Is this a one of a kind piece? Or will this go into molding?
The dark fantasy trend in art is being resirrected with major UK artists such as Sugarbones, Cheyenne Federiconi.
I interviewed boricua artist, Jennifer Liceaga from Coven of Cuteness (@covenofcuteness), to provide insight into how the business works. Check out her website here.
Jennifer is inspired by nature, folk tales from all over the world, and even by things as mundane as a nicely decorated donut.
She’s been drawing fairies, mermaids, and other magical creatures since middle school. It wasn’t until roughly five years ago that she started getting serious about dark fantasy-inspired art.
Thus, the Coven of Cuteness was born. She had no formal fine arts training, and everything she knows has been trial and error and watching a lot of online tutorials.
Jennifer is a full-time doll-maker and artist. However, it took her a couple of years to get there.
As a full-time artist, Jennifer’s standard weekday morning involves waking up, drinking her coffee, and writing her goals. She’d then make breakfast, catch up on a favorite show, and begin work around 10-11 am.
She doesn’t have a set work schedule nor works a certain amount of hours a day, but she does have monthly goals that she breaks down into weekly and daily tasks.
An example monthly goal could be her creating fifteen dolls. Jennifer finds ways to achieve that goal realistically.
Her art plays a lot with the concept of duality, highlighting the beauty of life/death. Some of her sculptures include skeletal fairies as a recurring motif, but many of her dolls also embody fantasy creatures.
Her goal is to create something unique and magical that captures one’s imagination.
She starts with a random idea that turns into a series of sketches she draws on paper. Once she has the sketch she likes, she goes to her iPad, where she can adjust things.
She then thinks about colors, and details, and figures out what materials she’ll require.
Many of her pieces are created with resin, and the limitations of the molding and casting process are crucial points she gauges before she moves on to sculpting.
Jennifer uses polymer clay for her sculptures, after which they are sanded, primed, painted, and varnished before assembly. Once she finishes assembling. Once the assembly is done, she can work on the final touches and take pictures of the finished piece.
Her pieces can take anything from three days to two weeks to make depending on complexity.
One week, she’d sculpt everything, the next, prime and paint, and the next, assemble everything together. The last week is for last minute touches and photography.
Jennifer was born in Puerto Rico, surrounded by breathtaking landscapes. The island has beautiful beaches, trees, mountains, rivers, flowers, colorful birds, and insects. This is why she gravitates towards fantasy art.
Her favorite artworks are the fairy art, because that’s the magical creature she loves the most.
