Hi I'm Tina

I was just rewriting my Etsy profile when I realized that I'd never really done an introductory post here, so I am going to share that profile here for fun.

Hi
My name is Tina Lynn Ellis . I reside in a small town  just outside the San Francisco Bay Area. I am a make of Art, a constant re-decorator and a belly dancer.

I'm currently focusing my efforts on the creation of my OOAK Art Dolls. I made my first dolls when I was 11 or 12 as Easter gifts for my Mom and Step-Dad. I'd scrounged up some old socks, raided my mom's craft room and it was on.Some awkward looking sock bunnies were born that day. I didn't come back to this particular art form for quite some time.

In 2008 I heard a little voice in my head and before I knew it I'd created my "first" doll. I was hooked almost immediately, but took my time getting to know my creations. Now, here I am enjoying every moment of hard work I put into each doll. They all have such unique and individual personalities sometimes I wonder if I'm part of the process at all!

The name of my shop, Night's Vision has been with me since the late '90's and really is a statement on where and when I feel my creativity comes from. I have been a night owl my whole life and find that those moments of creative impulse, the "vision" comes to me in the middle of the night when everything is quiet and peaceful. Who knows what lurks in the dark next!

I'd love to hear more about some of you!

Look a picture!

It's been a strange week around here. I've been feeling pretty icky for a lot of it, and wound up having to do something I hate to do...nap. Ok, let me rephrase that, I love to nap what I hate is being forced to nap because I feel ill. It brings to mind times in my life when I've had to nap daily because I was in such poor health. I like to pretend I'm relatively healthy now. The truth is this winter weather is kicking my butt! I have a pretty severe vitamin D deficiency and that got diagnosed in the middle of summer when there was tons of sun! Needless to say, even with prescription doses of vitamin D , it's really hard to keep it up when there is no sun at all! Of course there is more going on than that, but I could blah blah blah forever on that.

The thing I hate the most is that it interrupts my flow of creativity. I feel ill, and I am unable to work on things and it kind of stops me in my tracks. Then it takes a while for me to get back to it when I feel well. I spend a lot of time planning in my head, but have trouble getting moving. I'm also noticing that when I am in planning mode I"m a little err...bitchy. I feel easily irritated and want everyone to leave me alone, including my cats! Poor things they get put out of the room all the time. I'm starting to notice it as a pattern, oops.

I finally got moving a little bit yesterday and got all the fabrics together for my next doll. She's going to be interesting and I will probably bleed, or burn myself at some point during her creation. :) Above is a picture of all the gorgeous fabrics I'm going to be using! That's somehow going to turn into a Kimono. I started sculpting the head last night and wound up scrapping it twice before getting on the right path. So now her head is all baked and ready to get prepped for painting! It feels good to have something accomplished.

Listed: The Other Black Swan and Hallowed Catrina

These two girls spent a lot of time hanging out today as I took way too many pictures trying to get them right for listing them on Etsy. I snapped this one of them together right before I put my camera away.

Here are the Etsy listings for each of them. Have a look, and I'd love it if you'd share them with anyone you think might enjoy at least having a look! I haven't been feeling well the last few days so getting these ladies photographed and listed feels like a HUGE triumph.

The Other Black Swan

Click for link

Hallowed Catrina

Click for link

Both of these were pretty hard to photograph, which is typical of most of my dolls. They never really show all their detail in photos. I made "Hallowed Catrina" back in October, my favorite time of year. I think she turned out particularly fabulous because she's filled with the spirit of the season. 

Treasury: With A Touch of Grey

After coming home from my weekend visit to my mom's house exhausted I was pretty frustrated with myself that I wouldn't get anything done today. So tonight I sat down and made a Treasury on Etsy. I drooled at all of the lovely black and white dolls made by members of the Surreal Art Dolls Team , and wound up with this Treasury: With A Touch of Grey. Please have a look! This was my first time making a Treasury and it took me forever, I could sit on Etsy all day long looking at all the beautiful things. So, now I feel like I accomplished at least one thing today.

The Other Black Swan

This doll has kept me pretty busy the last few weeks. At first it was just a nagging somewhere in the back of my head. It's like a small awareness that something is trying to get my attention. After a while there she was babbling about who she wanted to be, what she wanted to wear, and oh the wings! The wings drove me crazy! They had me walking around for days with thousands of images of black wings cycling behind my eyes. None of them were quite what she had in mind so it took me quite a while to figure out how I was going to execute them. When I finally got my butt to work she started to put her self together quite nicely.

Unlike Natalie Portman's character in Black Swan, The Other Black Swan isn't so obsessed with perfection. She's one of those girls who just can't seem to get it all together and has learned to go with it. Her wobble is right there out in the world for everyone to see.

I plan on taking better pictures of her next week and then listing her on Etsy, but for now a sneak peek..

The Sign

I am pretty touchy about being disturbed when my brain is in work or creative mode. That does not bode well for the husbandtypecreature as he is almost always home during that time. He also never learned the art of knocking. He also also has a tendency to get really excited about something creating the need to run into the room and tell me immediately. I love him, but I often fear for his life :). So as protection for him and because it seemed like fun; tonight I painted The Sign.





He ought to be safe now.

New Etsy Listing

I just listed the last of my current "Little Way" Spirit Dolls on Etsy. There were more, but I keep giving them away :). I should make some more soon.

This is Dream, you can find her at DREAM on Etsy

I have another post coming up with the new doll I just finished. She's been keeping me busy!

Inspirations : Ugly Art Dolls by Ugly Shyla

There was a time when I didn't even know what an Art Doll was. I've always had taste that's lead me towards darker imagery and the like. I can remember one day running across Ugly Shyla's work and having my jaw drop. Here was something I'd never ever seen before, something completely unique and fitting into what I found beautiful. I wish I could remember exactly where I first saw her work, but I'm sure it was back in a time when my outsides looked closer to what my insides often feel like. I am still a huge fan and although our work is completely different I would site her as one of my main influences for beginning to think of dolls as art. Thank Bob for that.

If any of you have never seen her work I urge you to go now, check it out and if you can buy something do eeeet!  Visit her at her Etsy Shop Ugly Art Dolls by Ugly Shyla  or at her website UglyArt.Net  or come check out the Art doll group she started on Facebook.

First Try

This evening I have been working on my first sculpting attempt using the book "Creating Lifelike Figures in Polymer Clay" by Katherine Dewey. Of course things never stay quite human looking with me. This far from done. I like it though it kind of fits the doll I wanted it for.


 Peee Esss.... I continued to mess with this so much that I completely ruined it and it wound up wadded into a big ball. Attempt one=fail on to the next try.
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But cleaning IS working!

Today I engaged in one of my favorite kinds of procrastination...cleaning and organizing my workspace. There was a time when I didn't even have a workspace, and then I used my lack of space in which to work as a procrastination tool. As I was putting together a new cube of shelves to house the thing which cooks the clay (for some reason the word toaster oven doesn't seem right) I realized that my guest room that I squeezed workspace into has finally turned into a studio that I squeezed a bed into! I think I now have every thing I need to make a doll all residing in one room! I'm so excited! NOW I can work. I swear! No really! For real this time I promise! :)

Of course I had to catch a few pictures with my phone, just to remember what it looks like when it's clean.

ahhh clean

Scissors, glitter, patterns and inspiration

Beads in jars, misc inspiration

When I first put this space together I went Ikea crazy

Brushes!

The new shelf, not very full yet

Ups, downs and help I don't know how to manage time!

These last few days have not been very productive for me. I've been busy spending time with family and I don't use my computer much when my mom is here. This brings me to a question I would like to ask anyone who might be interested in helping me out. How do you stay productive? I see all you wonderful doll artists and the like being so incredibly prolific and it brings to mind how much of a struggle that is for me. It's a thing I will probably always struggle with as trying to stay healthy and functional is usually my top concern, and I'm not always so good at it. Do you have set hours that you work every day? Do you work as the spirit moves you? I'm super interested in any feedback anyone can give me.

A lot if times when I have something come up such as family time , or scheduled vacations when I'm on a productive bend I freak out a little bit. I worry that the interruption of my roll is going to grind all of my creativity to a bone jarring halt. Lately to counteract that way of thinking I've been working a little bit slower to begin with. I'm trying not to get too much into that feverish mode where I feel both spectacular yet fragile all at the same time.

In the meantime I think I'll be hitting up a local quilt and doll show this weekend to see what I can see.

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In the middle of the night...

My mom is visiting for a few days, and for me that usually means reduced computer time. Not only is my computer/workroom also the guest bedroom, but I actually like to hang out and be social. So instead I wind up with my iPhone in the middle of the night checking out blog apps.

I'm slowly beginning a new doll. This one is going to have a bit of detail, and as usual I am just going with the flow and realize I am crafting all the tiniest details by hand. So far I have a wing! Gotta start somewhere!



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