A Very Late New Comer!!

Welcome to Darla!

Darla, an Icelandic ewe lamb, was born here Monday afternoon as a result of a unscheduled breeding at Stony Meadows Farm in January/February. I bought her mom, Candice, (pictured with her) uncertain of whether she was pregnant as a yearling.

As you can tell, Darla is teeny tiny! She was most probably born prematurely. Since her mom's milk had not come in, she needed some colostrum. I fed her frozen colostrum from my neighbor's dairy goats for two days. Her mom didn't understand about nursing her lamb, so we had to be a bit forceful with Candice once her milk did come in. Then Candice became a nursing mom.

Now Darla thinks it's time to eat some hay... and she's only 3 days old!!!

Icelandic Sheep have many, many different colors and color patterns. To me it looks like Darla is Mouflon and white spotted. But I haven't learned enough to say for sure. I'll leave it to the experts to determine! One thing's for sure: this breed is born with lots of long curls of fleece!!!

Candice's long fleece has grown since April 8th!

Here are more pictures of total cuteness!!

Family of Elephant Sculptures

Please visit this link to see the entire post about my recent Elephant Family sculptures.

http://farmgirlarts.com/2012/06/elephant-family-love/

New Cat Commissions Completed

Three cats owned by a friend. She gave these portraits to her husband for their anniversary. 

I used real fur from each cat in it's portrait.

This is Jooge. His stripes were a fun challenge!

This is Tyson. I loved creating this pose. So inspirational.

This is Tailhook. Sadly, she passed away in 2011.

I was about to give up sculpting cats as they had been quite difficult. However, working on these helped me become more acquainted with the form of felines. So, I'll keep taking commissions for cats. :-)

Welsh Corgi

Here's a link to one of my recent sculptures:

http://farmgirlarts.com/2012/02/welsh-corgi/

Thanks!

Krankies Holiday Craft Fair!!

visit my blog to read more:

http://farmgirlarts.com/2011/12/krankies-holiday-craft-fair/

Southeastern Animal Fiber Festival!!!

To see my blog about this go to:

http://farmgirlarts.com/2011/10/southeastern-animal-fiber-fair-time/

RSS feed is working on New Blog!

Got to this page:     http://farmgirlarts.com/blog/
Click on rss feed or that orange icon to sign up for my new blog.
Also, go to the Home page to watch my video and to Portfolio to see a whole array of the animals I've made!

Thanks!
Laura C Frazier

Sitting Kitty: Cat Sculpture

This kitty was commissioned for Mother's Day by a daughter. The kitty's name is Bonkers and she had a habit of sitting in a most "unladylike" position. 

Buddha-esque or Yoda, maybe?

Here's Ms. Bonkers herself. A big girl with beautiful gold/green eyes.

Getting those full jowls and the double chin were essential to capturing her character.

Red Fox Sculpture

Recognize this critter from your backyard? 

This was a commission for a young man from his parents. 

I loved working with the coloring of the fur on the body. My favorite thing is working the details of the face.

It was hard to say goodbye to him on Friday.

100% homegrown natural colored and hand dyed wool. No armatures.

Before looking at close up photos of wild foxes, I hadn't noticed how the color is red roan on the haunches. It gets darker toward the head.

The physical build of a fox is an odd combination of cat and dog characteristics, I think.

Dog Portrait: Bryn (chow/collie mix)

This was a gift to a teenage daughter on her birthday from her parents. Was fun to work on this dog because I know everyone! Looking at the photos today, if I could change anything it would be to add more hair around the head/neck area.

Left ear up, right ear down.

Several layers of dog hair carded in with dyed Suffolk wool to get the dual coat look and texture.

Funky tail curl over the back and darker shorter hair on back.

Tail and underside have longer fluffy hair.

This is Bryn in real life.

Elephant Sculpture: "The Matriarch" is in the House!!!

Some 80 hours, 14 ounces of wool and many wrinkles  later, photos of the Elephant Matriarch follow:
(Ginny Weiler, Photographer)

 

She measures 8.5 inches tall x 13 inches long (trunk to tail). No armature was used. All wool!!

Imagine a 14 ounce pile of fluffy Suffolk down wool needled tightly into this shape.

The tusks were the hardest part of all!

I loved adding the wrinkles here, trunk, sides, back legs, flanks, ears, etc.

The Quarter is there just for scale.

Sculpting an Elephant

Elephants' bodies are truly complicated. Much more difficult to understand and recreate than cats, dogs, bears, turtles, etc. I have an "idea" of the elephant body, but once I began really LOOKING at elephant pictures, I noticed how wrong that idea was. The joints are quite different from dogs and other four legged animals we're familiar with. The front legs are much longer and the spine is lower in the back. Last night I recorded a PBS show on animal communication which included a segment on elephants so I could refer to them moving as often as I like. 

Because I am making the Elephant nearly 3 times the size of my usuals and because I'm so unfamiliar with this body, this sculpture is taking much longer than I thought!

It is a fun challenge, though!

We are Siamese if you please. We are Siamese if you don't please.

I was asked to make the Old Fashioned Siamese. Not the ones that are now bred to have enormous ears and a long pointy nose. I had no idea the new look existed. I prefer the older version mySelf.

Sophie's Portrait

Here are a couple pictures of the real Sophie. She was the model for the felted dog in the previous post. Husband had me sculpt Sophie for wife's birthday. "She went nuts!" he said. Glad they liked it.

Making Contact

I must hand out 50 or so cards every week at the Farmers Markets. That's putting out money rather than bringing it in, but it's also making contacts and connections. Yes, I do sell some needle felting wool and yarn every now and again and I do get commissions for all kinds of critters, but slowly. I just hope that everyone who took a card to get back to me on a commission doesn't show up 3 weeks before X-mas!!!

I love sitting at my booth, needle felting away and having folks of all types come up to see what I am doing. Some think my work is way over-priced and hurry their children away. Others really get all the work that goes into each animal: feeding the sheep, shearing them, getting the wool washed and carded, dyeing the wool, not to mention the actual sculpting process. Those in the latter category tend to think I'm not charging enough. Interesting!

I'm just grateful that I can make money doing something that combines my love for animals and my ability to sculpt!!!

At The Farmers Markets

I offer my sculptures and wool products at three farmers markets:

Krankies Farmers Market: Tuesdays 10am - 1pm.

Reynolda Village Farmers Market: Fridays 9am - 1pm.

Winston-Salem Farmers Market (Dixie Classic Fairgrounds) Saturdays 8:30am - 11:30am.

Look for more frequent posts here.

Thanks!