Grin And Bear It

I’m the first one to admit, Michelle did most of the heavy lifting on this week’s project, A Fozzie Bear mini-diorama that’s part of Gallery1988’s latest show, Off The Leash, a celebration of our favorite non-human characters from pop culture.

We called the piece “Wocka Wocka” and it’s something we’ve wanted to do for a while; A tribute to Fozzie the comedian. It’s a simple tableau of everyone’s favorite comedy bear, up on stage, with a microphone and some props, doing what he does best — telling jokes.

So while Michelle was busy needle felting our fuzzy friend, I set about figuring out how to make the rest of the piece. I started with the microphone (arguably, his main prop). To cut, drill, and grind the metal parts of the prop, I ended up utilizing the Dremel Workstation Michelle got me for Christmas. It’s a pretty invaluable accessory to my rotary tool and I couldn’t have finished my part of this project without it.

The grip of the mic is a piece of wood I sanded down into that slightly flared profile. Then I used my Dremel and a sphere-shaped burr to scoop out a concave bowl shape in the end. That way I could securely glue in the head, which I’d sculpted out of clay and textured with a stiff brush.

And while Michelle’s Fozzie sculpt is clearly the star of the show here, I gotta say I’m pretty proud of the stage he stands on and the props he uses. Also — little known fact — I was the one in charge of drawing the eight-hundred-or-so dots on Fozzie’s tie.

To see Fozzie and the rest of the pieces in Gallery1988’s Off The Leash exhibit, click here.

And if you’d like to see Michelle and I put together our tribute to this comedy legend, you can watch the video below.

An Informal Chat About Needle Felting with Run Red Run.

You all know my friend Run Red Run. She’s here at the studio all the time sculpting and building our joint projects with me, learning new skills alongside me, making our YouTube videos, and (every once in a while) she’ll step out of her comfort zone and do an “Ink It or Stink It” video with me. In addition to all that, she enjoys needle felting wool into cute, fiber sculptures.

She was finishing up this commission recently — a client’s pets — and I figured I’d catch some of her process on video and talk to her about it. What else have I got to do besides pester her while she works?

While the video shows some of the basic steps of needling a feltie into shape, it also focuses on her choice of plastic/glass eyes for these particular sculptures. So we had a little fun talking about all the different ways you could use materials other than wool in your wool felties.

If you’ve ever thought about trying out needle felting, you might pick up some tips or tricks in the video. If nothing else, it’s six minutes of two doofuses discussing an art form we have fun with:

Inking (& Needle Felting) The Penguin

Another process video. This time Run Red Run and I talk about Danny DeVito movies while I ink a comic book style Oswald Cobblepot.

Here’s the video for that.

And if you just can’t get enough of Cobblepot — and who really can — Run Red Run and I posted a video a while ago where she needle-felted The Penguin and we discussed ’60s TV Penguin, Burgess Meredith.

RunRedRun’s Hatbox Ghost Process

Hey! Since this blog is all about process – and since I just got back from Disneyworld and I still have “Small World” running through my brain – I thought I’d share this fun process post my needle-felting friend RunRedRun put up. It’s a step-by-step process on how she put together her Haunted Mansion/Hatbox Ghost felted sculpture and diorama. If you like Disney, ghosts, or needle-felting, you’ll enjoy looking at her process.