Halloween Witches

One of my Halloween traditions is that I decorate for Halloween on October 1st. I enjoy having my Halloween decorations out for a month.  For the first week or so I move the pieces around until I find the settings that I like the best.  Over the years I have collected many interesting pieces.  I also make many of my own Halloween decorations. 

The pictures on this blog post are of two of the witches I made many years ago when I was just getting interested in making dolls.  The dark haired doll was made in 2002 and the white haired doll sitting on the crescent moon was made in 2003.  The crescent moon is made from paper maché and painted with pearlized paints.

The dolls are basic doll patterns made from unbleached muslin and striped cloth for the legs.  The arms and legs are "jointed" by sewing across the joint area to allow them to bend.  Once the dolls were stuffed the faces were soft sculpted.  These were some of my earliest dolls.  (Their noses are oversized on the face because I had not yet learned how to create a face with normal proportions.)  Once the soft sculpting was completed the doll was painted with flesh colored craft paint and the eyes and mouth were painted.  The hair is rooted yarn on the white haired doll.  Each strand is rooted separately.  The dark haired doll's hair is glued on.  It has held up well over the years, but I prefer to tie off the strands individually.  For all their faults, they have a lot of personality. 

The witch sitting on the pig is a representation of an old world myth about Halloween.  Many old Halloween stories used to say that witches and spirits used to come out on Halloween eve and ride the animals.  Needless to say, the animals were supposed to be rather stressed out  from this.  My folk art pig seems to be taking it in stride. 

Since I have all of my Halloween things out right now, I'll be showing photos of some of my Halloween creations over the next few weeks.  I guess about every other post will be photos of things that have already been made and the alternate post will be about the Faux Tesla Coil Halloween Project.  That way readers will be able to keep up with what is going on with that project as well.