I also made her a little pair of glasses from wire, foam and latex.

Such a sophisticated pooch!

Now for her body....

She's looking a lot better with some colour in her cheeks!

I mixed each colour in acrylic paint with latex before painting it onto her head which ensures thats her joints aren't made stiff by just painting acrylic onto her. This took me a while to do as I was working with a number of different colours I had to make sure each colour had dried before starting with the next so I didn't ruin the finish of the latex.

I experimented with a final coat of latex mixed with talcum powder. Talcum powder on its own rubbed into dry latex will give it a matte effect as dried latex is extremely shiney. This works well but once you start animating with the puppet the powder often rubs off easily with handelling, hence why I wanted to try mixing the talcum powder with the latex to leave to set. It worked to an extent by taking some of the shine out of the finish but did leave yellowed clumps where the powder hadn't seperate in the mix. Worth the try but not totally succesful!

I coloured some latex a light pink skin colour which I then applied around the eyeball in its socket, I also painted the inside of her mouth while I was at it and once her eyes are set I can get going with a different colour!

She's now got her slap on and is ready to hit the town!.. Or more likely curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea if I know Jess at all!

Meet Jessica, the Chinese Crested with attitude. She shares a little cottage with my Grandmother Judith and her rather hairier powderpuff doggy friend Jasmine. She exudes so much character that I felt I just had to make a stop-motion character based on her!

Here are a few doodles of my hairless friend:

I've taken some time out of puppet making and all of that malarky to do a nice spot of painting for a friend. I've created some 'everlasting sweet peas' that are growing over four pieces of furniture.

It was nice to do some painting, something that I haven't done in what feels like a very long time. However I couldn't have completed the task without the help of my trusty friend Sparks, he was all too keen to wave his big brush of a tail around near the paint!