cloths to display alongside the head sculptures I had previously made. Although the head and cloth bodies aren't joined, I aim to try and progress onto this within the next few weeks. The good thing about the clothing for the heads is that they are relatively quick to make, any ideas can be quickly put into practice and then discarded if they don't work out.

14/1/2012

These are a series of studies from a book about German puppets, i think the works on black paper work better than the one on the brown card, because they feel like they have more depth.