New Project: Paper Mâché Owl

 

As I blogged a few days ago, I am returning to blogging after a few years absence.  I have not yet decided what day I will post yet.  I am still trying to find what fits best into my schedule.  I think it will be on Tuesdays, but it is not settled yet.  I hope readers will bear with me while I settle in to a routine.

I work mostly in paper mâché, although I also work in other media.  I have decided that my first project will be an owl.    Why an owl?  Because it is still within my general practice of making Halloween items.  Also, I think I need a break from making pumpkins.  After making several in a row, I want to try something different.

I love owls.  We used to live not far from a reservoir.  A great horned owl lived there.  He would start each morning with a great Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!  Hoot! Hoot! as he flew across the water.  The sound echoed across the water and could be heard for a long way.  As an early riser it was a great beginning to my morning. People who preferred to sleep late probably did not appreciate it as much.

How do I start to make an owl in paper mâché?  Basically, I am starting from something flat and making it into a three-dimensional figure.  My first task is to figure out the shapes.  This is pretty much how people look at shapes for drawing.  Do the parts of the bird resemble circles, ovals, spheres, squares, rectangles, cones, arcs, tear drops and so on.  Of course, the parts will not be an exactly those shapes, but are close enough to allow you to envision how the parts will need to be created.

In this case, the head is somewhat spherical with a cone shape for the beak. The shape of the overall body is similar to a tear drop.  The front of the body is an arc with a relatively flat back.   The wings are tear drop shapes and will cover a good portion of the upper back. You don’t really see much of an owl’s legs most of the time, so I just imagine what a chicken leg looks like.  The thigh is somewhat triangular and the lower part                                                                  of the leg is shaped like an elongated teardrop.

Once the basic shapes have been determined, the next item on the agenda is to determine how large you want the project to be.  Some owls are fairly large.  I was lucky enough to see a Great Horned Owl at a wildlife rescue center.  It was much larger than I had thought it would be.  I am not planning on doing full size.  My studio (also known as the spare bedroom) is overfull of projects.   I decided to make the head first.  The size of the head would determine the size of the body. The head is larger than it appears in the photo.  It is three and a half inches in diameter.

And so, it begins.  I should warn readers at this point that I am making figuring out how to make this as I go along.  I have no instructions.  I am strictly looking at the piece I am working on and say to myself, “How can I make that shape.  In other words, I am winging it.  (Pardon the pun.) I also wanted to let you know that the project is built up in stages.  It is not very owl like at the start.  

I picked up my first piece of newspaper and wadded it into a ball and wrapped it with tape.  I checked the size and continued wrapping more layers of newspaper and tape. Eventually, I had a ball of paper and tape that seemed to be the size that I wanted for this project.

Once the size seemed right, I added a beak.  Basically, the beak was a strip of cardboard to begin with.  I made the beak a little long at first.  It is easier to take some of it off than to start over making a new beak if it is too short.  Once I had the length as I wanted, I started building up the cone shape of the beak.  The beak seems a little large at the moment, but portions of it will be covered later in the project.

Next came the eye sockets.  Owls have very deep-set eyes.  At first, I tried to build up the sockets by using paper and tape, but it was slow going.  After a couple of layers, I decided to switch tactics and use rolled up bits of tin foil held down with tape.  I needed a couple of layers of the tin foil to get the sockets deep enough.  At last!  I have an owl head I can live with. 

This post is getting a little long.  I had hoped to get into how I started on the body today, but I think it is better to wait until next time.  I don’t want to make the post so long that people don’t want to read it.

Check back next week on Tuesday to see how the body will be made.

 

 

Returning to Blogging - New Pumpkin Pictures

 After a few years away from blogging, I am returning.  During the time I wasn't blogging, I have had some health issues and have spent a lot of time caring for an aging parent.  There was so much going on that I really had little time for art and creativity and less for blogging.  I had to make a choice between using my limited spare time to create something or to try to blog about what I was doing.  I chose to drop the blogging because being creative is what keeps me feeling grounded when everything around me is causing a lot of stress.

It has been a while since I used Blogger, so it might take me a few posts to get the hang of all the techniques.  I hope readers will bear with me while I catch up.

I was also experiencing some creative burn out.  It happens, especially if someone is trying to do variations on a theme.  For some time, I have been making papier mâché pumpkins.  So far I have made seven of them.  All except the last three have been posted on the blog.  I am posting the pictures of those pumpkins on this post.  

On one pumpkin, I was experimenting with making a more human face and teeth.  As one of my friends said, "This pumpkin really creeps me out."  I made the teeth myself out of paper clay and painted them.  In case readers are interested, you can buy plastic teeth on Amazon that look more realistic.  I chose to make them myself because I wanted to see if I could.

I was experimenting with some different techniques and materials on these two pumpkins.  They look much different from the other pumpkins mainly because I was trying out using house paint rather than acrylic paints.  I had read on the internet that some pumpkin makers were using house paint.  In some ways it makes sense.  The house paint is probably going to be more waterproof and less susceptible to ultraviolet damage than craft acrylics.  However, there are not a lot of choices in orange colors of house paint.  I found the paint to be overly bright.  Some artists have tried to tone it down by painting over the orange and wiping off black paint. I decided not to try it for those pumpkins painted bright orange because the color seemed to be expressing what I was feeling at the time.

One pumpkin appears stressed and about ready to go completely around the bend.  I made that one at the time I thought I if I could just power through everything I would get through the situations.  The jarringly bright colors, wide eyes, and the huge smile seemed to say how I felt as I tried to put on a bright smile everyday and just keep going despite what I was feeling inside.

The experiment for the last of the latest pumpkins was on reverse painting glass eyes.  I had not tried anything like that before.  When you look at the pumpkin in normal light, the eyes seem depressed or melancholy.  It seems that somehow I had once again managed to input how I was feeling into the pumpkin as I came to realize that the situation was not going to change any time soon and I was going to have to change my lifestyle and schedules to adapt to ongoing situations    However, when I put the pumpkin out for Halloween this year and used bright color changing LED pool lights to light it up, the eyes look very fierce in some colors and as if the eyes were on fire in bright yellow or orange.  So all in all, I still consider the project a win, even though it looks somewhat more depressed than I would have liked.

So one of my adaptation is to make something other than pumpkins for a while.  I still have an idea for at least one more, but it may have to wait a few months for me to begin on that.  I have been working on some other projects, and I have been working on other skills. I have another project to show you next blog post.

A new project has begun and I will be blogging about it in the next blog post.  I used to blog twice a week, but for now I am going to stick to blogging once a week.  I felt a lot of pressure to put on material twice a week.  I am hoping that starting slowly will help me stay on task.  So check in next week to see the new (non-pumpkin) project.

Paper Mâché Pumpkin Part 3- Painting

mâché

Painting is complete.

New readers who may wish to see more on the construction of the pumpkin can scroll back through the last few posts, or visit the blog at folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com

The yellow exterior coat.  Interior is Tangelo.

I have completed the painting on the paper mâché pumpkin.  The painting was a much bigger undertaking than I had expected.  Part of the time it took to paint the pumpkin was because I decided at the last minute to try an experiment.  Just as I was finishing the form of the pumpkin, I had an idea pop into my head about waterproofing it.  I was not sure it was going to work.  I was even more unsure whether I wanted to experiment on a pumpkin that I had spent so much time building from scratch.  However, curiosity got the better of me and I just had to try. 

Red coat painted over brown coat.

This was constructed from newsprint and a basic flour and water paste. This pumpkin was intended for limited outside use, or use in a sheltered area, and is painted with acrylic paints.  Acrylic paints will fade in prolonged exposure to sunlight.  I would have used exterior grade paints, but Covid-19 is a thing at the moment, and I was not heading to my local hardware store for exterior paint during a pandemic.  I had planned on sealing it with spar varnish, an oil based sealer.  When I started the project, there was some spar varnish in the workroom.  However, my husband was doing some Spring cleaning, and tossed it out.  So, at the moment, the pumpkin has been painted, but not sealed.

Sealed with grout sealer.

The idea that popped into my head was to use grout sealer on the paper mâché pumpkin once the last layer was dry.  I painted it with two coats of the grout sealer.  The grout sealer was slightly milky when it came out of the bottle.  When it dried, I could tell that the pumpkin looked a little darker once the grout sealer was painted on, but you could still easily read the newspaper text.  The interesting thing was that the grout sealer turned the paper mache really hard.  Hard like rock.  Sometimes when the end of a piece of paper does not glue down well I either use some white glue to stick it down, or rip it off if it is not in a critical spot.  However, once the grout sealer was on and dry, a single piece of paper felt like it was made out dried clay.  The piece would not tear off. 

After giving the sealer twenty-four hours to dry between coats, I was ready to paint.  I painted the main body of the pumpkin first.  First, I painted on two coats of medium-body Gesso as a primer.    The interior was pained with a craft paint called Tangelo.  It is a red-orange.  I used a brown acrylic paint for the exterior base coat.  The color was called Nutmeg.  It was browner than Raw Sienna but not as dark as Burnt Umber.  I let that dry for twenty-four hours than painted Cadmium Red Light Hue over the brown.  That red is very transparent.  Twenty-four hours later, I added  a yellow color called Straw.  It was a slightly greenish-yellow.  It also had a lot of white in it to opaque it, so I had to use a very thing coat of that color.  The brown and red coats were painted on with a half-inch bristle brush.  The final two coats were Cadmium Orange Hue.  The yellow and orange coats were painted on using a fan brush. 

The eyes were painted separately from the main portion of the pumpkin.  I had initially tried a different paint scheme for the eyes, but did not like it.  I repainted with two coats of the Gesso Primer and then started painting in the order above.  The difference is that I stopped painting after the Straw color.  The yellow seemed to give the pumpkin a baleful stare.  The red paint showing through did give the appearance of bloodshot eyes.

For the main section of the pumpkin's removable top, the primer and colors are the same as above.  The main difference is in the coloring of the stem.  I had a little trouble getting the stem colors to look like a stem.  I painted it over a couple of times.  I wanted to have a little bit of green at the base of the stem.  My first stem attempt was too green.  My second attempt was still to green.  I painted over most of the green with the Nutmeg, some Straw, a little Raw Sienna, and some more Nutmeg.  I finally found something I could live with, so I stopped there.  I just don't have as much painting ability as I would like.  I muddle through somehow.

The teeth are made from purchased paper clay rather than strip paper mâché.  The stem is paper clay also.  After two coats of the grout sealer and two coats of Gesso, they were painted with a base coat mixture of Titanium White, Raw Sienna, and some Pearlizing Medium.  That mixture helped cover the bright white of the paper clay.  A wash of Raw Sienna was applied after the first coat was dry.  Then the small pits and crevices were filled in with a darker wash of Raw Sienna.  After that was dry, the pits were further enhanced with small dabs of Raw Sienna.

Other than that, there were a few highlights painted on, above and beneath the eyebrows and nose to give them some prominence.  I also painted a few areas depressed areas around the mouth to make them more obvious.  That is about it.

At this point, I am calling the painting done.  I will have to wait until I get some exterior sealer to complete the project.  Soon I hope.  The main problem with exterior sealers is that they tend to have a high odor and need to be used on a well ventilated area.  I will have to use them outside and be able to store the project in a shed for a while.  I will figure something out.

My next project is going to be a different experiment on waterproofing the paper mâché.  There are two or three recipes on the internet, and they work.  The problem I have with them is that they make a big mess.  You need a large bucket, fairly large amounts of supplies, a drill with a paddle for mixing, etc.  My husband has the drill and maybe the paddle, but I would need a dedicated bucket. 

I really don't have to place for making such a mess.  The large amounts made by these recipes are way more than I would be able to work with in the amount of time I have available.  A previous attempt at storing the homemade paper clay was not a success.  It was in a bag in the refrigerator, and it molded very quickly.  I wanted to find something easier to make that can be done in small batches.  I have an idea.  I plan to try it out.   Check back in about a week for more on the new project.

Life Size Halloween Figure and Goblin Heads

 If you are interested in seeing how the figure was built, you can see it on this blog, by scrolling back to the dates of July 2108 through November 2018.   If you cannot scroll back to it from where you are viewing it, you can  input the following link:   folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com         The entire build of the figure is there.          

I actually began this project two years ago by making the life-sized figure.  The initial concept was for the doll to be a dancer.  The doll has a wide stance, as if she is just moving into a hip bump dance step.  Her hand was raised because I had originally envisioned her holding either a fan or a scarf.  The more I worked on the project, the less enamored I became with making the doll a dancer, but I also wanted to keep the option open.  The idea evolved more into what would I do if this was a Halloween figure.  (As my husband says, "It's always Halloween here.  He is referring to my constant fascination with making Halloween projects)  I wondered if there might be a way for me to have the doll as a dancer and some type of Halloween figure.  I think that might be accomplished by having changeable costumes.  

From a distance, she almost looks real.

I worked on this doll up until the day of Halloween. The doll was built, but I had no costume for her.  I decided to paint a black leotard on her just so I would be able to get it set out for Halloween.  Then, of course, it rained.  I never even set the doll out.  At that point, I hit burnout from working on the project so extensively that I no longer enjoyed the process.  I decided to set the doll aside until I felt ready to take the project on again.  I spent a year and a half working on other projects.

This year we have all have had to deal with Corona virus.  While we have been in lockdown, I started working on some pâpier mâché Goblin heads.  The heads came out really well.  I decided that maybe this doll should be holding some Goblin heads.  I could picture them hung on a rope.  I started thinking of her as the "Goblin Slayer".  The doll was returned to my project list.

A closer view of the Goblin heads.

At the moment, she still has no costume.  I do not plan on going out shopping for fabric during a pandemic, so the robe will have to wait a bit.  In my mind's eye I am seeing her in a gray (possibly hooded) robe and a few accessories.  I will engineer it with some hook and loop tape so that the robe can be removed. At some point I will also make some type of dance costume.  For the moment, she will have to hang out in her ballet leotard.  I don't think there is any hurry, the general consensus so far is that Halloween trick or treating will not take place this year due to Covid-19.  A local county near us has already announced that the Trunk or Treat event has been canceled.  That will not stop me from decorating for Halloween though.

The PVC armature for this project.

Because I was thinking about this project as having multiple costumes, I decided to make the doll with a normal face.  As most Halloween figures have either ancient witch faces or scary faces, I I thought I could make a mask that I could put on with hook and loop straps that hide under her hair for when I want a different face. I will probably be working on that in the not too distant future.

I haven't blogged about the doll lately, but I thought I would mention that my husband refers to this doll as a "real life Chucky doll.  She has on a number of occasions punched him when he came to close without being wary.  She has also punched one of our friends while his back was turned.  Generally, she does not punch me, but she has banged me on the head a few times.

Life Size Doll Painted and Wigged

I have been working on this life size doll nearly all year.  It is not that the project took so long to do, it is that this year I have just had little time to work on it.  I only work on the doll when time allows.  I am not the type of person who stays up all night trying to get things done.  Actually, I am pretty much ready to hit the hay once it gets dark.  I am definitely a morning person.  If I did not get something done on the doll in the morning, it did not get done at all.

From a distance she almost looks real.

When I first started the doll, I had visions of entering it into a competition.  Then the project hit a number of hard stops.  The competition deadline came and went.  One of the hard stops is that I totally lost interest in the project.  I began avoiding my studio because the project was barely started and I no longer cared about it.  Every time I would walk in there the project was in the way, making me feel guilty.  Maybe I should have just thrown the whole thing out then, but I made a rule for myself a long time ago.  The rule Part A:  no more unfinished objects (UFOs).  Part B of the rule was that I could not have more than three projects going at any one time.  The reasoning behind the three projects is that some of my projects take time to dry before going on to the next step.  By having more than one project available I could keep working even if a project was at a stopping point.

I used to start a project, get tired of it, and just stash it away out of sight.  Pretty soon I had a lot of UFOs and nothing completed to show for all my work.  So, once this project was started, it had to be completed before I could begin another project.  I already had two other projects going on.  The first was a king size quilt that I have been hand quilting.  That project is almost finished but it has taken a year.  I will never hand quilt a quilt that size again.  The other project was a quilting guild project, actually projects, as I have participated in two challenge quilts this year.  Since the other two projects were already accounted for, the doll had to be finished before I could go on to something else.

Another of the hard stops was that I hurt my shoulder early this year.  I was going to physical therapy three times a week and had exercises to do at home twice a day on the other days.  That ate up nearly all my free time.  My shoulder is still painful, though not nearly as painful as it was months ago.  Working on this project has not been very pleasurable because it hurt so much to use my arm.

The other hard stop was our schedule this year.  We are spending more time at the cabin than we did in the past.  It is not just the time spent at the cabin that was a hindrance to the project.  Getting ready to go requires grocery shopping and packing.  Returning from the cabin means lots of laundry and trying to catch up on every chore and errand that was not attended to while we were away.  So maybe a week out of each month I had a few hours to work on this project.  No wonder it took so long to finish the doll.

I learned a lot from this project.  Mainly I learned that I did not care much for working in this scale.  I am much happier working on smaller projects.  However, there were many lessons learned along the way that can be helpful in other projects.  I enjoyed the process of sculpting the head.  I like the challenge of making something take shape and form.

Once the doll was covered in papier mâché I painted her with a coat of Gesso.  Then I painted on a ballet leotard.  My intention was to costume her for Halloween, but I worked on painting her right up until the evening of Halloween.  At least she has some clothes on now.

With time running out on Halloween I had thought that I would make a quick costume out of white trash bags and position her a few feet from the door so that she had a ghostly appearance.  If there was a breeze the bags would rustle and flutter in the wind.  However, at dark on Halloween night the coat of outdoor sealer was still drying.  If I had costumed her I might have plastic permanently embedded in the sealer.  I decided that I would wait for next year to put her outside.  That was disappointing, but I would rather do it right than wreck the project. Who knows, maybe someone will want this piece to put on a parade float or something.

I purchased a Cosplay wig for her hair.  Then the Halloween costumes came on sale at Walmart and I purchased a cheaper wig thinking I would use the inexpensive wig on the doll and save the expensive wig for my own Halloween costume.  However, the Walmart wig has big chunks of hair cut off it here and there.  (My take on this is that the wig makers did not want people using cheap wigs for Cosplay.  Cosplay is big business.)  It looks like someone went mad and started hacking off hanks of hair.  Maybe that was okay for a Halloween, but it was not okay for the doll.  If you look at the first picture you can see some of the short strands sticking out on the side.  I was a bit miffed at the hacked up wig  The picture on the bag did not show that this was what the wig was going to look like.  At the moment, the wig is only tacked with a dab of hot glue so I could take some pictures.  After I add a couple more coats of exterior sealer to the doll I will glue on the better wig. 

Anyway, now that she is painted, she is ready to be costumed.  Maybe she will be the flamenco dancer I had originally envisioned holding a fan in her outstretched hand.  Or a bejeweled belly dancer stepping into a hip lift.   Maybe she is holding a glass ready to make a toast.  She could be a costumed as a winged archangel holding a flaming sword.  Or Lady MacBeth holding a dagger.  The possibilities are endless.  Now that the doll is finished, the costuming can begin.

If you are interested in seeing more pictures of the construction of the doll you can go to folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com and scroll back through some of my earlier posts.  The doll posts are intermingled with posts from my travels this year.  Many of the photos showing the construction of the torso are on a blog post dated October 28th, 2018 if you want to see most of the construction in one place.  If you want detailed information about the process, you should read the posts on the life size doll that took place throughout the year.

I will be blogging next Sunday.  I will show the quilting progress on the king size quilt.  

The Latest on the Life Size Doll

Doll body covered with papier mâché.

It has been so long since I blogged about the doll that I can hardly remember the last post.  Life has been very busy for me lately.  Despite a lack of time, I have made progress on the doll.  Believe it or not she is almost finished.  Since it has been a while, I will recap the process for newer readers. 

This is my first attempt at a life size doll.  I wanted to do an experimental doll before attempting make a life size Santa or Father Christmas figure.  I thought that I would learn some lessons along the way before I started in on a doll using the additional materials and really expensive fabrics needed to make a high end Christmas figure.  I have learned some valuable lessons that I hope will help other readers that might want to attempt a large doll.

I began by making the doll head.  I used a foam head as a base.  I put plastic over the mold and then covered the head with  papier mâché using the strip method.   Once the layers were dry, I removed the head from the mold.  I had to cut it apart to get it out and then use more strip layers to put the head back together.

I began the doll by making an armature out of PVC pipe.  Because we had some scrap 1/2 inch diameter PVC pipe lying around, I used that rather than purchase a larger diameter pipe.  I would say that was mistake number one.   The doll tends to sway and some of the pipes started to bow under the weight of padding used to fill out the figure.  Also, one of the shoulder joints kept coming off.  I think that the weight of the padding was too much for it.  I re-glued it three times.  I finally had to brace the shoulder with bits of dowel and duct tape to keep it intact.  I think the larger gluing area of a bigger pipe might have been helpful there.

I used a piece of 12 inch by 24 inch board as a base.  The legs of the figure were placed into a rectangular frame.  The frame was attached to the base using clamps that screwed into the base.  The base needed to be larger.  The height of the figure (which somehow managed to keep getting taller) was top heavy for this base.  It is somewhat unstable.  It stands up, but it is unbalanced and easy to knock over.

Creating the shape.

To fill out the figure I used aluminum foil, cardboard and bubble wrap.  The bubble wrap is relatively light weight and waterproof.  I had no idea how much bubble wrap it would take, so I was buying the smaller size rolls.  As it turns out, the larger 300 foot roll might have been the way to go.  I used just slightly over 300 feet of bubble wrap.  I wrapped sheets and taped them on with masking tape.  After the figure was padded to my satisfaction, I covered the entire body with a layer of masking tape.  I was uncertain how the papier mâché would stick to the bubble wrap, and I wanted to make sure that the weight of the papier mâché did not cause the bubble wrap to shift.

Since the figure was now just slightly taller than I am, I was able to use my hands as models for the hands of the figure.  Since what I had at the house were vinyl gloves, I used those.  I put on a glove and then covered the glove with bits of masking tape.  I thought that I would have more flexibility if I used small bits of tape rather than wrapping the tape around and around.  Since I did not try the other method, I cannot say if it was better or not.  If I were to make the hands over again I would use nitrile gloves .  They tend to fit more tightly to the skin.  I think it would have made the hands look a little neater.

Padding the figure.

I added the head to the body.  That was a near disaster at one point.  I had to place a PVC pipe in the head so it could be attached to the shoulders.  The rounded head did not lend itself to having a piece of pipe glued to it.  Since the glue was not working, I braced the pipe in place and sprayed in some expanding spray foam.  It seemed to set up and I walked away from the piece.  When I came back later, the spray foam had expanded beyond the head and dripped down on the head in a few places.  It was a mess.  Fortunately the foam peeled off the painted head easily.  If I do another doll like this, I will not use as much foam.  Filling it half way up was too much.  However, the pipe is firmly embedded in the head.

The head was attached to the body by adding dowels to a joint in the shoulder assembly up through the pipe in the head.  Then it was glued and taped into place.  The attachment will be reinforced by layers of papier mâché.  The head looks a little small now.  The shoulders grew wider when I had to brace the shoulder.  It may look more normal once the hair is added.  If necessary I will tease up the hair to give it more volume.  Or perhaps add accessories to fill in the area.

The near disaster with the head.

I have two layers of papier mâché on at this point and would like to add another before I begin painting and sealing the figure.  It should probably have a total of six layers, but I won't have time to add that many before Halloween.  This project is not going to be hanging around after that.  It just takes up too much room.  Perhaps I will be able to find it a good home.  Having a life size doll around is not that much fun.  Sometimes I will walk into the room or catch the figure out of the corner of my eye and for a second will think that someone is in there.  It is kind of creepy.

 Anyway, that is the state of the project at this point.  I hope to have the doll in some shape to go outside on Halloween night.  I should have some pictures for next Sunday's blog.

Life Size Doll Armature - Making the Hands

I wrote the post before I went to the mountains.  I am still learning to use my new computer with a different operating system on it.  Apparently it did not like the way I added pictures to the blog.  It would not load the post.  I am trying a new way of adding the pictures.  I hope it will post this time.  I am sorry for it being so long between posts.

I have been working on this project for a while.  It is finally getting to the stage of making the details.  Today I will be blogging about making the hands.   As always, there is more than one way to do something, so the first choice I had to make was what method to use.  I have tried different means of making doll hands over the years.  Some hands have been sewn and stuffed fabric.  I have sculpted hands from bake in the oven clay.  I have made mittens so that I did not have to show the hands for winter dolls such as Father Christmas figures.  For this doll I wanted to try a new method, tape and gloves with an internal wire armature so that the fingers could be posed as needed.

Since this doll is life size, I could use my own hands to make the structure for the hands.  I made one hand at a time.  I started by slipping on a vinyl glove.   I used vinyl because that is what I happened to have on hand at the moment.  A nitril (spelling ?) glove might have been a better choice because they tend to be a tighter fit.  However, I decided to go with what I had in the studio. Some methods of making hand shapes with tape suggest just wrapping the tape around the hand and fingers until everything is covered.  I chose not to use this method because I felt it would make the fingers too rigid for what I wanted to do with them.  I tore bits of masking tape into small manageable sized pieces and beginning with the fingers started covering the glove with the tape, overlapping the pieces of tape.  The tape was pressed tightly around the fingers and hand.  I covered the glove up to the wrist.

Once the glove was covered it was time to cut it off my hand.  I used a pair of scissors with rounded tips to avoid injuring myself.  I am right handed, but I was still able to cut the glove off by myself.  I started the cut at the center of the wrist and cut up almost to the tip of the middle finger.  From there I was able to pull my hand out without cutting any of the other fingers.  After removing the glove, I taped the cut pieces back together.  Then I made the other hand.

I wish I had stopped to take a photo of the hands at that point so I could have one for the blog.  However, I was on a roll and just kept on working.  The only photos of the hands were taken after I placed them on the doll.

To be able to pose the fingers I made an internal armature from wire.  I used 16 gauge wire, but if I were to do it over again I would use an 18 gauge wire.  The 16 gauge was a little stiff.  I cut 22 inch (55.88 cm) lengths of wire for each finger and the thumbs.  I bent the wire in half so that there would be a rounded piece of wire at the end of each finger rather than a sharp piece of wire.  Once the wire was folded, I taped the wire to hold the to pieces close together.  The wire was inserted into the finger and then stuffed with polyester fiber fill until the finger was firm, but not bulging.

As I added each wire, I also taped the next finger to the previous finger at about the center of the palm of the hand.  It helped keep the finger wires from slipping.  It also provided a platform for the stuffing that would fill out the hand.  Once all the fingers and the thumb had been stuffed, it was time to stuff the palm and back of the hand.  I used pieces of cotton batting to stuff the palm and back of the hand, adding a little polyester fiber fill at the base of each finger to form knuckles.

Because I had used my own hands to create the doll hands, I could easily mark the joints of the fingers.  That helped to determine where to create folds in the wire to make the hand hold the pose I wanted.  Once again, this was a bit more difficult than it needed to be because I had used a stiffer wire.  The fingers are not going to be moving out of that shape easily, so maybe it was not such a problem after all.

I already had a plan for the hands decided when I planned to make this doll into a dancer.  She was supposed to be holding a fan in her raised hand and the hem of her dress in the lower hand.  Now that I am going to do something else with this doll I am not sure what she will be holding in the raised hand.  I will figure it out as I go along.  Who knows it could be a glass of wine or it could be a dagger or something.  I am sure that it will all come together sooner or later.

The long wires protruded well past the wrist.  This  was by design.  The wires were slipped up into the PVC pipe of the armature.  This helped hold the hand in place.  The hand was also taped onto the PVC pipe.  I added a little stuffing here and there and some bubble wrap to integrate the hand into the arm.

So that is about where I am with the doll right now.  With just a little more tweaking to the armature I will be ready to start on the papier   mâché.  I will be blogging on this in the next blog post.

Fixing the Armature

When I blogged last, I had said that the armature had developed a problem.  One of the joints had come undone and the arm was hanging loose.  This was pretty discouraging since most of the armature had been padded already.  Fortunately, most of the work on padding the shoulders had not been completed.   The only correction to the problem was surgery.

I used a utility knife to cut down through what padding was in place to reach the PVC joint that had come loose.  The padding was peeled back from the section so that it could be pushed back down and taped once the repair was made.  The joint was re-glued, then taped with duct tape to make sure it stayed in place.  Once the doll is finished, you will never even know it happened.

 I think the real problem is that the PVC cement/glue whatever it is was old and starting to dry up.  I don't think it was tacky enough to be able to form a bond between the two pieces.  I hate to say it, but I am going to have to open a brand new jar of the stuff in order to get this arm to stay in place.  I did not want to do that because once you open the jar, that is pretty much it.  The glue dries up fast once opened.  Most likely the rest of it will just go to waste.

A lot of progress has been made this week on the doll.  I have finished padding most of the armature.  The initial work has been done on the hands and put on the head (more about that next post).   Imagine my dismay when I walked back into my studio yesterday morning and saw that same arm hanging down again, loose and swinging.  At this point I am guessing that the other end of that same joint has come loose.  More surgery will be required.



I took the doll outside to re-glue the arm.  The glue has a very strong odor and should only be used in a well ventilated area.  One of my big challenges in working on the armature is that it has been cloudy and raining for days.  That day it was cloudy and I thought I could get it glued back together  it rained.  I was wrong.  No sooner than I had the tape on the joint the rain started.  I had to drag it back inside and leave all the doors and windows open to air the place out.

I guess while I am working on the repair I will reconsider the pose of that arm.  Part of the problem may be that the angle of the arm is putting too much stress on the joint.  Sometimes the materials don't want to do what you want them to do.  The arm may be angled differently in future pictures.  When I originally made a sketch for the doll, she was a dancer and the left hand was holding out her skirt.  At this late date, I don't think I am going to finish that doll in time for the competition, so I may be turning her into a Halloween doll.  Who knows, maybe she will be holding a trick or treat bag.

Next blog post I will be showing the head and hands.  The explanation would take too long to do on this post.  There were some comic moments.  Check back next Sunday for those updates.