Art Studio Tour Dinosaur Diorama

As you can see my Art Studio will never appear in my favorite 'Studios" magazine by Cloth, Paper, Scissors because surely this dinosaur and the overall horror of it all would surely scare them away.  I'm not knocking studios that have pretty lace and trim mind you, but mine is not like that.

I wish I could figure our what he is (I think a Brontosaurus) and where he is from. He's huge, and almost made of leather. His teeth are a high quality plastic or shell. His eyes are beady glass. It looks like he was hand sewn on his tail, which when I found him had a tear in it.  I have fixed him back to wonderful condition, and he just sort of hangs around looking for something to nibble on.

Go ahead, stick your finger in there, I dare you.

The closes things I found to him were:

Some leather animals done for National Georgraphic awhile back (teeth the same but hide on mine looks way older) and custom made dioramas for different museums. Whatever he is, he's cool and scary all at once.

Behind him are some books I picked up at the local Goodwill for fifty cents a pound. It's one of those "outlets" that put everything into blue bins, and you load up a bunch of books on the scale and well, sometimes you get a great deal.

If you  have any information on the dinosaur, please contact me via my Etsy shop RetroChalet or email me at RetroChalet@verizon.net

Dolls in the Studio for Etsy

Art Studio Mayhem, the doll was thrown in at the last minute to my Etsy listing for dominoes.

I get sidetracked often in my art studio. I set out to do one thing and find myself doing fifty others.   Here I was trying to take some pictures for Etsy and quickly found that one thing led to another, I was chasing dogs around the house and my demeanor changed from serious to silly. I pulled the barbie out of my dog's mouth and landed up in a pile of dominoes, where I was photographing for my Etsy shop.

I often have fun with dolls in my Etsy shop which gets me a lot of flack from Regretsy but I don't care.  I used to go to auctions and would get a ton of dolls in a box. Some being vintage and some being new, I couldn't sell the new on Etsy (things have to be 20 years old) , and being that some are damaged they won't serve well going to a thrift store. So what to do?  I use them as props. Just until I find a better use in my assemblage art for them. 

This little disco doll is selling my clapboards for me. 

Okay so maybe I'm over the top but I don't care.

Not everyone likes my way of thinking, but that's okay, it's my style and that's why my Etsy shop is different than everyone else's. Only the tacky, wacky and funky unique there. No white backgrounds (if I must I will use something with texture.) Maybe having your own strange way of thinking is good.   Or maybe, my RetroChalet shop is the one your mother warned you about.