Crafty Tuesday: Practice Makes Better
Posted By Kathleen David on September 27, 2011
I was talking to someone at Dragon*Con about the dolls that I make. I told them that I had taken several classes over the years from Wendy Froud and my dolls were basically structured the way that Wendy does it. I told her that Wendy was one heck of a teacher and if she got a chance to take a Froud class to do so. Many of these classes include Toby with an occasional appearance from Brian. I have learned a lot about doll making and art from the Family Froud.
There was some comment made about how nice the hands were on the doll. I laughed and said, you should have seen my first set of hands that I did for Wendy’s class. They were a total disaster. Hands have always been hard for me but Wendy some how managed to impart the knowledge in my brain and I practiced a lot. I can’t tell you how many hands I have done and destroyed.
And I have to thank Wendy for pushing me to be better. I did a set of hands and she looked at them and told me to do them over since she knew I could do better. I thought she was crazy but she was the teacher so I did them again and she was right. The more I took her class, the less she would let slide and made me the doll maker I made today.
Puppet building has always been easier for me. It just makes sense but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a box of parts that just didn’t work. I have sewn entire pieces only to find out that I had my geometry wrong or made too much or too little (bigger problem) seam allowance. Clothing that has gone horribly wrong. Necks and heads too small for adult size hands or rather my size hands. But I continue to make and remake until I have it right. The X-men First Class Jackets for Charles and Erik were a much longer project than I thought they were going to be. I am a detail person when it comes to costumes but I have learned to figure out what HAS to be there and what is a detail I am only going to see. I have made so many pieces of clothing for my puppets, that I can eyeball things and make patterns right on the cloth.
I continue to learn and explore what I can do as an artist. I know that practice makes me a better artist. Natural talent can only get you so far before the practical steps in and shows what you know and you don’t know. And there will always be something that just never seems to work right no matter how many times that you do it.
Practice might not make perfect but it sure as heck can make it better.
I am grateful that Wendy did push me to be better and not just rest on what I could do.
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