Art Dolls in the Interim

 

Uncle Sam Santa

I'm still in the stage of getting started on the new Halloween Project.  I don't have any photos to show yet, but will definitely have a photo of preliminary sketches done by Sunday.  Regular readers know that I have had a major plumbing problem at the house, and half of our house is unusable.  At the moment we are in a holding pattern while it is determined whether the contractor can find flooring to match the flooring in the rest of the downstairs or whether the flooring for the den, hall, 2 bedrooms, and their closets are replaced.  For the time being, we are sleeping upstairs on an air mattress.  Since our regular closets are unusable, our clothes are stuffed into any place we can find to put them.  The chaos is taking a toll on my creative time.

Casual Santa

In the mien time, I have some photos of art dolls.  I hope you will find them amusing.  The first two dolls are soft sculpture dolls.  Soft sculpture is when you create the features by using a needle and thread to sculpt the features.  The second two dolls, have heads made of clay.

The Uncle Sam Santa was one of my early attempts at Americana themed Santas and one of my first  attempts at soft sculpture faces.  This doll was based on a doll pattern commercially available a couple of decades ago.  After so many years, I cannot remember it it was a McCalls, Simplicity, or Vogue Pattern, but it was from one of those companies.   All in all, I don't consider the doll to be a great success.  It is not the fault of the pattern, but the lack of skill on my part.  The only way to become skilled at doll making is to keep doing it until you develop the skills.  You can't just say, "Oh this is horrible" and quit making dolls altogether.

(More text  and a photos below, the blog platform is giving me some trouble with positioning the photos today.)

Although I cringe at showing early work, I do so from time to time just to encourage people to keep working on whatever their artistic interests may be.  It is very easy to get discouraged and just give up. Have faith in the process and just keep plugging away.  Everything improves with practice. 

Jack Frost

The Uncle Sam Santa photos have not been posted before.  I am reposting the other art doll photos to show that there has been at least some progress in my doll making over the years. 

When it comes to doll making, my advice would be to read a book or two on various ways to make dolls, then make one or two dolls from patterns just to get a feel for the process.  After that, start making dolls on your own from scratch.   The problem with patterns dolls is that you are following someone else's idea about how this doll should look.  When you try to reproduce it, things don't come out as well as you would want.  Since the doll does not look like you think it should look, it is discouraging.  Once you start creating on your own, you become more engaged in the creative process.  Rather than just blindly following instructions, you are asking the questions that need to be asked to make the doll come out in a way that is pleasing to you.

Jack of Autumn