Arts of Delight

I have been busy doing summertime things, such as visiting family far away, and discovering the effort involved in cutting grass with a push mower (I don't do power tools, in general), which has slowed down my doll work. I worked on a new chair for my seated doll, which was fun to make, but time-consuming and tedious to wrap. I first used floral tape and that went well, since it sticks to itself and is not messy. I wanted the look of the chair I had seen on Pinterest, so I tried paper towel. It works very well in papier mache, as it is thick, but strong. On the other hand, my design necessitated fiddly work, wrapping tight spaces on curves. It took a few hours to do, but I am very happy with the result. Note to self- on any further chairs, make the design very plain and easy to wrap! I like her better on the new chair. The new doll head has been joined by arms and legs. Once again,  I have learned that it is important to leave long armature wires sticking out...

After much consideration, I decided my doll would be looking at a butterfly / fairy, so I made one. It was really bad. More consideration. Hedgehogs had been in something I read recently. I attempted to make a creature somewhat like one, and it turned out well. Fun to make, fun to paint. Now the doll is looking at her new pet. I still have to construct something that will keep the pet in her hands, but can allow it to be removed. I also decided I didn't like the scale of the chair. However, I saw something on a Pinterest board that looked just right, so I have spent time creating another chair in another style. I will show you when it's finished. For my next doll, a doll head, in a turning pose, appeared in my mind. I'd been thinking about making a doll with a likeness to an actress whom I think is very beautiful, Hattie Morahan, so armed with some images of her I started to sculpt. I have only done one other doll using an image of a person, La Casati, the red-haired ...

Love the sharks' teeth in the foreground. Plus the fish and chips. And the driftwood. And caviar. Days have flown by and I have not kept you all up-to-date! Inserted in the week since my last post has been a visit to my grandson's second birthday party. Many celebrants and lots of ocean themed food. My daughter-in-law worked hard to make it really special, and she succeeded! Back to the doll: I wanted her to have a soft, rather pointed hat, so the internet gave me instructions and I got busy. She was ready to sit in her chair, so it was time to make one. I had seen some enchanting chairs online and drew up plans for one of my own. It involved measuring the height and depth I needed, using the doll. By making the plans the size of the finished piece, I was able to use a string to measure how much wire I needed to cut before bending it into the shapes I wanted. Worked well.    Next thing to be made is the Object of Fascination. 

Because of my doll's seated position, making her bloomers presented a challenge in spatial and architectural thinking / construction. Susanna Oroyan, doll-making maven, writes in one of her books that it is wise to put underwear on your dolls, because everyone invariably upends your doll to see what they have on their bottoms. And it's true, they do!  To make all the underwear my dolls are endowed with, whether it is period or not, I am cutting up a set of vintage linen napkins and their tablecloth, kindly donated to the dollmaking cause by a generous friend. In a way, this underwear is in period, since it is made from linen, but up until the 1800's people didn't really wear underwear as we know it. They just wore shifts/shirts and not much on the bottom, if anything. After puzzling over how to make the crotch for the bloomers, I cut a generous seat seam in the linen, sewed up the legs and then fitted them on and sewed the rest of the seams in their places, righ...

I was able to work for several hours on my seated doll today. Got the wrapping done, the skin sewn on, then the final step, sewing on the head. Sat her up, and she folded flat, face onto her knees! Making her hip/ leg connection movable turns out to have been a very bad idea, as was the movable shoulder connection. Her heavy head pulled her torso down. So, I tried sewing through the hips into her backside, which helped somewhat, then I made pads to stuff between her thighs and her groin. That seems to have done the trick. I also did pads under her arms, so her hands are in her line of sight. I have to figure out what she is looking at so intently, now. Next up, dressing the doll.

Tuesday July 18 I got sidetracked from my latest doll work by a request from my daughter-in-law to make a cloth doll for my granddaughter, similar to one she saw online. Since I have immersed myself in dollmaking practices, it was easy to see how I could make a doll like the example, so I made a pattern, went through my fabric stash and got right down to work. It was fun to make something so simple and uncomplicated. It came together very quickly. I decided to use my sewing machine, to make construction faster. For my grandson, I had made a very simple rag doll using a pattern from E.J. Taylor's book on dollmaking, and I had stitched it all by hand, but time was a factor, (they are coming to visit this weekend). After the doll was completed (and approved!), I was browsing through a board that Pinterest had brought to my attention, those thoughtful guys, and discovered that, had I taken the trouble to look there, I would have seen the complete pattern, free, to make the doll I h...

Tuesday July 11, 2017 I have spent the last week reading everything I can about how to blog, and I think I am getting the hang of it! Self help books are advising me to start small and go slowly. No problem there. I have been looking at the blogs of other doll artists, and am very impressed with many of them. At the moment my favourite is The Pale Rook, written by Johanna Flannigan in Glasgow, Scotland. When I first started looking at dolls online, her haunting cloth dolls caught my attention. They are very simple, but each one has its own life and story. They are primitive, but, not. Go to her blog to see these arresting creations. She writes her blog from her heart, and one post in particular, June 2015, went viral, due, I am sure, to the way her description of her artistic journey to becoming a full-time doll artist strikes a chord with so many of us (especially women). She describes the struggle to overcome the reluctance to put yourself forward as an artist whose work is v...