What a doll

For years now, I've been fascinated by art dolls. Until recently, that fascination has been something which I've suppressed. I don't really sew, and somehow I felt like I would need to make the entire doll out of clay if I were going to use my chosen medium. Several months ago I decided to try my hand at making faces for beaded art dolls. My motivation, i'm afraid, was purely commercial. A local arts venue was having beaded sprit doll workshops and the owner mentioned, in passing, that she hadn't been able to find a lot of faces that she liked... Before I knew it, I was obsessed.

After making my first batch of faces, but before firing them, I decided to join a beaded art doll list on yahoo. Many of the members of the list expressed the same frustration with trying to find faces for their dolls. I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I was onto something. At about the same time, I began work on my very first beaded doll.

Yesterday i went to a meeting of the Columbus, OH Guilded Lillies art doll guild. All-in-all, I had a good time. I learned quite a bit, got to see what quite a few different people were working on and really met some great people. There were some akward moments. Since Mica is still nursing, I have to bring her with me wherever I go. It turns out that these meetings generally prohibit attendance with children and there were at least a couple people who were frustrated by her presence... I was not aware of the prohibition or I would not have attended.

I came home with some ideas for dolls that I want to work on. I'm currently thinking of making a felt body with some needle felted detailing in addition to the beading, and twistie beads for arms and legs. I'm not sure when I'll get them done, but I'm looking forward to at least getting some sketches worked out.

Today was spent mostly in bed with a sinus headache. The weather has been changing and that always seems to give me trouble. I'm hoping to get back into the studio tomorrow evening.

Filed in: Art_Dolls Faces WAHM Felting