As we saw in the Instagram video below, Mother Willard wasn’t able to stick with the planned family outing and instead jumped out of the truck and hid in the bushes.
Later, a mysterious woman stopped at the Way Home General store to purchase a soda.
That day, frantic Willard and Willette looked everywhere for their mother and even distributed “missing” posters. They brought one to Marty.
Marty couldn’t put his finger on it, but something looked awfully familiar about this creature…
I had so much fun making Willard’s house! I have been wanting to create more of an enhanced universe for Willard and Friends for some time now, but couldn’t quite decide how I wanted to do so, and how I could do it within limited space and going too crazy.
The house comes apart if necessary and is made of found cardboard and foam. The only things I purchased were the grass and fence.
This is Harold, a sad little monster is one of the newest Way Home Creature Nursery babies. He has the same pouty expression as some of my others–but Harold is a little extra melancholy. As I’ve said before, I try to embrace all emotions, so instead of trying to cheer him up, we just let him feel whatever he feels.
This monster doesn’t like to draw attention to himself so he’s most comfortable in these understated yet high quality pajama type pants and a simple white onesie (but, I saw him looking longingly over my shoulder at some loud and bright baby pajamas on my phone, so I’d bet that, once settled into his new home and away from the competition of the other creature babies, he might like some more colorful duds).
Harold will be available for adoption soon–be sure to sign up for my mailing list so that you can get all of the details about the release date!
I have continued to work on my creature plush dolls. I have so much fun playing with different mouth shapes and eye placement, and of course, outfits! This creature baby came out quite frog-like, although that wasn’t my intention.
These creatures represent for me a happy marriage of creepy and cute. In this case, I actually think the creepy aspect really hearkens back to the human aspects, whereas the “cute” comes from the monstrous and babyish features. That is not to say that I think humans are exclusively creepy or bad–rather, I’m really interested in human emotions such as surliness, misery, irritability, yearning–all emotions that are NOT happy, precious, cheerful–yet, I find they become endearing when paired with babyish features (this is probably why people love babies that look like grumpy old men).
As I said in my aliens post, I don’t like creepy or monstrous characters that are too one-dimensional. I have to inject some element of human vulnerability. I do enjoy making simple and cheerful dolls with Everybuddies but I also really like making these creatures that have an element of desperation and unease…while still being cute. This froggish baby creature will be available in my shop on Thursday, August 11 at 8:00 PM EST.
As a child growing up in VT, I was always outside during the summer playing in the river by my house. I never saw many turtles, but now I see them all the time! Last summer I was lucky enough to see a very tiny baby snapping turtle and this summer we’ve seen behemoth adult snappers that have to be at least decades old. All of 2022 I’ve been integrating snapping turtles into my drawings and some of my doll designs. I love the surly smirk that one gets from a turtle/dinosaur-like jaw.
I named this creature Barbara Ann, after the Beach Boys song, because I felt like it, and because this creature looks like a Barb. I guess I’m just thinking about the Beach Boys a lot, what with the summer weather and driving around with the windows down. I got particularly attached to the Beach Boys around age 7. I had most of their albums and even a sheet music booklet with Carl’s face (Carl was my favorite) prominently on the front.
While reading David Sedaris’ Calypso on vacation a couple of weeks ago, I came across a delightful sub-plot in which David becomes attached to a menacing snapping turtle on Emerald Isle, and plots to feed the turtle pieces of the fatty non-cancerous tumor that he was keeping in the freezer after having it removed. I had worked out this turtle/dinosaur-inspired head pattern just before vacation, so snappers were on my mind, and reading Sedaris’ story felt like synchronicity (to take it a step further, my favorite character, Jerri Blank (played by Sedaris’ sister Amy) has a hilarious line in one episode of Strangers with Candy where she says, “watch out for those snapping turtles” while clapping one hand, then chatters her teeth; she hopes to convince Tammy to go skinny dipping in the rock quarry).
After playing around with my materials, I felt Barbara Ann looked best with a shorter wig and a lovely wool felt cape that has appliqued, block-printed linen patches featuring my own hand-carved vulture designs. It lends a witchy vibe that’s perfect for the next season.
Barbara Ann is available in my Etsy shop with her friend Terry.
Way Home Art 