Carisa Swenson

-by Ryan Friant

Since 2006, Carisa Swenson has been creating art dolls which have been exhibited in numerous galleries from New York City to Los Angeles, as well as published in Spectrum 17.  She currently resides in New York.



W3D:  Can you describe your working process from start to finish?

Generally, I start right in with sculpting the head, hands and feet of the doll; only once finished with sculpting and painting the head and limbs do I begin creating the armature.  The armature consists of aluminum wire, with quilt batting wrapped around the wire to fill out the form.  A layer of foss shape is then sewn on, which when heated (using a heat gun), provides greater stability and keeps all the batting in place.  Usually at this point I have a pretty good idea as to what clothing the doll will be wearing, and swatches of fabric are cut out and pinned to the doll to get a sense of whether the colors and patterns will work or not.  Once the clothing is finished, details are added, such as buttons, whiskers or hair.


W3D:  What are the tools do you typically use in a piece?

Fingers, small paintbrushes, dental tools, needles.

W3D:  How do you recharge your "creative battery"? 

Whenever I need to fill the creative well, I head to the woods.  It doesn't matter how long I escape for- it can be an hour long walk, or a day-long hike; any time spent away form the city and surrounded by trees helps to refresh and inspire.  Wandering around museums, or used bookstores also helps. If none of those options are available, I'll settle for an hour or two of video games.

W3D:  If you weren't an artist, what else could you see yourself pursueing?

Something in the field of ornithology, perhaps an avian biologist.

W3D:  Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?

Don't be afraid of constructive criticism.  Set aside time every day to practice or advance your craft. Even if you only have 15 minutes, MAKE TIME.  Don't fall into the trap of thinking you'll only improve if you set aside huge swaths of time to devote to your art.  Most likely those opportunities will be limited, so work with what you have.  I often wake up early before heading to my day job just so I can squeeze in an hour or so of sculpting time, since I tend to be most productive in the morning hours. Knowing I have to stop at a certain time helps me focus on the task at hand.

W3D: What do you do with the sculptures you’ve created?

Many of my dolls are looking for good homes and are up for sale at galleries in Los Angeles, most notably Cactus Gallery and The Hive Gallery, as well as Dollirium Art Doll Emporium in Canada. Dolls which return to me from shows are carefully packed up in boxes and kept in safe places within our home. Ideally, the dolls would be on display, but I just haven’t found the perfect cabinet yet!

Working in the 3rd Dimension would like to thank Carisa for sharing her art with everyone.  Below you can find a link to Carisa's website as well as a few of the galleries that she mentioned.

www.goblinfruitstudio.com, e-mail:  info@goblinfruitstudio.com

Cactus Gallery

The Hive Gallery

Dollirium Art Doll Emporium

All images © Carisa Swenson 2011

Matei Apostolescu

Meet Matei Apostolescu, an artist in Romania working dimensionally. Born in 1983 in Bucharest Romania, Matei is a self taught freelance illustrator and proud member of the DepthCore collective. He has worked for various clients and had exhibitions in London, Berlin, Bucharest, Istanbul.

How or why did you start working dimensionally?
I started as a kid, when i was about 6 i was making fleets of planes out of dirt because there was a terrible lack of toys in communist times. We had lots of fun with them because, unlike real toys, if you broke one it could easily be modeled into something new. I rediscovered modeling when a friend showed me polymer clay and what people were doing with it and since then i've been having lots of fun with this stuff. 

What or who has influenced the way you work?
At the moment i try to translate characters from my illustrations to real life objects so my influences come mostly from illustrators, H.R Giger remains one of my favorite. He is an incredible painter/illustrator but an awesome sculptor too. 

Please describe your working process. 

I use polymer clay and it's pretty much about experimentation, right now i'm working on larger and more complex models. I use pressed aluminum sheets to created the skeleton and cover them in polymer clay, the rest is pretty much usual modeling :) 

What do you enjoy most / least about working dimensionally? 

Well, the fact that it really changes the way you draw and perceive illustration. I started working recently but I can feel it has a major impact in my drawn stuff, I draw more easy in a way. Perhaps an inconvenience is the fact that I now need to find a much larger space but apart from that I'm looking forward to creating more polymer clay toys.

Matei Apostolescu

www.013a.com

mateiapostolescu@gmail.com

All images and content © Matei Apostolescu

Luís Ditter

Meet Luis Ditter! Luis is a 3D artist living in Canoas City, in the Rio Grande do Sul State of Brazil. He is 40 years old and just in the beginning stages of his art career. In 2008, after 20 years working in another profession, he decided it was time to follow his heart and create life from his hands. He remembered the clay that he had loved as a child.

How or why did you start working dimensionally?
When I was younger I created my toys from clay... Superman, Ironman... all the heroes that I liked I sculpted and painted them for the joy of it. Actually, that was when I discovered polymer clay... it changed my life!

What or who has influenced the way you work?
My influences started as a kid with Disney magazines. Mickey and Donald were a part of me. Today, the artist that I identify with most is Liz Lomax.

Please describe your working process.
I begin with a sketch to draw out the idea and define the positions of the figure. I create the sculpture using Bozzi Polymer Clay, then I paint it with acrylics.

What do you enjoy the most/least about working dimensionally?
For me it is one of the best things in life! I love creating my own world, my own objects, animals and people. 
Luis Ditter
luisditter@terra.com.br
www.lumaosdeouro.blogspot.com
http://www.orkut.com/Main#Profile?uid=1152485038196087653
all images and content © Luis Ditter

Natalie Russo

Meet Natalie Russo, a 3D artist in New England. 

"As a child my artwork often got me in trouble.  I had a bad habit of rummaging through my family’s belongings for interesting fabrics and jewelry. Always looking for anything shiny or fuzzy that could be cut up and used for my own creations. I now spend my time rummaging through hardware and thrift shops and combing art stores endlessly."

How did you start working dimensionally?

As a child I had taken sculpture and ceramics classes.  It wasn’t until college that I began to learn more traditional two dimensional styles. I was never totally satisfied with producing two dimensional artwork.  I found it limiting. Instructors encouraged me to work out my illustrations in polymer clay. There was more freedom working with clay.

What or who has influenced the way you work?

My favorite children’s book illustrator is Nicoletta Ceccoli. I love her characters and concepts. Other illustrators whose work I enjoy include Raul Colon, Anita Kunz, and Yuko Shimizu. 3D Artists who have influenced my work include Chris Sickles, Jason Mecier and Liz Lomax.

Please describe your working process

Everything starts with a sketch and a color comp in Photoshop. Scene development starts with wire armatures, foil, polymer clay and acrylics, followed by building sets, placing characters and props, and photographing the scene. A final polish is done using Adobe Photoshop.  

What do you enjoy the most / least about working dimensionally?

I love that there is an endless variety of materials available.  I collect interesting objects such as copper pipes, buttons, and LED lights. I put them away until I find a special place for them in my work.  There are so many options and so many ways to create special effects.  I welcome and sometimes need challenges in my life and this medium certainly satisfies that.  Working in the third dimension forces me to learn new ways of solving problems with every illustration.  I’m constantly learning about new tools and new solutions. I love it!
Natalie Russo
603.770.8682

artist@natalierusso.com
www.natalierusso.com
images and content © Natalie Russo

Chris Walsh

Meet Chris Walsh, a sculptor and 3D illustrator based in the UK.

How did you start working dimensionally?
Before deciding that I wanted to be an Illustrator I studied on various art and design courses during college and tried so many different ways of making images, but I didn't really like any of them. I became fascinated with stop motion animation around the same time, I loved the figures and props and wanted to try making them myself, which I did for a short time and it felt like a very natural way for me to work.
Despite my love of 2 dimensional illustration I've never been very good at it, so when I got to doing my diploma in Graphic Design and Illustration I struggled to compete with the other students. I was looking through a book full of stills from various stop motion movies and shorts one day and realized that they looked great as stand alone images, and I had the crazy idea that rather than draw- I could sculpt and make everything in the scene and photograph it. I did, and everyone seemed to like it, even me.

What or who has influenced the way you work?
Again I think that my under-developed drawing skills come into play here. I've always found it tough to visualize a 3d object in 2d, and I found it especially difficult to convincingly light a scene in 2d. When I first started doing this I was a huge Tim Burton fan (I still am) and I loved the way he used lighting to make a scene so atmospheric. I started to experiment with lighting a lot in my earlier work and it became the thing I enjoyed most about working this way. 'Vincent' and 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' were certainly my biggest influences when I started off. Many years later I discovered David O'Keefe and Liz Lomax and they became a massive influence on me, and trying to keep my style unique and different from theirs certainly has an effect on how I work.

Please describe your working process.
I'll usually have a pretty strong idea in my head of what I want to begin with, I'll do some rough pen sketches on layout paper to figure out the composition I like best, and make some individual sketches of anything that might be a problem to build in 3d, then I'll try to figure out a way of doing it. I like to rough everything in first, so I'll rough out any characters in clay, and put together a very crude version of the set using cardboard, sometimes I'll use existing models as placemakers and photograph this rough version. I'll put it into photoshop and sketch over things, colour parts in etc and just see how it works as an image. I may have to move bits around or totally re-think parts of it. Once I'm happy that the image will work I begin to replace all of the crude cardboard parts with better parts one at a time, until the set is finished and painted. I light it and sometimes take hundreds of photos with different lighting variations and slightly different camera angles, by which time it's usually 4am and I fall asleep. The next day I spend picking the best ones before I crop them and make some slight enhancements in photoshop.

What do you enjoy the most / least about working dimensionally?
Well the things I like the least are the time it takes to produce a piece, the amount of space each piece takes up, and the mess it makes, oh and the cost of all the materials. But what I enjoy the most is having quite a unique style that I love working in, and seeing that other people are enjoying my work.




















* Chris is currently accepting commissions for custom made cake toppers and figurines for weddings and other special occasions, pieces can vary in size from 51/2" toppers to 10" centre piece figures and anything in between. They are hand crafted using polymer clay on top of a small wire armature, and then airbrushed using acrylic paint. Feel free to email Chris (chris@chriswalshart.com) for further ordering information, and check out the new website coming later in the year at www.chriswalshart.com

images and content © Chris Walsh