Q & A

my habits of collecting and using alpaca still keeps on. but there is a design decision query over my recent making.
i try to look for some alternatives instead of using dense pile smooth alpaca, here you will see the sand beige alpaca, it looks coarse and dense, but it feel soft. It's a kind of alpaca & mohair mixed with ratinee finish.



as i want to make a bear friend with the blue mohair bear, i try to use the same kind of method to sew the nose, but under many times of trial & error, i still cannot get what i proposed, so i throw this method.





I find without any even supportive later of suede, the embroidery thread over the sand beige alpaca will bounce back, no matter how i pull the thread...and look a bit full instead of thin and flat. so i look up for another way,
guess what, i try to make a paper mache nose again, i love using this kind of making because it stands very well no matter on alpaca or mohair, it got good qualities to manipulate through each step of layering paper, adding white glue and coloring on top, i got lots of fun through the exploration.



i am going to finish these bears for Christmas, it will be a hot Christmas for them... stay tuned.

the great advisor

Yesterday nite, i read a post from a friend, it's a clip of news in Chinese about a well known label Zara.
To certain people, those items may not their cup of tea, but i was moved by the story of the man behind this label.

Mr. Amancio Ortega Gaona. He was born in a poor family and went to work in a very young age, his success not only built from technical experience or you can say exposure in the industry. But i am sure, instead of working very hard and loyal to one's job, it's important to have a vision in the industry.
Although, the Chinese version news stated that his force of motivation is drawn from the snobbish attitude from the wealthy people, However, i see his positive attitude towards his career path: he observes only rich people could afford good clothing at that time. Why? So, he had a strong intention to make fine clothing available and reachable to most people. Then he look for some other alternatives, saving the transaction cost from the middleman, finding some cheap but good qualities material. It seems a clever act to run a business.
There are experienced bear makers marked high price while on the other hand i notice that there are some well known makers who mark their good qualities critters low... instead of looking up reason for why, or why not. It can be
a personal thing, one can be already self sufficient, no worries about to put the food on the table. Or one maybe looking up for challenge in their life.
It matters about how to keep our material cost low! In our living space, we are suffer from the high rent cost and the cost of living too. Most of the bear making 'material' have to ordered from overseas, we incur a lot on shipping and handling fee. It's competitive for pricing our making.
Recently, i am thinking about the fabrication of materials. It can be an interesting starting point on how to design the cut and how to bring different materials together. I am so excited to see there are some bear maker sharing their fun on exploration in colors and how the material behaves.

Here are the links to the news clipping:
The Chinese version. http://tw.news.yahoo.com/%E4%B8%8D%E5%A0%AA%E6%AF%8D%E5%8F%97%E8%BE%B1-%E7%AA%AE%E5%AD%90%E5%BE%A9%E4%BB%87%E7%BF%BB%E8%BA%AB%E5%85%A8%E7%90%83%E7%AC%AC7%E5%AF%8C.html
The English version. http://www.theoriginof.com/amancio-ortega.html

it's time for present

hello, i was back from the trip for a few days, gotta to share photos with you. the weather was fine last week.

Life is not easy, like reading this words in our daily life


at the British Library near St Pancras station. The picture ( by Patrick Hughes - 1996) below is 3 dimensional, you can see those shelves got different perspectives while you are moving from left to right or vice versa.


you can only use the reading rooms facilities once you got a Reader Pass.
As a foreigner, i can still visit their museum, it's free. On the day i visited, the showing theme is ' Out of this world'
i' m not a futurist, but still curious on how people perceive our living nature and there is a hot topic while reading other Russian bear artist included steam punk as their inspiration.



For more fantasy item of future, have a look at this link
http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/outof/outofthisworld.html


the Hampton Court Palace


the conservation of the gate in the palace


the components of the show



with the rabbit lantern again, we celebrate the Mid- Autumn Festival.


I went up to a suburb by train, can't imagine when i return from the journey, i got the wrong train, is a transit with stops went to another direction......it's horrible to get back to Paddington train station by taxi and got back my luggage to the airport, late late! But the picture shown is a beautiful farm, lots of farm with sheep and horses.

tea flavored bears

Finally, i have finished 2 more bears under my exploration over the tea dye for the show in Hugglets, the visitors in the show really curious on my different approach taken on using alpaca. One of the feedback was he thought if i have an overall color control over the aqua bear, he will take this. I will take this comment into my future investigation :) These 2 bears are still in my hug, wish you still like them.

The one on the left called, Mint and the one on the right called Citron.

tea spa

hi, haven't post for ages, how are you, friend?
there is a gift from my friend last visit to Canada, so nicely packed with finger size proportion.
do you remember the taste and fragrance of Ceylon tea?
she has a light smell but dark brown color which bring my interest to do some dyeing...
i find that there is a need for me to do some investigation over my favorite fur, alpaca.
apart from inviting friends to my den, how about my little friend...:)
he doesn't like drinking tea much but suggested to have a hot tea spa on his own







that's what i did last nite, i feel it's a bit dark but when i wake up this morning, it turns out to be curly, dense and a used tone which is my favorite color, i' m still curious on warm colors, so i did an experiment this morning with mango color.
how it will be?

move on the track

there's only 5 more weeks before the show and i have to move restart my bear making life.
here again, i made another panda for a commission, it's a bit different from the previous pinky panda.
a little discovery after finishing her, as long as i add the double-jointed neck, i found it's too long for her proportion.
so, i tried to rethink on the jointing method within such a short cotter pin,
finally, without stuffing over the neck, and forgive the original setting of cardboard disc, and come up with this solution.
Seems i have to try one another color of alpaca to explore another possibility towards this design.




And please give me support as i' m not sure whether i can make 2 bears each week.

the article of TB&F

Did you receive the fall issue of Teddy Bear & Friends? I am so excited to share this with you.
There are 9 new teddy bear artist featured in the topic of " New Kids on the Block"



Luckily, "berries bear " is included. We are prepared to answer the questions. It was such an enjoyable moment to look back of when we get started, what we've done, why we did this... and furthermore there is a question which i find it's really interesting to share: Have you had any funny failures or errors while making bears?
For the past failure, um... i sometimes get stuck with certain technical problem or certain facial expression, i would make them hide into the box and restart a new one. So it's such a great experience to think positively on the attitude to encounter difficulties and impose another way of seeing this. Thanks God, my mind are enlightened by several famous artist who are willing to give me opinions all the way through.
Do stop by and read the featured artists, they are Becky Chase ( Dangerbears), Cheryl Hutchinson (Bingle Bears), Danielle Roothooft ( Pussman & Co.), Lainy Musgrove (Heirloom Bears), Lori Jarret (Loria Designs)Stacy Haines (Bare Bottom Bears), Yana Lengina and one of our local artist, Rita Yu (YuYu Bear).
The last but not the least, is my dear bear collector and also writer, Felicia Hymer, she suggested an ideal place to travel: Bearizonia.