Srooms

Since I cannot show you new work I will show you some older work. Once the mushroom craze hit I knew I wanted to do mushroom plushes. One of the first projects I give my students in my licensed image class is do develop and design a character line. When you design a character line you have to remember to do two things. First all of the characters need to look as if they work as a set with colors and characteristics in common....same type of eyes and noses, similar ways of styling the bodies and outfits. Second all of the characters need something that makes that character different from others in the set....a silly hat, an emotion or expression, tall, chubby, wild hairdo. Take a look at the Ugly Dolls and you will see what I mean. www.uglydolls.com. So I decided I would make my mushroom plushes into a character line as an example to show my students.
First I sketched a bunch of images...was not sure whether I wanted the face on the mushroom or on the mushroom stem (on the mushroom) how to make each one distinct (tall, chubby), which characters to keep, what material to make them out of, (wool felt) how big should I make them (small). Once I made the decisions I started sewing. Sheila has never been able to get much interest in them from manufacturers....a little too odd...but my students love them. My photographer Curt Dennison curtdennisonphotography.com helped me name them and came up with the character group name. He admitted he was a bit of a stoner in college.

Dood, Seymour, Alfalfa, Mickey, Sparkey

Zena, LindyLou, Twinkle, Bebe, Tulip

Polka and Dot, Flora, Fauna and DripDrop