This was created to use as a trailer at the end of short videos jeff and i dream and scheme about making.

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Some of our dolls are in local retail shops, and some are in our Etsy shop online.

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And while I’ve been really happy with how they turned out, and the reception they’ve received, I’ve also felt that they seem a little vulnerable in the spaces they occupy—out in the open and over-exposed, while sitting on their shelves.

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Custom made boxes are what I’ve been devising for them, and have come up with several different prototypes. But, I think I’ve finally settled on using foam board.

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It’s sturdy and light weight. I use masking tape to join the edges. Inside, I create a little bench shaped structure, made from the foam board as well, and tape that in securely. This allows me to attach starman to his box with a ribbon or string.

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Then, add several coats of glue, paint and illustrations printed on inkjet photo paper, and finish with a sealant.

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The boxes have turned into a further extension of the art that is inside of them. I like what it adds to our toy art, and they seem happy with their hand made homes made just for them.

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Here is Raman with his custom box, who was recently entered into a group exhibit at HOWL Gallery/Tattoo, in downtown Fort Myers, FL.

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oooohhh, the places he goes in that box…

~dale

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I’ve been on the lookout for paper flowers that can be made easily with old dictionary paper. I wanted to add them to our altered bottles to pretty-up the photos in our etsy shop, and to make the bottles themselves even more of a unique gift item.

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Jeff adds the sculpted design on the bottles with pieces of masking tape.

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Layers of glue are brushed on to make it hard, durable and paint-able. If you would like a closer look at Jeff applying masking tape to a bottle, we have a video showing exactly that, here.

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The flower blossom is made from one page of a dictionary (any paper could be used though).

The page is torn or cut in half long ways, and then each piece is folded in half, long ways again.

With scissors, cuts are made on the fold side, about 1/4 inch (.5 cm) in width and about two thirds deep into the folded paper.

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This is placed onto a strip of masking tape—the folded edge away from the tape. Now, the photo only shows one section of the dictionary page being used. But, I use both, when I’m making these by just adding the second piece right next to the first one. This makes a much longer strip, and a fuller flower.

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For the stem, a salvaged piece of aluminum wire is used that we saved when a hurricane brought down all of our power, cable and phone lines into our yard. You can use any type of wire or stick though. Thin tree branches look really nice.

After cutting the wire with wire cutters, and twisting one end in a small coil shape to help stable the bottom while it stands in the bottle, the other end is attached to the tape.

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Then the paper strip is slowly rolled up, keeping the tape in line with itself and pinching it down as you go along.

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The ‘petals’ will need to be gently pulled down, a bit, to open up the blossom.

One more thing that I’ve done, for the flowers in our etsy shop, is run the paper through our printer to color the paper. It gives a nice transparent shade of color to your blossom. This is easily done by creating a picture, in any paint program, the size of your paper, with a swash of color down the middle where the fold will be.

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These are a couple of our ‘nu cola bloom bottles’, and are the beginning of a new section of altered bottles at etsy.

cheers,
~dale

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This is an ocasiocasa stop motion video of Hilda, the art doll, in the making.
While Renny will be staying close to home for more  photo shoots, and will be featured in upcoming illustrations.
Once again, our music track was created by our son, Lucas.

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Stacked in a pile, high on a shelf, in a hall closet, were some old hardback book covers. Many were Readers Digest. They were put there so long ago, we aren’t sure what happened to all the pages that used to be inside of them. We feel confident that they were used up in some creative fashion, and have two nightstands with collaged tops under glass to back up our claim.

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It was time for another art show and I wanted to to include some illustrations, I’ve been working on, of our art dolls.

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Attaching the prints to vintage book covers seemed like a unique and appealing way to present them.

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The images were printed out and cropped. Artist tape was used to cover the bottom raw edge. And the prints were attached with photo corners.

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I liked how they turned out and the response was really good.

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After the show, I put some in one of our local shops, The Franklin Shops on first street, and made a display box with cardboard, from reused shipping boxes, black artist tape and some printed photography.

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This is one that sold at the show and is a personal favorite of mine, which I titled,”valentine”. The dolls in the photo are also currently for sale at The Franklin Shops on first street, but look a little different now. You can see an image of them in our last post, here.

happy valentine’s day,
~dale

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The Franklin Shops on first street is a newly opened boutique retail center inside a refurbished 1930’s hardware store, and a welcomed addition to our historic river district.

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Our artwork has taken up residence inside of some of the square space wall-units in the shop.

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Something new in our space are jeff’s flat wallets.

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He creates and design them, free-hand, entirely from masking tape and draws on them with india ink.

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They have a credit card and id pocket inside, and fold up nice and flat.

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I love the designs on them, and have been scanning and storing his drawn images for possible future projects that I keep thinking up … even though jeff keeps exclaiming, “no pillows.”  hmph.

Well, then … I say the wallets themselves can also make a cute accessory for the dolls.

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Here’s to new beginnings.

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cheers,
~dale

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…and Jeff and I have been working on exactly that. From mini art displays in front of a downtown shop, which is opening soon and will be home to some of our items, to several small street art festivals, to exhibiting in a local art gallery.

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Space 39 is where we’ve been fortunate enough to gaze upon some really amazing work, over the past several years, from local and international artist like: our university’s art director’s deep fried beanie baby exhibit, to Marilyn Manson’s mesmerizing watercolors, to icons, such as Rauschenberg, Basquiat and Liechtenstein.

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this is Angelo

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The list goes on and spreads out; needless to say, we love this art space and were very happy to have been asked to show some of our art dolls and break-in some new display cases for curator/owner Terry Tincher.

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and here are Rudi & young Sunni

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Orlando

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and Stud D.O. with Thorn

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The Franklin Shops on First Street, a boutique retail center inside a refurbished 1930s hardware store is where we’ll house some of our art. It’s opening soon and we’re looking forward to being one of many shop owners inhabiting space inside this much anticipated new and unique storefront.

Here’s a short video of when we had a display out front of the store recently to help promote its opening. This was during ArtWalk, our town’s monthly evening art stroll.

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I bet you can imagine why we love ArtWalk.

cheers,
~dale

Jeff and I create art with reclaimed dolls.
Here’s a fast moving collection of snapshots from our studio.
The soundtrack was created by our son, lucas ocasio.