from hands to heart

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.