Baking a Fimo Pan Figure

I sculpted a little Pan girl figure today and it is in the oven baking. Fingers crossed that when I look at it tomorrow, I will still love it. It is a far cry from the ugly stepsister I made in class, but I used all the techniques I learned and it really made a huge difference in the time it took to do. It still was about 6 hours for the head and torso, but I had to condition the clay as well as sculpt. Two big differences from taking Wendy Froud's class: 1. I was able to spend a lot more time to get it right and 2. we used Fimo soft in class and I used Puppen and translucent Fimo classic chopped together with Fimo conditioner. The classic is much better than soft. Fimo classic has a wax consistentency and does not melt in your hands so that when you are working on one side of the head, you are smashing the other side. I do have hot hands when I work, especially today. I cannot believe how hot it is, I finally turned on the air conditioner. It was over 84 in the house. Ouch. Water rationing here we come.

I decided to finish the doll I began in Wendy's class. She is certainly not pretty so do not use this output to judge whether to take a class from the Froud's. The techniques I learned and the experience was well worth the money and the time. I highly recommend buying her DVD because it is 240 minutes long and she goes over in detail her techniques. I posted the 'ugly stepsister' below. Enjoy and hopefully the next time I use Fimo, it will come out much prettier. I created a new wire armature, chopped up the Fimo and will start the new doll over the next couple of days. Too tired today.

Recovered from last weekend

It took me several good nights sleep before I felt recovered from last weekend's class. So today I will start a new doll. I am going to attempt a Pan figure but it takes me forever to finish anything, so who knows when it will be posted. I do know that using Fimo instead of Darwi clay will speed up the process. Darwi takes a good week to dry, so you can't sculpt and then keep working because of all the waiting in between. I believe that Darwi is stronger though because as soon as my last doll was finished, I dropped it on its face on the hard desk and nothing happened. I almost cried before I picked it up and saw that it had survived my clumsy self.

Back from Wendy's class

Valerie and I came back from Wendy's class on Monday afternoon, exhausted but happy. I learned so much in the class and it was fabulous. Wendy Froud's son Toby was also at the workshop and he is an incredible artist. Both Wendy and Toby created Pan figures and I really don't have the words to describe how fantastic they were. While I struggled to make a doll that had two eyes, a nose and a mouth in somewhat the correct area, they sat and worked on these dolls as demonstrations for the rest of us. I kept trying to coax Wendy's figure into my purse but he completely ignored me. Posted below is the figure Wendy started and pretty much completed during the 3 day seminar. Wendy said she had more details to button down, but to my eyes it was perfect.

Traveling to Wendy Froud Class

Today Valerie is picking me up and we are going up into the mountains above Reno to enjoy a beautiful spa and being inspired by a gathering of creative doll makers. I have not sculpted in Fimo before, so I know that my brain will explode with all the new information that I will try and remember. I'm bringing my camera so will share the pictures and experience when I get back.