Jena's Class~Hair rooting pictures

Was it ever a long day yesterday! Poor Jena was exhausted!
She is a trooper though.

Before Jena and I got started on our second day of rooting yesterday, we glossed the limbs so that they would be ready for when we had a bit of time to put the body together.

Here is Jena with fine precision as she glossed her Bella's nails:

And then it was back to rooting.
Some of these pictures were taken on the first day of rooting and some yesterday, on the second.

I really struggle teaching how to root. There are so many components to rooting; so many variables that it is hard for me to tell my student exactly what it is that is needed to make that needle grab the hair. Plus, I am left handed where as most of my students are right, Jena included.

But after many words and physical examples, she was able to root her baby! (Well okay, most of it! She rooted the sides and most of the top and Grandma ended up rooting the back for her. She was just worn out and we are running out of time.

After the sides were rooted:

She has got the directional rooting method down!

Now the sides and top is finished! Of course the hair is too long for little Bella right now, she will get a trim later.

Just this much left! I rooted the back during the length of one movie. I sure wish my guy would root that quick! LOL The difference is that a larger needle and thicker hair is being used on Bella and a smaller and finer baby kid hair is being used on Gus. He remains undone. I am around to the backside on him though.

Jena wanted to take my picture with Gus in progress. YIKES! I actually turned my $800 camera over to a 9 yr old?!?!? LOL She took a good, clear picture though!

So sometime after 10:30 pm, after Bella was all rooted and trimmed (I failed to take a picture of the rooted but untrimmed hair) I taught Jena to root lashes. Wow, she was a real pro! She took her time and inserted the lashes with exceptional precision, making sure there were no gaps. She rooted about one half of an eye and I finished due to the time.

Looks like she did better with that $800 camera than I did! I should have had the flash on this late at night and the pic looked clear to my tired eyes~until I downloaded it. You can get the general idea though.

Today is the most exciting part! Bella will get her little lips glossed~and a few other gloss details on her face~and while that dries, we will finish putting the body together. We started that last night while the hair sealer was drying a bit so that we could handle the head to insert magnets for a paci and a bow and back the nostrils. She was amazed at how lifelike the nostrils became after the felt was inserted behind them.

Bella will become a "baby" today. Jena has had several squeamish reactions during the "birth" of her little girl. The first one that about put her on the floor was drilling the nostrils open on the first day!

The rooting did not bother her, I guess since she has practice rooted before, but when I showed her how to root the lashes, that make her all tingly inside. She would say things like: "You are poking a baby's eye!" and I would respond that this is a piece of vinyl...it is not a "baby" just yet. I guess that helped her get through!

What special memories we will have!

I will do my best to blog tomorrow with pictures of the finished Bella~and partially finished Gus, but I can't promise. I will have to be on the way taking Jena home tomorrow and we must visit my mother en route so an early start is needed.

Hugs!

Let the rooting begin!

We are two exhausted people!

I took a few pictures of Jena rooting but I've not even downloaded them yet.
I'm sorry. I will have a photo update for you tomorrow morning~even though it's Friday which is usually Share My Collection Day or Friday Funnies day.

Jena is doing great though! I am teaching her with a 40g Crown extra strong needle and rooting through the end of the lock. Hard Core!

She is loving her little Bella!

XXOO

Day 3 of Jena's class~babies are painted!

With eager anticipation, we finished painting our little babies!
Yesterday we did the blue and green undertones/thin skin, veins, nail tips and details, brows, the final highlight tone and weighting of the limbs. Jena struggled with the nail tips which most artists do when beginning. I remember dragging my feet every time I had to do nail tips for those first couple of years!

This pictures show her doing the undertone/thin skin technique:

Weighting the limbs:

Jena has named her baby Bella!
She looks like a Bella doesn't she?

I think she is stunning!

Today we begin rooting. Jena is super excited~she loves rooting!
I might have to employ her later :)

Day 2 of Jena's reborning class!

There is nothing like having a 9 year old in class to help me refine my teaching methods!
The most difficult thing for me to teach in class is the pressure used to apply LDC paints...and any paints for that matter.

Well during the application of what I call the "Newborn Flush" layer, my brain was stretched in order to communicate to Jena what amount of touch was needed.

It finally came to me~"touch the sponge to the vinyl as if you were touching a bubble but not popping it"! Whew, she understood that!

Applying paints in a multidimensional layering method as I do really takes a very light touch. It is not that the paints are rich or will become darker later, it is simply that if you PRESS the sponge onto the vinyl, the paint will all smoosh together and ruin the "texture" that you are trying to achieve. The multidimensional texture will be lost to a solid color.

So here is Jena applying some Newborn Flush color using a sponge that has large pores in it:

And here she is being silly and giggly after I finally got the right words to communicate to her how much to press. I told her that she needs to touch the bubble without popping it, not go in slow and strike all of the sudden as if she were killing a spider! (It was really funny~I was telling her to lightly touch the vinyl and she would approach the vinyl very slow and soft and then all of of the sudden STRIKE the vinyl with the sponge! I have seen this happen in almost every class I have taught but never could find the right words to use. Thank you Jena!

She had some issues with the creases~not that she didn't understand how to do them and what the purpose of the creases were for, it was more that I didn't have the paint mixture quite right for her baby at first. Between the two of us, we fixed most of the problems. I want to note that as with all of the classes I teach, I do not take the doll away and do artwork on it as I would have it done. I believe that the best method of teaching is to guide and allow the student to learn from errors and also allow them their own creativity. I will help clean up an error if they find they cannot remove it but I will not do the artwork on the doll.

So in the end, the baby that they create is their own style and their actual work from beginning to end. Look at what an amazing job Miss Jena is doing on her sweet little baby!
Yes, my method of teaching seems to work well, even with youngsters! I almost want to have a children's class!

Be sure to click on this picture to get a larger view so that you can see the details that Jena has created.

This baby is beautiful!!

Here are both babies together:

My little man Gus:

Last night after dinner, Jena and I got online to shop for an outfit for her baby. The baby will be 14 inches and we found ourselves shopping with Tiina Hoddy of
Piccolissimo Baby Boutique where Jena purchased this darling outfit.

She will be so excited to get her little package all the way from the UK!

I've purchased from Tiina before and am always so delighted with her creations.

Today Jena and I will finish the paint on our little babies. We need to add undertones and thin skin, veins, nail tips, brows and the final highlight color.

We will allow the paint to cure overnight and begin rooting tomorrow. She had practiced rooted last summer and a did an amazing job! I will be teaching her the more refined method, using a finer needle and finer hair.

Hugs for Tuesday!

Day one of Jena's reborning class

Oh what fun!! Our class has begun!

Here is Jena, age 9, smoothing the nostrils of her little baby doll. I ran the dremel tool and she watched very close. I felt she was not ready for the dremel.

Here is her little baby all ready for a bath!

She and I are reborning two of Stephanie Sullivan's "Quads". Jena is reborning Kyrin (on the left) and I am reborning Kirsten on the right. They are sweet sculpts!

She is applying Genesis Matte Varnish for the textured brows:

And here she is sculpting the hairs in the brows:

Applying the first layer of skin tone color texture:


Painting the lips:

Detail to the lips:
She was very meticulous and detailed!

Toe nails:

Posing the babies for their Day 1 photo shoot:

She even brought her own camera!!!

And here are the babies after one day of work:
They have textured brows and nails, one layer of skin texture and painted lips.
Jena's baby:

My baby who shall be a boy and named Gus:

Both babies. I tell you, there is not much difference between her baby and mine! She did so well!!

Jena's baby's lovely lips:

Jena was very attentive and caught on to many things that are hard to teach to adults, such as only applying the skin tone texture once to each part of vinyl and using very little color on the sponges. She noticed and changed mistakes very quickly and has an idea for what she wants her baby to look like. She even knows what color of hair she wants~RED! Awesome!

Onto day 2!

4th baby painted for the Down E. Doll Show!

Isn't she just sweet?? This is Amethyst, another baby from my Simple Treasures Series line of babies headed for the Down East Doll Show.

I do not remember this kits name but it was sculpted by Heike Koplin and produced by Doll Dreams in German vinyl.

I used the LDC paints mixed with Ultra Matte Gel medium and LOVE the results! I don't have any shine issues with her.

XXOO