Making a Father Christmas Doll - Part 7

Arm assembly

I am racing against the clock to get a quick Father Christmas doll ready by the time the Christmas
decorations start going up.  Quick is a relative term when making a doll, but as I blogged in the earlier posts, I am using a very simple doll form to help move things along.  Last blog post I had shown how the arms and sleeve were made.  Now I am on to the next process. 

Face mask sewn onto the body.

Before attaching the arms, the face needs to be attached.  The face is a mask type face.  Earlier blog posts show how the face was created.  The face has four holes in it so that it can be sewn onto the doll body.  This is the area where specialized doll needles are helpful.  I have doll needles in two
sizes.  Some (sorry for the skip the photos won't cooperate.  Please continue reading below the photo.)

Back of the head.

needles are three inches long.  My other doll needles are seven inches long.  The short needles are very
rigid.  The long needles are flexible, which is helpful in that the longer needles flex and make it easier to hit an
exact spot through the body of the doll.  Be forewarned, always work with the large needles facing away from you.  You can get a nasty jab from one of these large needles if you are pulling hard and the needle finally pulls through all the doll's layers. 

Flannel and stuffing round out the back of the head.

The face mask is sewn onto the body by sewing diagonally between the holes.  I used a heavy button thread for this part of the project.  Start at the back of the head. go through a hole, return to the back

Sewing on the arms.

of the head and make a locking stitch.  Then go through the hole again and then diagonally across to a hole, come up through the hole and to the back of the head again.  Next do the other diagonal in the same way.  I did multiple threads with this to make sure that the head would be secure.  Technically, this is a look at it doll, not a play with it doll.  However, I try to make sure that everything is attached securely enough that I don't have to worry about it if a small child gets hold of it by accident.  You won't see the holes where the face is attached once they are covered by the hair and beard.

 This is where I start to part ways with the instructions of the doll pattern.  I just needed the basic shape of

Arms and sleeves are attached to the body.

the doll body to get started.  The instructions that I have been following is for a much more primitive doll than the the one I plan on making.  The doll will slowly change from here on out to something of my own creation. I guess I have actually already started to make changes because the doll instructions I have  been following were using a cast Santa face that included the purchased beard being cast in chalkware.  I crafted my own face out of bake in the oven clay.  At the moment, it has no beard
because I plan to glue wool roving to the face and head to create the beard and hair.

The process of sewing on the doll head tends to flatten out the back of the doll head.  I digressed from the pattern in this case by making creating the back of the head by using a circle of white flannel (and some scraps) and stuffing it with polyester fiberfill and sewing it onto the back of the head. This fills out the back of the head to make it look more normal.   When I attach the hair, the scalp will be white instead of showing through as the red of the doll body.  

 Once the face is attached, it is time to sew on the arms and sleeve assembly.  The arms are attached to the body on the back just slightly below where the face ends on the front.  Leave a small area that serves as the neck.  Sew through the sleeve and the material covering the wire armature of the arms.  It will not look pretty, but do the best you can.  This area will be covered by the robe when the figure is complete.  You won't see the stitches.   When you first start sewing, the arms will cant to one side.  Make sure that you straighten the arms as they are sewn to the body.

At this point the hands look oversized.  There will be about an inch of trim attached to the sleeves.  This will cover up a considerable amount of the hand.  If they still look too large, I will open the mittens and remove some of the stuffing.  Sometimes making a doll is continuing a matter of continuing to work at it until it looks right.

Once the arms have been sewn on, bend the arm armature forward to create the shoulders and arms.  This is when things start to take shape.  If you have never seen one of these dolls take shape you will wonder how in the world it is ever going to work out.  At this point the doll seems to have a hunch back.  Doll making is a lot like painting in that the doll is built up in layers just like painting a picture is built up in layers of paint.  Many new doll makers give up at this point because they cannot see how things will work out.  It will work out, it just takes time. 

Next blog post the doll really begins to take shape.  It will be self-standing.  Check back on Thursday for that post.

No Post due to Holiday

There will be no post for Thursday, November 26th due to a holiday.  I will be spending time with family and friends.

Making a Father Christmas Doll - Part 5

Note stitching to delineate the thumb.

I had been blogging about a doll I am making, a Father Christmas doll.  Last blog post I digressed for a minute to show some photos from my latest road trip.  Now I am back home and working on the doll again. Regular readers may recall that I am making a pattern doll.  I am following a pattern from a book called Making Old Fashioned Santas bu Candie Frankel and Beverly Karcher.  The advantage of working with a pattern is that a lot of the work has been done for you in figuring out how to size the parts so that they are in proportion to each other.  This allows you more time to work for making the doll your own by choosing different fabrics and accessories. Since I started this project so close to the holidays, I needed the advantage of that extra time in order to have the doll completed before the holiday decorations come out.

Both thumbs need to be pointed up.

Arms inserted into sleeve tube.

When I last blogged about the doll I had made the arms and needed to attach the hands to the arms.  That was when I ran into a problem in that the wrists were too small to fit over the arms.  I had to rework the pattern to accommodate the extra width needed in the wrist area. I have reworked the pattern with mixed results. I did not change the size of the pattern for the hands.  I only changed the size of the wrist area so that it would fit over the fabric on the arm.  At the moment, the hands look over-sized compared to the body.  They will not look quite so large once the trim is added to the garment.  That will hide the wrists as far as up as the thumb.  However, I still think the hands will look a little large.  If I should use this pattern again I think I would make the mittens a bit smaller and not stuff them so firmly.  If they still look too large once the
doll is completed I will open the tip of the mittens, remove some of the polyester fiberfill and then re-sew the mitten by hand.  All is not lost if things don't
actually turn out exactly proportionately correct.  A characteristic of folk art dolls is that they are not always in correct proportions.

The edge of the wrist of the mitten was folded under, slipped onto the arm, and hand sewn into place.  Do the same for the other mitten.  Make sure that the thumbs are pointing up on both sides.  I found that the process was made easier by pinning one side of the wrist to keep it from slipping around while I was sewing on the other side.  This process took about twenty minutes or so.

At this point I am sure that you are wondering how this bell shaped body and cylinder with mittens is going to work out.  The wires inside the wrapped cloth will bend and hold its shape to become the shoulders and arms of the doll.  Before we get that far, there are two more steps that must be completed, and that requires some explanation.

Dolls can be made so that the clothing is an exact replica of how garment sewing is normally done.  Due to the small size of the pieces, it is somewhat difficult to make doll clothing.  It is even more difficult to get the clothing onto the doll as the doll generally does not have the flexibility and range of motion
of a human body.  Many times, doll clothes are made by the draping method, in which shaped pieces of cloth are draped over the figure and hand-sewn into place.  This doll will use the draping method and since we have been working on the hands and arms, this is where we will begin.

I cut a five and a half by sixteen inch of the fabric I plan to use for the robe of the doll.  If I were using a fabric such as wool felt that will not ravel, I could have reduced the sixteen inch measurement to fifteen, but because I will need to fold over then edge as if I were making a hem on a garment in order to have a solid sewing edge I added some extra length to account for the folded edge.   The short edges were folded over and hemmed by machine.  Then the piece of cloth was folded in half lengthwise and sew down the long edge to form a tube.  Then the cloth was turned right side out.  The arm cylinder was inserted into the tube.

That is about where I will end today.  There is one more step that needs to be done before the arms are attached to the body.  This coming Thursday will be Thanksgiving Day, and I will be spending time with family and friends so there will not be a blog post on that day.  Check back on Sunday, November 29th for more on making a Father Christmas doll.

More Photos From the Road - November 2015

View from the road.

I interrupted my crafting to make a short trip up to the mountains.  So far, we have not had snow.  In the higher elevations, most of the leaves are down.  We raked leaves in October but there were still plenty of leaves on the trees then.  We expected to be raking leaves this time, but the yard was bare.  I think our neighbors, who sometimes mow the lawn for us had run over the leaves with their riding lawn mower.  It was either that or the high winds had blown all the leaves off the yard and back into the tree line.

An old log and chink house.

Lower down, there was still some color in the trees, but you can tell that autumn is coming to a close.  Although the trees are bare, the mountains are still beautiful.  The bright sunlight shining through the bare trees casts bent and crooked shadows onto the side of the mountains.  It can be almost disorienting as the shadows fall at odd angles on the side of the mountain.  Without the tall weeds and wild flowers, you can see many features that are hidden at other times of the year; rocks and vines unseen all summer leap to the fore.

A giant size head of Eva Toole.

I took this photo of an old building on the side of the road.  The original building is a log cabin with chinked clay between the logs.  If you look closely you can see that the main building has had more structure added over time.  In this photo you can see the two additions on the back. I may have posted a photo of this building before, but at that time I was more focused on the geometric pattern on the side of the building.  This time I noticed the additions to the building.  Driving by things, you just catch a glimpse of something before you have passed by it.

The shed is still standing.

The third photo is a piece of roadside art.  Fans of the television show Hell on Wheels will recognize this as the face of the character Eva Toole.  I shot this photo during the October trip.  Apparently it was a short term exhibit.  The "hair" was only black plastic.  I did not see it on this trip, but it may be that I was looking in the other direction when we went by that area. 

Vines can live for a long time.

The old shed is still standing.  I have been expecting it to fall down every year since 1966.  It just keeps looking a little more decrepit every year.  Who knows, this may be the year that heavy snow does it in.  I consider it a science experiment at this point.  Just how long will the old shed last.  Our neighbors consider it an eyesore.  They offered to bring a backhoe over and push it down.  We told them they could tear it down, but they would have to clean it up because we were working on the cabin and would not have the time or energy to haul it away.  That put an end to the conversation.  What is worse than an old shed?  An old shed lying in a heap on the ground.

The cabin.

The old vine in the center of the last picture was already onsite when my parents bought the place when I was a child.  That was a long time ago.  It just keeps growing thicker.

A few days before we went to the mountains a Nor'easter came through.  A Nor'easter is a big storm with lots of rain and high winds, with the winds come in from the North East.  Because Virginia is on the Eastern Seaboard, this brings in rain off the ocean.  It rained for days pretty much non-stop.  I guess we were luck that it was above freezing.  If it had been colder, it would have been a huge snow storm.  Anyway, the mountain streams and rivers were

Hickory nut.

showing just how much rain was in the mountains.  I rarely see the rivers that swollen except at the height of spring storms.  There was a lot of water flowing down the mountains.

This trip up my husband put in a new set of steps for the front porch.  The old ones were in bad shape.  It
does not seem that it has been all that long since the last time the steps were replaced, but it has been several years.  The weather up there is so severe that repairs need to be made frequently.  The porch needs painting again.  That will have to wait until spring.  It was not warm enough to paint.

The last photo is a photo of a shag bark hickory nut. The nuts are edible, but are a lot of work to open the inner nut shell.  I have a hickory tree in my yard at home as well as a pecan tree.  Both trees are members of the Walnut family and all hickory trees have edible nuts, although some varieties are more bitter than others. 

The temperatures stayed above freezing while we were there, but not by much.  On Saturday it never got above 48 degrees Fahrenheit (8.88 C.).  Sunday it was 54F (12.22 C). Overnight the temperatures hovered at about 34 F. (1.11C.).  We heat the cabin with a wood stove and some auxiliary heaters.  Once the wood stove dies down, the cabin gets a little chilly.  In the evening we wear watch cap type hats to keep our heads warm.  Inside the cabin it was in the upper forties when we woke up.  In bad weather, the temperature can drop much lower.  It is cold, but it is surprising how quickly one becomes accustomed to the lower temperatures.

It was a short trip, but being up there seems to recharge our spirits.  Getting away from everything and taking some time to have peace and quiet is something that is very important to us.  We will be looking forward to the next trip.

 

Making a Father Christmas Doll - Part 4

The body of the doll.

I have started making a Father Christmas Doll.  In order to make a doll and have it ready before the holidays
get here means I have to make a fairly simple doll.  I need something that can be done quickly, but still look as if it has a lot of work in it.  One of the things that effect the look are the fabrics and trims chosen to decorate the doll body.  Even a fairly simple doll looks very nice when it has nice fabrics and a lot of detail to accessories.  Although at the moment the doll looks as if it won't amount to much to start with, once the details are added, you will be surprised at the end result.

Outer fabric, batting, and taped wires.

Wires bent into a loop and stitched seam.

Last blog I wrote about creating the body.  Today I am showing how the arms were created.  This was a very simple technique.  The arms are created from a seven inch by fourteen inch of the pre-quilted fabric, a rectangle the same size from batting (The directions called for polyester batting but I used cotton because I had some on hand.)  The right side (good side) of the fabric should be facing down.  Some eighteen inch long wires are used to stiffen the arms.  The directions called for two strands of eighteen gauge wire.  I had sixteen gauge wire.  To make sure that my dolls arms were stiff enough to pose I used three strands.  In all probability, two strands might have been enough, but I recently made some anthropomorphic dolls that I was not totally happy with because the wire called for in that project was not as stiff as I would have like it to be.  I did not want this doll to have floppy arms, so I went for more wire rather
than less wire.

Stuffed mitten will be sewn to the arm.

I bundled the wire strands together and wrapped them with masking tape every few inches to keep the wires together.  The wire I used was galvanized steel wire.  Although I have never had a problem, I have read that some people have had problems with copper wire turning green and bleeding through the fabric of the doll years after it was made.  I have never had that problem myself, but it is worth passing along that it could be worthwhile to
fully wrap copper wires to keep from having a damaged doll.  Some Father Christmas Dolls end up becoming family heirlooms.

Once the wires are bundled, the wires were laid along the long end of the fabrics and are rolled up.  At this point, the wires extend beyond the fabric by two inches on each side.  This may not be a problem if a pre-quilted cotton or wool fabric had been used for this project.  The pre-quilted fabric I used was an outer-wear fabric and it was very slippery.  The batting did not want to stick to the pre-quilted fabric and things were sliding around.  I used a dab of hot glue in each corner to hold the fabric and batting together.  The fabrics still tended to be slippery and wanted to come unrolled, but it was workable.  After I had it rolled up, I used rubber-bands to hold the fabric in place while I was sewing across the seam with a whip stitch.  I could have used hot glue for this, but I think that in the long run turning under the edge and sewing it has a nicer look than hot glue.  Sometimes hot glue will leave dark marks on the underside of a fabric.  If I had used a wool fabric, I could have gotten away without turning under the edge because it would not fray.  I had concerns about the fabric I used fraying over time.  Since the fabric was quilted in a diamond pattern I used the bottom of the diamonds as a guide to keep the seam straight. 

Once the fabric had been secured for the length of the arm, the wires were turned down to form a loop.  The loops will be inserted into the "hands" which in this case are just mittens.  The mitten is where I ran into my first problem with the doll.  The problem has to do with the fabric I selected for this part of the project.  The outer-wear fabric is much thicker than a pre-quilted cotton fabric.  It has more batting insulation.  The wrist of the mitten pattern was just too narrow for joining to the arm fabric.  The wires slid in well, but the difference in the diameter of the two pieces was just too much to bridge without it looking wrong.  I will have to redraw the pattern to make the wrist area of the mitten a little bigger.  This is really not a big deal.  It is not uncommon to have to rework a pattern to fit the particular needs of a doll.  Once I have the size correct, I will do a little more detail work on the thumb area.  The mitten fabric is flannel. 

This is about as far as I have come with this doll.  I will have more photos once I have the new mittens made.

Making a Father Christmas Doll - Part 2

Body shape before stuffing.

In my last post I blogged about making the face for the Santa figure.  The three faces I made were geared toward making a primitive face rather than a well-sculpted face.  I like the old-fashioned handmade look.  There is a lot of information on the internet about how to make doll faces, and there is plenty of information on how to make much better faces than the ones I made.  There are even tutorials on how to make eyes from polymer clay that look like they are made of glass.  I don't have time to make the eyes for this doll, but I think that I would like to try it on a future doll.

Body shape after stuffing.

Before I get going, a couple of corrections:  first off, I spelled Belsnickel incorrectly in my previous post.  I meant to correct the spelling and did not get back to it.  I am mentioning it here in case anyone was trying to do an internet search for more information on that type of Santa.  The other correction was on the dates of my books.  I said that some of my craft books predate the internet, and that is certainly true.  However, my doll-making books come from the mid-1990s, so the internet as we know it today had been around for a few years.  Commercial internet providers started up in the late 1980s.

Now, on with the show.  There are many different ways to make a doll.  I am using a very basic doll form for this doll because there is only a small amount of time to get this doll made before the holidays.  This doll will not have legs.  The doll will be an elongated bell shape that has been stuffed to hold its form.  This type of doll works well with an old-fashioned Santa because of the doll's long robes.  In more modern books this type of doll is sometimes called a bottle doll because the base was sometimes built around a liter soda bottle.

The pattern I am using is in a book called Making Old-Fashioned Santas by Candie Frankel and Beverly Karcher.   The instructions called for using pre-quilted fabric for the body.  I think the pre-quilted fabric is used because it gives the body more structure.  The fabric has three layers: the top layer, batting, and backing fabric.  The quilting lines also add a decorative element to the fabric.  Unfortunately, styles of fabric change over time.  I went to a big chain fabric store, but the choices of fabric available in quilted fabrics were few.  The store had quilted fabric in red or white, but that was about it.  I did not care for the quality of the cloth.  There was one or two other selections in the outerwear department.  It was a nicer looking material, but it was very expensive.  I am going to have to find something to do with the leftover fabric because it was too expensive to let go to waste.

Basically, the doll body is a bell shape that is about one and a quarter inches (31.8 millimeters) at the narrowest point, four and a quarter inches (107.32 mm.) where it widens to the shoulders, and five and three quarters inches 146.28 mm.)at the bottom.  (Metric calculations were 1 inch = 25.4 millimeters and rounded up on the last digit.)  This amount includes a quarter inch (31.8 mm.) seam allowance.  The seam is sewn from one side over the top to the other side.  The bottom is left open and is stuffed with polyester fiber fill.  Before stuffing, take the time to clip the curves as close to the stitching as you can get without cutting through the stitching.  If you neglect this step, the fabric will pull and distort in places when it is being stuffed.  I'll get to more about the base in another post.  For the moment, the base is stuffed and the bottom is pinned to hold the fiberfill in place.

Before this post gets any longer, I should say something about the technique for stuffing a doll.  When a doll is stuffed, you want the stuffing to be firm not soft.  You can't just grab a few handfuls of fiberfill and stuff it in.  There are some techniques to stuffing dolls.  The techniques used depend on the size of the doll.  Depending upon size, you want to take a bit or a handful of stuffing and fold it over and over into the tightest ball you can make it.  For a small doll with very tiny tight spaces you will fare better if you clamp the ball of fiberfill with forceps clamps and use the clamps to maneuver the ball into position.  Once the fiberfill is in place, you poke it down as tightly as possible using the flat end of a skewer or chopstick.  (Don't use anything with a sharp pint because it could poke holes in the fabric.)  For a shape the size of this doll body where you can reach your whole hand inside, you will be grabbing as much  fiberfill as you can, then folding it firm and inserting into the body.  After tamping it down with the skewer or chopstick, hold it in place with your other hand or a clothes pin while you are getting the next handful of fiberfill.   The best description of how to know if you have stuffed the doll firmly enough was given in a book some years ago.  I don't remember who wrote it.  The description said that the body or limb should feel like a ripe tomato.  I have never been able to find a better description.  You may also have to roll and knead the piece to help the fiberfill look smooth instead of lumpy.

Anyway, that is about where I am at the doll at this point.  I am sure you have noticed that there are not arms.  I will be blogging on how the arms were made in this coming Sunday's blog post. Normally this would be this Thursday's  blog post, but it has been posted early.  The next post will be on Sunday.

Making a Father Christmas Doll -Part One

I had not made dolls for quite some time, but this year at Halloween I made some anthropomorphic figures:  dolls that had cloth bodies and paper mache' heads that represented tomatoes and pumpkins.  Those projects inspired me to take on another doll project.  I will be blogging and showing pictures of how I create the doll.
 
(Apologies for the blog skipping spaces below.  The photos are not cooperating today.)

With only forty-seven days until Christmas, I have decided to take on making an old fashioned Father Christmas doll.  This type of doll goes by many names and similar shapes, Old World Santa, Victorian Santa, Pere Noel, Saint Nicholas, Father Snow, and Belznichol to name a few. Basically, they are figures wearing long robes and decorated with many embellishments such as fir trim, Christmas ornaments, and toys.  The robes vary in color, with crimson robes being favored for Victorian Santas, white for favored for Father Snow and anything goes when it comes to Rustic Santas. 

When it comes to making dolls, one of the first question you ask after you have decided to make a doll is, "How much time do you have?"  Doll making is not a quick process.  You can make a quick doll in an afternoon, or spend a hundred hours or more on a
very detailed doll.   Decisions include how to construct the body, the face, the hair and fabric choices for clothing, and accessories.  Furthermore, the doll can be constructed so that it sits only, is self-standing, stands in a doll stand, is jointed, and whether the joints are decorative or actually helpful in making the doll hold a pose.  Most of these decisions need to be made before you get started on a doll.  Trust me, it will save on trips to the craft store.  That said, doll making is also an intuitive process.  There will be times that plans change as the doll develops.  
 
 If I were working full time on the doll, forty-seven days would be plenty of time.  However, since I only spend a few hours a week on crafting, I will have to make a doll that has a less complex structure if I want to have it completed before the holidays begin.  There are many techniques for creating the doll body.  Some dolls  can be made quickly with great results.  With a full schedule, I plan to use one of the more basic body designs and spend more time on the accessories.  I have books with patterns for creating old-fashioned Santas. My craft books predate the internet.  Today this information is available on the internet.  You-Tube has many tutorials that are worthwhile watching.  I just find it easier to have the information all in one place.  I plan to use one of the patterns to save time.  With doll making, it is not necessary to completely re-invent the wheel every time.  A pattern for the body and clothing helps move things along.  Every doll will be different due to the choices of cloth and accessories. 

Well, I have to start somewhere, so I am beginning with the face.  I have always found that the face and head are one of the more difficult parts of doll making.  I want it to be right. I begin working on a face with a certain amount of anxiety because it is one of those areas where people see very quickly that something is off.  I have to remind myself that the only way to get through it is to work on it until you are satisfied.  That may mean making more than one face to achieve that goal. 

For this project, I plan to use a mask type face.  A mask face is a face that is created from clay and sewn or glued onto the body.  The back of the head is formed as part of the body structure.  A mask face works well for a Santa figure because the edges of the face are covered with the fluffy hair and beard.  You
don't see the edges of the mask.  I am making (and will be blogging about) my own mask.  People may not be comfortable with trying to make their own faces, but if you can roll balls and snakes out of clay, you can make a face.  There are also push molds available that you can order from the internet.  The drawback to using a commercial mold is that every doll would have the same face.  If I were going to make multiple dolls, I would consider purchasing one, but since at the moment I only plan to make one doll, I will make the mask myself. I know that my doll mask will not look as good as a mold made from a scanned face, but the hand made face will have a rustic charm to it.  I actually prefer the rustic, handmade
look. 

So, on with the show.  I drew a pattern to make the face.  At this point the face is very basic.  It shows the placement of features for the mask.  The pattern can come from anywhere.  If you are uncomfortable drawing a face, trace a face shape from a picture or photo.  You can even look in a mirror to see where to place features, but be forewarned, the finished face will look somewhat like you.  You can use a copier to size the pattern up or down to fit the size doll you are planning to make.  Generally, the head is about one seventh of the size of the doll.  So if you are planning on making a twenty-one inch doll the head would be three inches.  A fifteen inch doll would have a head about two and and one-eighth inch.  Once you have a face pattern, you are ready to begin.  Place the mask pattern on your clay and use a stylus to poke holes to transfer the markings to the clay. 

I used flesh color Sculpy bake in the oven clay.  The clay is moldable until it is baked.  Once baked, it sets up hard.  Sculpy comes in many colors.  Naturally, I am choosing the tone that is closest to flesh, but I am never satisfied with the color.  I have to paint my faces to get them to look more lifelike.  I have never taken a sculpting class, and there is a learning curve on making a face.  I made three faces out of one package of Sculpy.  The clay works best if you take several minutes to knead the clay before trying to crate a face.  Kneading the clay makes it soft and pliable and removes trapped air bubbles. Once the clay is prepared, I roll some clay in a ball and roll the ball into a circle with a rolling pen.  Note:  I used a non-stick craft mat because the clay will not stick to it.  It is also possible to use parchment paper or wax paper for a mat.

Building the mask is a process of gradually building up the features.  I have not worked with clay for a long time, and had to re-learn a few things.  Each mask is a little better than the one before it.  I generally start with the nose and forehead.  I roll out a small snake of clay and place it onto the nose area.  It can be larger or smaller than the nose on the pattern.  Next I add the forehead and blend the clay with some clay working tools.  I have both plastic and metal carving tools.  I think the metal ones work better, but they are more expensive. 

I made three masks, each a little more complex than the one before.  The technique is the same other than the treatment of the eyes.  I will describe the differences of the eyes, but the rest of the information will be given only once.  The first mask has flat eyes that are painted onto the eye holes after the mask is baked.  That was where I discovered that I should have made the eyes smaller and used part of the eye area for a painted eye-lid.  The second mask has small balls of clay place in for eyes, then the balls were covered with snakes of clay for an upper and lower lid.  The trouble with that is that the shape of the eye distorted while the lids were formed over them.  The third mask has balls of clay (shown in the second picture) that were baked for two minutes to harden them before being placed on the face. Another option would have been to use glass beads as eyes.

The cheeks are made from balls of clay that are then molded into cheek shapes and pressed into the nose and eye lid areas.  You just have to take time and work on it until you get it so that it looks right.  I found that it was easier to get the balls to be the same size if I rolled the clay into a snake, cut off a piece, then used that piece to measure and cut another piece the same size.  Once I had two pieces the same size I rolled each one into a ball.  The same treatment was used to add volume to the chin and the jaw area.  I was not overly concerned about the shape of the face for this project because the hair and beard will be glued around the edges. 

Once the face is shaped until I am satisfied with it, I used the sharp point of a compass to poke in the holes that will be used to sew the head onto the body.  I found that I had to poke a fairly large hole because the back of the hole did not come out smoothly and the holes in the rear were not as wide as they were in front.  I placed the face on a bit of balled up aluminum foil and heated it in  a small toaster oven.  The directions on the clay said to bake at 275 degrees (Fahrenheit) for fifteen minutes for each quarter of an inch of the clay.  I would say, take the instructions with a grain of salt.  My first mask burned to a crisp on one side.  I think the results may vary depending on the oven being used. Before putting your mask in the oven I suggest you experiment to see how the clay is going to act with your oven.  Another word of wisdom:  when I used to watch craft shows on television, the demonstrators would say that they used a dedicated oven for their clay projects.  The instructions on the package of clay do not say that this is necessary.  Sometimes it is better to be safe than sorry.

Once the figure is baked, it is time to paint.   These masks are only a tad over two inches long.  It is not easy to do a lot of detail painting on something so small.  At times I used the tip of a skewer or the lead of a mechanical pencil to dab in some of the details.  Once the faces were painted, I sealed with a satin finish sealer.  I only painted the front of the mask. From start to finish the masks took about two to two and a half hours each. 

This was a long post.  I will be posting about making the body on my next blog post.

Photos from the Road - Blue Ridge Parkway

I had finished my last project just in time to post a photo for Halloween.  I have come to one of those times where I am between projects.  I do have a new project planned.  I just have to pick up the materials.  In the mean time, I have some photos of a trip earlier this month along the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The Skyline Drive is a part of the National Parks System.  The Blue Ridge Parkway is the portion of the road that connects two National Parks: Shenandoah National Park to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.   Land on either side of the road is owned and maintained by the National Park Service.  In some places the land backs up to
National Forestry Lands.  There are laws/rules in place about how people can develop the land around the area in order to keep the Blue Ridge Parkway a pristine environment: the land cannot be developed other than for agriculture.

 We drove through mountains and fields.  The autumn colors were coming in, and the scenery was beautiful.  Below the mountains the day was warm.  At the height of the Skyline Drive the temperature was cool and there was a brisk wind.  The general altitude of the mountains at the height of the drive was between 3,200 and 3,600 feet  (975 - 1097 meters).

The Blue Ridge Mountains part of the Appalachian Mountain Chain  are not really tall mountains, but they
are very beautify.  They are also very old mountains.  The mountains are approximately 480 million years old.  At one time, these mountains were the height of the Alps:  6,000 to 8,000 feet (1828 to 2438 meters). Time and erosion have made the mountains smaller.  The width of the mountain chain varies between 100 and 300 miles (166 to 498 kilometers).

The colors in the mountains this year tended to be russet and gold with pops of bright orange and crimson.  The summer weather has a lot to do with the fall colors.  This year we had a lot of rain.  That causes the leaves to turn to russets, browns, and golds for the most part.   Bright oranges and reds tend to
be on trees that received a lot of direct sunlight.  The brightest years, when the colors really
blaze, are the years that there have had less rain.  Even so, the drive was a delight of amazing color.  To drive along the Parkway at this time of year leaves you saturated in color.  It is something you don't want to miss!

My new project will be started in a day or two.  I expect to have something to blog about on it this coming Sunday.  Please check back then.