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Skeleton Bird Art Doll

 Can I call this a doll if it's not a person? Meh, I'll call it what I want. This is another project for the Dia de los Muertos Swap!
Check out his crazy skeleton! The body is sewn out of plain canvas using the wren pattern from "The Artful Bird" by Abigail Patner Glassenberg. Then I used a ton of black craft acrylic paint to kinda stiffen the body and wings up. Then white paint for the details.
  The crest is just a guineafowl feather dyed with alcohol inks. To attach it, I cut a little hole in the crown with an exacto, which wasn't too hard because the fabric was so stiff from all the paint. Before I stuck the feather in, I had to reinforce its shaft with a little rolled up aluminum from a popcan. After that, I just stuck the feather in the hole with a little glue.
The beak is polyclay... I figured it would give it a much more hard, skeletal attitude :)

I hope everyone is having a good holiday weekend! I'm buying blinds for my new house today... Then packing like CRAZY. I might not blog for a week or so. Moving kind of sucks, but I'm going to be SO GLAD when we're settled in.

9 comments:

AlwaysInspired said...

Oh! I love it! Painting muslin is so fun. The texture of the painted fabric is one of my favorite things. I love making prim dolls just to feel the fabric!
The poly clay beak is just perfect! I think it needs a Day of the Dead nest too! With fun fibers and lots of sparkles!

Amz said...

That bird is adoreable. I have bird envy!... If there is such a thing. n__n Great work. xo

Jaclyn Trecartin said...

Congrats on your new digs!
This is too awesome. I love birds and skeletons (not real ones) kinda fascinate me. Like, cute, fake, art, or plush ones. We have a real (human) skeleton at my school and it creeps the heck outta me.

AlphaBetsy said...

That is absolutely gorgeous. :)

Anonymous said...

This is really cool! I love your blog, you are so talented!

Morgan O'Brien said...

This is so so awesome!! Great work!

rasamalai said...

I LOVE this bird!!! I really dig the flowers on its wings, and your inchies are also something I really like, they make me itch to try making my own, but I don't really know what I'd do with them o.O

Carmen Wing said...

I just got The Artful Bird for Christmas. I put it on my wishlist as soon as I saw your bird on Pinterest. (Was sure I commented but can't have, may have swooned dead away I reckon *g*) Anyway, I hope to have a bash at a skellie bird like yours soon, he's just gorgeous. Though, my very basic sewing skills may leave him a bit zombified rather than sleek and gorgeous like your one here ;) Thanks for the inspiration.

Carmen (A silent lurker - one of my resolutions is to remedy that this year. Loud vocal stalking, less non-commenting on blogs!)

Tiffany said...

I absolutely love this art doll. and yes I said doll.... :)