What is new

It has been a very long time since I posted anything for you all to read. I got swept up in Christmas preparations, then someone contacted me to do a commission and I became very involved in researching, planning and executing it. It got finished in mid February and I plunged right into another creation, this time for an Art Doll Quarterly challenge. A haunted fairy tale is the challenge/inspiration. This has been the only one that I have felt the least interest in, so I decided to give it my best shot. After brainstorming on my own and with my friend Debbie, the idea of The Little Match Girl seemed the most appealing. In the story, the little girl dies (ghost #1) and is taken up to heaven by her dead grandmother (ghost #2), and I could visualize it very clearly in my mind, so I plunged ahead. I drew some sketches, had my husband photograph me holding a pillow as the grandmother would hold a child and started the armatures first. I normally begin with the head, however the pose and the balance is everything in this, so just roughed in the head with foil initially.


Once that was  done, I wanted to sculpt the heads with the grandmother and little girl gazing into each other's eyes. A bit of a challenge.









Then, arms, legs, wiring them onto the armature and body wrapping. Then skin, painting and dressing. I was working to a deadline for submission of March 15, so I worked steadily to get them done. Created a base to suspend them in the air,( the base warped when I used the heating register to dry the glue, darn it!) then I figured out (again) how to use Dropbox and sent off the images with a covering document. Heard back from the editor that she will bring forward my submission for consideration by the art selection committee. Wow!
Here they are, finished.



After all that, I am looking forward to making an Ice Queen doll for the art doll challenge in the Somerset Studio Mixed Media magazine's fall issue. Deadline April 15, so I need to get busy.
While in the throes of working on these dolls, I stumbled across an enchanting Waldorf style doll on a pinterest board...if you like this, then... I immediately looked up the creator, Mum and Dot= Dorota Strzebonska and was totally smitten! Luckily for me, I live in the age of the internet, where tutorials abound on how to make those delightful little creatures and ordering the materials is a click away. I wanted to start making a Waldorf style doll right away, and my stash still included wool rovings, so I was able to start needlefelting a head after watching several youtube videos- in real time, so you can imagine how much time was invested in front of my computer. Fabricland provided the jersey for skin. Not the best quality for a long-lasting doll, but a beginning  Discovered that it takes so much time to needlefelt even the simplest of these dolls that there is no point at all in using anything but the best materials.I have just today been to the Peterborough Fibre Arts Festival and come home with a large quantity of wool for stuffing and imported fabric for skin, plus some beautiful locks of dyed wool for hair. Many thanks to Monika at The Olive Sparrow for bringing them from Toronto today!

Here is the WIP:



 


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