I found out the name for this guy is Hamburgler, not hamburger as I thought. Changing his name does not correct my mistaken idea of how to do the stripes. The original had a red necktie but I wanted to pick up the blue lights in the white beads so I grabbed a tube of blue beads instead.. I see a bit of the original black nose shows through and gives him a very tight lipped mouth. I think I just learned where to add a mouth if I want to do that. I had been putting the mouth down lower and it was rather weird - more like a wrinkle in a double chin!

Here is Humphrey II with his hump nicely padded up and out. I learned something here also. Often I have been unhappy with the way the beads laid on the belly. I could pull the fabric taunt to bead it but when the animal stood up that loose belly area would make the rows of beads go wonky. If I would open the animal and pad out the body, those lines of beads stay firm and straight even when it stands. Big improvement! Thanks Bead Universe for that tip. Here you can see how much better I did the nose / mouth part of a camel.

I did cut open the camel and found that the way they get the pellets into the animal is to put a packet of pellets into a gauzy bag. Not knowing this I had sewed the beads to the outer fur and to the bag so there was no way to get the stuffing in around it to the hump. I did have another camel so I cut the belly open (where it had been closed) and stuffed in cotton to fill out the hump.
After a visit from Rhoda and too much bead talk I did not feel up to starting a new animal so picked up this one to continue it. Now that I see the photograph I realized that I followed too faithfully the color changes and they look just awful. Also those eyes are too small and will have to be replaced. It is interesting that the lack of a mouth on the bears is not a problem until the beads go on. It looks as if he has white tape over his mouth. . . So much to learn.

The camel lost his hump! I saw it happening as I worked and tried to pull the fabric up but the weight of the beads pushed it back down. Only later in bed, when I could not sleep, did I get the idea of opening the creature and adding stuffing. That would have worked! I am thinking that many of the beanie babies could be improved by adding stuffing. Hmmm.
While I am not adverse to cutting away beads and redoing something, I am thinking that in this case I might be ahead to start with another one. I also realized the problem with his face is that I got carried away with those teeth (you can see a bit of them) and put in too many. Camels muzzles are fairly pointed and this has a very broad nose. So if this one is not a camel what is he? It is definitely male. Up under the tail a size 8 bead from the belly extended into the smaller beads and looks like one pale pink ball.

This is a camel with attitude! He looks as grumpy/humpy as I found the real animals to be. What I missed in the photo are his wooden looking teeth that give him a evil smile! I loved how I was able to re-form (but not reform) his face. I see the toe jobs do not show up here as much as they are in real-life. You can see on the one back leg/foot the difference. Maybe that is what makes him grumpy.
I do not know if I will sleep or bead this afternoon. I have over 25 spots on my face and hands that are in various stages of healing after the second nitrogen freeze-off treatment yesterday.

I did get Doby done days ago. Then I floundered. Working on Lynx, getting a godzillion spots burned off my face and hands, and too much marvelous May weather to enjoy so this feature got the short end of the thread of my mornings.

Before that I had started this one called Hamburger (dumb name for a dumpster diver) and quit because I did not like the white beads I was using. I cut them off and used these transparent ABs which made me a lot happier. I do love those Precosia beads. Still I did not like the animal, so I laid it aside and started on the Humpfry the camel. I loved doing his face but the long legs are wearing me down. I suspect that when I get the camel done I will be glad to go back to using black and white beads again.

#650

I have been so wiped out by simple trips to the art center or a doctor that I am barely able to bead in the evenings. Added to the fatigue, I did the face and ears of this "Doby" - who looks more like a Swiss Mountain Dog (Heidi don't you see Awanhee here?) than a nasty howling Doberman - with matt black beads and the edges showed more than the bead. So late yesterday I cut them all off and used the shiny black beads. Here the light bounces off the center of the rounded bead instead of the edges which would not always lie straight. Something to remember. . . I do love how the magatamas work as eyes. Even the gold fits here.

The box of 70 beannie babies arrived from Tennessee. I entered the auction because the items were going so cheap because they were no longer in their bags. I paid less than 25 cents an animal. But to my surprise many of the unbagged were not the teenie beannie babies but about 20 of the full sized ones normally costing 5 -8 dollars! I had this idea to fill a jar with unbeaded animals with the beaded ones popping out the top. I took this snapshot today to see what needed to be fixed before a sunny day came by so I could make an official portrait of the work. The title of the show is "Art for Art's Sake" so this is as close to Duchamp's urinal as I could get with my toys!

So we have here a long-lost duck-billed platypus - the kind with really orange feet. There are two kind of chipped glass on the body. The ones around the head are more gold-pink and the ones farther on the back are bluish. I was lucky they worked so well because I had failed to check the strands of chips to make sure they matched. Most of them do not, but if I work from several strands at once I can make a mix that gives me enough to cover the animal.

I  had started the dachshund (you can see them on the belly) with AB rootbeer because I had so many and thought it to be the best color. However when I started to do the head I found them too dark. So I switched to the gold AB and found out I only had one box them. Suddenly in the middle of the forehead I felt there should be crystal and found this one. I will have to wait for a new order because  I then switched to Doby the Rottweiler and decided, after several attempts that I needed the light gold for him also/

No picture yet, but my third great grand baby - Abigali Christine Vetter arrived last night at 7:30. Congratulations to Shaun and Jackie and brother Jasper.

And this morning my haiku stone arrived in Gualala Arts Center to be placed on the path.