Boy Bear Kegan: Work in Progress Final

I am pleased to share with you my finished custom made bear named
Kegan.

Kegan is a little gentleman bear created from a vintage dark cocoa brown (almost black) fur coat. He has detailing in sand silk merino imported wool for his muzzle, ears and paw pads.

Kegan's overcoat and beret hat were designed and hand sewn by me especially for him. The brass colored buttons on his hat and coat were salvaged from the fur coat from which he was made!




I love the colors of his coat and hat boating of tans, reds, greens, and blues.

His collar, sleeve cuffs and beret band are all created with moss green corduroy fabric. He is such a handsome bear in his best boy clothes!


Kegan Bear has character shading in woodland tones to bring out his bearsonality. He has leather eyelids and large eyes of Black German glass.

Kegan even has a small steel shot pillow in his belly to give him a nice weighted huggy feel in your arms.

He has a black embroidered nose that has been sealed and painted for a nice typical 'wet-cold' look. His mouth curves ever so slightly into a handsome sly smile.

Kegan has the cutest little boy bear tail. You can almost see it wag in delight!As with all Bramblewood Bears, Kegan has double stiched seams ensuring durability making him a true Heirloom Bear.
*note, Bramblewood Bears are not inteded for child play. They are specifically designed with the bear collector in mind.*

Kegan Bear was fashioned from the imaginations of
Bear Artist
Tomi Delaney
from design to finish making him a truly One of a Kind Creation.

Kegan and I thank you kindly for stopping by for his pictures and following his journey into this world. He looks forward to his trip to France to be with his new owner!

If you are interested in a custom bear, please contact me for details and you could watch your bear in the making.

Boy Bear: A work in progress continuted....

A day of silk wool and bear paws

My little boy bear found his paws today. For me, this is one of the most time consuming parts of the entire process of bear making. Each pad must be symmetrical as all the others to match and blend seamlessly. As an artist I feel this is my weakest area that I desire to improve upon the most.

I did not set up my normal picture area and lighting for accurate photos for these progress pictures, to the actual colors will vary and change in the different postings depending on daylight, time of day and location. I always take auction pictures in the same place and ONLY beteween 11:00 am - 1:00 pm. If I can't get my pictures taken in this time slot, I will have to wait until the next day. I have learned the hard way that the sun reflects differently off my bears at varying times of the day!

10 little bear toesies!

Here are his smaller, more dainty paw pads for his arms.

I will shade and tone his pads to tie in with the shading on his face which pulls the finished bear together nicely.

Tonight and tomorrow will be his jointing, shading, brushing and finishing details.
The next time you see this little boy, he will have a name and be a real little bear all put together and ready for the world and his trip to France!
I am attempting to sew an overcoat and hat for him per request of his collector. I am not a talented seamstress, although I am looking forward to designing a piece of clothing for him. If it turns out I will post his outfit in the next couple of days.

Thank you for stopping by and peeking at this little custom boy bear's progress. If you are interested in a custom bear, please don't hesitate to contact me for more details and you could watch your bear in the making!

Boy Bear: Work in progress continued...

Work continued today on my little custom made boy bear and I am very pleased with the amount of time I was able to spend on him despite my 5 small munchkins running around the house!

The kids ate breakfast and played happily outside in the warm morning sun while I cleaned up after breakfast and tidied the kitchen while admiring the 125lbs of fresh sweet peaches I canned yesterday. A grand total of about 96 quarts of peaches for our cellar to enjoy this winter.


Once enough house cleaning was accomplished to make me feel that some bear making indulgence was in order, I fed the kidoes some lunch and scurried them off for their naps. Nap-time is my quiet time of the day and the few moments I am able to commit to my bear making.


Out came my felting needles and paints. Stiff bristled paint brushes, wax and silk wool. Embroidery needles and threads as I settled down with a nice hot vanilla steamer and let my imaginations begin.




I began work on the foundation of his big boy bear eyes and blending his needle felting and adding the eyelids and wool accents.













It is amazing how much time and effort is put into preparing his muzzle for the application of his nose and mouth. Shaping and sculpting prior to sewing his sniffer, set the base for developing the expression of his bearsonality.






This little boy's nose really needed to be a statement of character. It is well know that most boy bears are very proud of their large adequate honey sniffing snouts!


Once his sneezer is embroidered to my satisfaction, next to emerge is his mouth curled into a shy smile. This is the step I get the most excited about as I create because his bersonality begins to show itself.
Yes, he will be a fine bear.


Once his face is completed and assembled, I gather my brushes and toners and set to work on shading and character development. A blending of woodland colors accentuate and add depth transforming a cute bear into a handsome bear.


I never give my bears a name until they are completed in full. I try to fit their names to the personality that emerges as I create. This little boy is still waiting for his name that will be gifted to him on his birthday!

Next to come: body and limb work, needle felting paw pads.

Thank you for peeking in on my work in progress custom bear. If you are interested in a custom bear please contact me for details and you could watch your bear in the making!

Boy Bear: A Work in Progress

I am pleased to share with you my first work in progress.
I am creating a custom bear for a wonderfully delightful woman from France. This little boy bear with a European flare, will be made from a vintage dark cocoa (almost black) fur coat. The pattern I am using is for a 15" bear from my 'Wild Bruin' collection along with Sand Merino
Silk wool for the needle felting.

I knew what color, density and length of fur I wanted to use, and found exactly what I was looking for in this beautiful old coat. When the package arrived at my home, I could hardly wait to feel the coat under my hands and dream of what would be!

One of my favorite things about this luxiourous coat is the large brass buttons that sparkle against the thick dark fur. I may try to incorporate one of them into the finished clothing for this little gentleman bear if all works according to plan :)

I also especially love the sanguine red lining of this coat and it also may find it's way into the finished bear.

After cutting away the vibrant silk lining and tracing and cutting my pattern, I now have all my bear pieces ready to begin assembling, pinning and sewing....now this little boy will begin to take shape....
(oh how I wish my antique Franklin treadle sewing machine was not just a lovely piece of eye candy and actually worked. Perhaps one day I will have it repaired for use!)

This is my bear sewing beauty. I have a long history of fighting with and complaining about my sewing machines. Constantly adjusting tension, rethreading, murmuring annoyance under my breath at the whirring gears that seem intent on making my sewing a compete disaster, yet I would manage to pull my project together with frustration lingering and hours wasted just to vow to never sew again.

It was to my great surprise and delight that my amazing husband bought me a brand new lovely Viking Sewing machine for Christmas. It is a dream to sew with and I can create all day long with out one single problem! Bring on the bears!!

The only place where housework comes before needlework is in the dictionary.
~Mary Kurtz

I keep my end tables full of needlework and quilting so I don't have to dust them.

~Author Unknown

After sewing, needle felting and needle sculpting, little bear's head is in it's basic form. I still have hours of finishing work to be done specifically on his face and expression, but his personality is beginning to form.

Tomorrow I will be sharing progress work on his eyes and finishing the needle felting on his muzzle and perhaps he will have his ears! This little guy is a bit closer to his birthday.

Keep an eye out for this little boy bears progress pictures. If you are interested in a custom bear, please don't hesitate to contact me for more information and you could watch your bear in the making!

Lady Lorraine

Next to arrive from

Bramblewood
Studio

Lady Lorraine Bear

Lady Lorraine is a sister bear to "Bonnie". I had such wonderful remarks about Bonnie and numerous request for a second bear that looked similar to her. I also enjoyed very much creating the Victorian hat for Elsie, that I wanted to make for Lady Lorraine a Mini Top Hat, those of which I am deeply in love.

These mini's are very popular right now with a myriad of different kinds of styles and shapes. They are a very whimsical marriage style between The Mad Hatter look and an elegant gothic Victorian flare. I am so enthralled with them, that I will most definitely be creating more for my bears to model.

Many of these lovely hats feature the classic 30's and 40's mesh poka-dot veiling that flirtingly shaded one's eyes from full view, which I gloriously intend to create for a Bramblewood Bear in the very near future. You will have to 'bear' with me as I tend to make up my own worlds like 'flirtingly' :)





Lady Lorraine's hat was created from black felt and over-laid with embossed papers in varying patterns and colors evoking pink, silver, blue and cream swirls and flowers. Black velvet is a must in my mind for anything Victorian, so I used some of this soft jet black ribbon to accentuate. Along with a black and white bow-tie in the front and a large over-sized bow of black ribbon with a silver jeweled charm to the back.

A hat is a flag, a shield, a bit of armor, and the badge of femininity. A hat is the difference between wearing clothes and wearing a costume; it's the difference between being dressed and being dressed up; it's the difference between looking adequate and looking your best. A hat is to be stylish in, to glow under, to flirt beneath, to make all others seem jealous over, and to make all men feel masculine about. A piece of magic is a hat.
~Martha Sliter

I often wish I had the boldness and self indulgence to wear a voluptuous and overdone hat in public. It seems in the modern day that we have somehow lost our elegance.....our desire to be feminine and the fact that it should be celebrated. Not with skimpy miniskirts and see through clothing, but rather with the flowing of long hair perhaps twisted in a do with sparkly pins all layered under a small yet glorious hat. Not to stop there, oh no! A hat would be seriously out of place without an equally stately dress to accompany it. Where have we lost this quintessential part of our womanhood? It seems the 60's freed us from this 'trap' of what it was to be a woman....but now in our current day with all the striving to be the bread winners and equals, we have misplaced something classy and grand. My hope is that sometime very soon, we will rediscover what it is to be woman.
Feminine. Classy. Elegant. Graceful. Strong.

A naked Adam may have fallen upon an equally naked Eve without the need of props. But in this day of curiously unerotic sexual explicitness and demystifying psychological close-ups, we are in desperate need of the feminine wiles that once characterized style icons like Marlene Dietrich, Babe Paley, and Jackie O.

We just know inside that we're queens. And these are the crowns we wear.
~Felecia McMillan

Lady Lorraine was created using ultra soft golden antique Mohair and accentuated with imported Merino wool silk. Her eyes are black German glass and she has very detailed character shading and painting along with scissor and needle sculpting on her face and body to create her unique bearsonanity.

She is a medium size of12" tall standing. She also wears a regal black velvet neck band with a very elegant gem.

A hat is a shameless flatterer, calling attention to an escaping curl, a tawny braid, a sprinkling of freckles over a pert nose, directing the eye to what is most unique about a face. Its curves emphasize a shining pair of eyes, a lofty forehead; its deep brim accentuates the pale tint of a cheek, creates an aura of prettiness, suggests a mystery that awakens curiosity in the onlooker ~Jeanine Larmoth

Lady Lorraine is still a perfectly sophisticated gal with out the adorning of her top hat. Her eyes sparkle and glimer and upon her muzzle, the faintest smile curves.

It is difficult to take the full spectrum of her hat in from the front alone. The back cascades with classic black Victorian splendor.

Lady Lorraine would not be fully complete without her antique bisque dolly. I created a truly miniature top hat for her little companion.

You cannot hide in a hat; you will be noticed, especially by men. To men, you become a lady when you don a hat--one who they rush to open doors for. To women, you become an inspiration, reminding them that they have a closet full of hats they have not had the courage to wear.

Thank you so much for dropping in for a visit and engaging my wonderment of fine hats and feminine things, oh yes, and of course to spy a peek at Lady Lorraine too! I truly appreciate each of you who follows my blog and leaves such wonderful comments. You truly bless me!

Lady Lorraine will be available on Ebay until September 16th, 2009.
Here is her link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160361570936&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT