from hands to heart

http://www.dollessence.com/

Over a month with no updates here on the blog! Sorry! I've been working on my comissions. These dolls take so much time to complete and I put all my love and dedication on making them.
This picture shows a Monah head I finished painting. I love this part of the proccess!

This is the new face painting I created for Monah! hope you like it!

Orders: For a limited time, orders for nude Monah (with her new face painting) will have 30% off. Christmas Special! ♥ PLEASE visit www.DollEssence.com for more pictures and information!

I am so happy to tell that my porcelain BJD is in Dolls Magazine December 2011!!!
The article is my story, beautifully written by dear friend and masterJack Jonhston! If you want to read it click the link bellow to view the digital edition (pages27-28)
viewer.zmags.com/publication/741e52a2#/741e52a2/27

Minha BJD de porcelana na revista Dolls Magazine, edição Dezembro 2011
Um artigo maravilhoso, minha vida, escrito por Jack Jonhston.
Para ver a revista edição digital clique no link acima (páginas 27-28)

I am so glad to announce my first porcelain BJD is finished! I am taking orders now. Please visit the page bellow for more pictures and information:

www.dollessence.com/monah_order.html

The first brasilian BJD is almost ready, just like a butterfly she patiently waits for the right time to come out of her cocoon!

A primeira BJD brasileira está quase pronta, assim como uma borboleta, ela aguarda pacientemente o momento certo para sair de seu casulo!

So glad, she is almost finished! If you want to be notified as soon as she is available for orders please visit: http://www.DollEssence.com

It's been a really long time since my last update here... I have been posting pictures of my porcelain BJD in progress on facebook and Flickr, so please take a look at the pictures to see more of what I have already done! Well now it is so close to see her finished, I just can't wait... I've been dreaming about this for over a year!
Also, I would like to announce my new website: http://www.DollEssence.com which is dedicated to the BJDs only. It is still in construction but there is a form there that you can fill in to receive a notification as soon as my doll is available for purchase, before I make it public. These dolls take too much time, love and patient to make so I am not sure how many I will be able to make within a month, maybe one or two. That's why the "First to know list" is a good thing if you are interested in my dolls, you might be one of the first to order and your doll will be with you sooner.

I like this picture as much as it hurts to remember that I broke her foot. This is my first complete-fired-to-maturity-porcelain-doll. I broke her foot while I was stringing her, I accidentaly let it fall on the floor. Fortunately she was only a test-firing doll, she is not perfect and there are some adjustments that I am making on the wax model now. But I hate the fact that I lost her foot because I know how much work it was!
While she holds her broken foot I can't help but imagine what she is thinking...It looks like she is wondering whether she has any similarity with Cinderella... "Wasn't I supposed to lose the little glass slipper?"

My work has been featured in Dolls Magazine Special Edition - Encyclopedia Artistica - summer 2011! I feel so honored to be among those amazing Doll Artists! ♥
You can view the digital magazine here:
viewer.zmags.com/publication/c46f86ee#/c46f86ee/1

Meu trabalho foi publicado pela segunda vez na revista internacional Dolls Magazine - Edição Especial, verão 2011. Me sinto honrada em estar neste artigo entre tantos artistas maravilhosos! Meu trabalho está na página 34 e 35.
para ver a revista digital clique abaixo:
viewer.zmags.com/publication/c46f86ee#/c46f86ee/1

I am very pleased with my decision to include this procedure in the creation of my porcelain ball jointed doll. I was amazed by the advantages of making wax castings before the final porcelain casting. I guess the only disadvantage is the extra work and that it takes longer to finish the project. But I am pretty sure the results will worth it. Working with wax is very messy, look at my desk!

Working with porcelain has been the most challenging experience to me. This is one of the reasons why I am taking so long to finish this project. I want to be satisfied with my doll and that means a lot, I am a bit too perfectionist... I've lost track of how many test castings I have made, but I know I've failed a lot of times. I felt discouraged sometimes, so tired to see another set of doll parts going to trash. But there is beauty everywhere... porcelain and I have slowly started to get along well, understanding each other and allowing each one of us to go a little deeper in our relationship. ♥
I took this picture because I thought it was beautiful to see the doll parts together while they are drying. Unfortunately these pieces were part of my failure proccess.
So I keep trying, never giving up. Until I can make myself happy.

I'm sorry I haven't taken many pictures during the proccess of my doll becoming porcelain... there is just so much work that I ended up forgetting all about pictures...
This picture was taken some months ago when I started making the molds. When I started I thought plaster would drive me crazy! But now I wish porcelain was as easy as plaster...

This beautiful fairy has been finished on my Doll Art Brasil website. She now belongs to one of my dear students. She "chose" her owner through a drawing that happened on December 30, I had a video conference with all my students where I made the drawing and it was a lot of fun!

It was my way to say thank you to all the wonderful people who joined my course and trusted me. It is not always safe to join such kind of website as you may end up frustrated in the case that the artist just stops teaching because she/he becomes engaged in other projects (it happened to me once). That's why I am so proud to have completed this project, teaching people in my country, how to sculpt an adult and a child fairy in polymer clay, from the very start to the end. And yet I've given them a bonus - a mermaid lesson - which I will post pictures here soon.

The best thing about all this is to see the result of my work. Some students are even starting to teach other people in their home studios where they used to teach cold porcelain only. It is just fantastic to see they've learned so fast through my lessons, that they are able to teach now! While it took myself five years to find the confidence and experience to do so. This is just the best reward I could get.

Sometimes I fell I am the slowest person in this world when it comes to art. There were times when it bothered me so much but I can see the good side of it now and it looks like an advantage to me. Although I wish I had already finished this doll in porcelain, I like the fact that I am taking all the steps carefully, planning before each one of them, making tests and learning a lot. Did I mention how much I love learning? I love it so much that I'm afraid I will feel empty when I finish this doll and see there will be nothing else to learn! I will try to find something new to learn - for sure!

This is the first porcelain firing of my bjd prototype. It was only a test firing, it helped me find out that my kiln is overfiring so I have to make some adjustments. I noticed the head warped a little bit due to the high temperature, I believe. But I love the porcelain look already.

It has been a wonderful learning experience.

This is what my students got as for the lesson this week: learning how to make eyelashes and how to handle Viscose in order to make this beautiful curly hair. Both this cute little fairy and the adult fairy I am making on the course will be given to one of my students who wins the drawing that will happen at the meeting I am planning for them at the end of the course! I can't wait for that!