The Milkmaid by Vermeer. Are you a fan?

Hi everyone!

Remember my post about a papermache cutting board? Yesterday I started to play with it, adding one of the hearts, making a knife, etc and that reminded me of when I made my Milkmaid doll inspired by one of my favorite painters Johannes Vermeer.

The primary idea of making something of the kind was because I wanted to try doing some miniatures after seeing so much of different ones online. Wanted to try food, etc. So I picked up "The Milkmaid" by Vermeer because, also, its one of those paintings that fascinates me since early teenage years.

For its scale all started with the doll itself.
As usual wrapped toilet paper on to a wire structure, face and hands are air drying clay, underskirt structure is newspaper and outer skirt is used printing paper whilst her upper clothes are a mix between air drying clay and toilet paper. Cloth folds are redefined with air drying clay and then all covered with liquid cold porcelain (+water and glue than starch).

In order to know the measures for the table I thought I'd first need to have all the miniatures ready and so I started to try the pot making.
In my mind I had been studying a way of making pots with a paper structure thus avoiding making them all just in air drying clay - by then I thought that any of my creations without paper wouldn't be one of my creations (lol). So I made a small thick newspaper roll on to which I glued toilet paper rolls. The idea was to show some "hollowness"... With the toilet paper I kind of modeled the body and covered it with very watery air drying clay (air drying clay butter? Almost!)

For the upper edge I made it with a piece of cardboard. All assembled and finished, made the handle with air drying clay and covered all with liquid cold porcelain and coated it with some brown acrylic paint.

On the actual painting there's what seems to be a milk pot with a very interesting texture. To make it was a great fun. Spent hours online trying to find pictures of a similar one and found a German beer jug. The construction was very similar to the pot above. The lid and those little reliefs are air drying clay and the metal structure that enables the lid to open (ie on a normal, human scale one, not on this one) is cereal cardboard painted with metallic grey.

Made another pot too, a lower one.

  The basket was "weaved" with thin toilet paper rolls, whilst the bread was made by doing a ball of aluminium foil which was covered with toilet paper. Once dried I've applied watery air drying clay on the edges, sanded it leaving some of the paper's roughness "raw" in the middle and then played with some washes of acrylic paint (brown, yellow, white) 

The knife is cereal cardboard and toilet paper covered with liquid cold porcelain painted with acrylic white, metallic gold and grey paints.

As always I wanted to a add a little something "extra" and as I had found the most delightful delft plate with the face of Netherlands Stadtholder William (future William III of England) whilst being a kid from exactly the same date of Vermeer's painting, thought of including it on the scene thus dating and identifying its dutch origins (no political statement) I made it with air drying clay and tried to play around with its original image. It became "cute" but not cute enough so I used it, still, but to hold the bread crumbs. On my sculpture though its not bead crumbs, its several pastéis de nata. Pastel de nata is one of Portugal's sweet delicacy and I don't know why, felt like trying doing some and add there...
Made them by wrapping the edge of a writing pen with tiny strips of newspaper and glue and the egg yoke filling with toilet paper. Leaving the edges "raw", covered the rest with liquid cold porcelain and acrylic paints.

Table is made from cardboard whilst the table cloth is newspaper re-arranged with some air drying clay on the folds...

Table ready time to glue all the minis on!

 In the end and because I didn't like the original lower pot I made another one, broke the first one on purpose and glued it on the base. Why? To create some chaos in such zen, quiet world, of course!

Oh, the base is, as all the bases of my dolls, papermache covered with white bitumen and liquid cold porcelain as final finish. The feet are also papermache rolls and the decorations are thin toilet paper rolls painted with metallic gold paint.

Took me ages to built this as you can imagine, but was well worth it, don't you think?

Still available on my shop @ etsy.com/shop/chezpedro.

If you want to see more of my pretties please visit myroyaldolls.wix.com/myroyaldolls .

Thank you!

Handmade mixed media miniature hearts

Hi everyone!

Finally finished the whole 4 of them!

Doing hearts is a great deal of fun but also can become a bit complicated not only because everything is very small but also because each time I look at a photo/image of a real one I see different things, thus all the hearts I have been doing also look different (that can also be fun when one isn't a "purist", right?

Everything starts with a clump of soaked in glue piece of toilet paper onto which, after dried, I start to apply little clumps of either more toilet paper or air drying clay. In the mean time I already did the tubes and because my table is wood and they are really tiny, all dries fast! Some thin straight ones, some c shaped ones, some thin, others thicker, doesn't matter :)

To secure all and give a special touch I brush the figure with liquid cold porcelain (more water + glue than starch)

Then its all about trying to understand what fits where, adjust the "meat" around the tubes with - again - toilet paper or air drying clay - and let dry ...

The base is 2 slices of air drying clay. On the smaller one I insert a metal pin and glue the bigger slice which, by doing so, the pin doesnt move anymore.

Heart is dried by then so I can attach it to the pin / base.

Time to paint! Reds, pinks, flesh colors adding some blue which I dilute with the existing red colors and becomes a bit purplish ... On the tubes I give a coat of thin white and a black dot to "pretend" the hollowness of it. Wrap the pin with toilet paper and paint with metallic grey.

Final touch is by bushing the mini sculpture with a water based varnish!

For the brown one, on the second photo, I played only with brown and black colors.

They are available on my shop @ www.etsy.com/shop/chezpedro in case you are still trying to get that special miniature for your Halloween dollhouse decoration!

Thank you  

Painted a selfie today

Hi everyone!

Some weeks ago I thought about painting a self portrait to put on display on a near by cafe in order to see if I can get some commissions but doll and miniature making have been taking almost all the time I have.
Impatient within me has been growing and with a fit upon wanting to finally be seen within an idea of physical world besides online, thought today was the day.

Took me two hours between waking up and lunch.

Have a look

You too can commission me a portrait, write a comment below the video if interested 

Thank you! 

DIY - miniature cutting board - the lesson

Hi everyone!

With this upcoming heart miniature fever I thought, as Halloween is also coming, to have some fun and one of the ideas involves a cutting board (two in fact, for two planned miniatures)

Again one of the things I don't like about polymer clay is the sort of final looks, a bit waxy I think although I understand that holds good whatever one "inflicts" on it. Either way, and as I wrote before, I don't like it so in order to do my cutting board I used the usual materials: cardboard, newspaper, air drying clay, liquid cold porcelain to assemble all and give good surface, acrylic paint and matt varnish.

Didn't took images of the process but its easy to imagine:
Took a piece of cereal cardboard and cut the shape with wanted size, then added several layers of newspaper on both sides. Left it to dry. After obtaining some thickness (maybe 2 millimeters?) I've reinforced the edges with air drying clay in order to sharpen them just like on a real one. Coated with liquid cold porcelain on which, whilst drying, tried to make scratches with a needlet. First coat of brown acrylic paint. Second coat of black paint which was whipped out to obtain the usuall look of used and, well, finally coated with water based matt varnish.

Here's a blurred photo but I guess one can still see something of it, eh eh eh

As you can see its super easy to do, doesn't need special materials or clays, doesn't need to be baked and the result is very satisfying !

The lesson? Well, the lesson for me was that all of this work isn't really to state any war against polymer clay or any other trend, its just a fun construction process that is good for my soul :)

Thanks for visiting, don't be shy if you have any question and, also, don't forget to pass by my miniature doll website if you'r into history  myroyaldolls.wix.com/myroyaldolls or my etsy shop at etsy.com/shop/chezpedro.

Thanks again ;)

Handmade historical eye models, air drying clay

Hi everyone!

So I've been putting the dolls on hold for a bit and have been dedicating myself to miniatures - my latest passion !

No, no polymer clay for me. Some months ago I did tried but ...... Its not that I have anything against it but lets say I just hated it, LOL. Miniatures in polymer clay seems to me rather too easy to do, there's no construction and thus there's no fun.

So which material then? For sure paper and air drying clay just like on my doll building! ;)

I think that I have a tendency to want to recreate, in whichever material I can, different ideas of different epochs and its items (not just furniture) and as I like the so called "cabinet de curiosités" and would love to have one but don't have the space, maybe I'm attempting to build one in miniature, eh eh eh

Some months ago I caught, on Pinterest, a photo of a German 17th century eye model set on ivory which I thought trying to built up in papermache but normal scale. Time passed by, papermache prop construction got a bit faded and miniatures making struck me, so I had to try!
I had to try specially because before this project I did a miniature heart. They were so successful that whilst thinking about doing more anatomy miniatures I, again on Pinterest, stumbled on another eye model set on ivory! It was a sign ;)

Here they are

The how was basically "slices" of air drying clay putted to dry on a tealight candle and then mounted on a pin. After the glue was dry I covered all with "liquid" cold porcelain (which means more water + glue than starch). The eye is all air drying clay done in two parts - first the eye ball and after dried and painted, did the rest around and behind. For the tall one I made the middle body with a newspaper roll. 

The paint was with acrylics, matt varnish for the holders and brilliant for the eyes.

After taking the photos they look way wobbly, didn't noticed that on the actual pieces though ... The small ones are truly tiny and was difficult to combine the whole different "slices" into one direction only... 

Maybe it gives them even more an aspect of "handmade"? ;)

If you're interested on this or other eventual minis or on my dolls please visit my etsy shop @ 

www.etsy.com/shop/chezpedro

or my dolls website which was totally remodeled some months ago

www.myroyaldolls.wix.com/myroyaldolls

Thanks!