Begining Ballerina

 I love my nieces and nephew, if you have read anything that I have written, that is pretty obvious. I mention them all the time, I just think of them so often, and I have loved sharing special moments with them. Many of those moments often involve creative pursuits. I have always drawn and written little things at their request. I have let them explore art by using any of my cached supplies (some still fully useable since I got them in high-school) to encourage their creativity. And I have a lot of trouble saying no to their requests. Enter my youngest sister's little one, who upon learning I was making dolls, asked me "can you make me a ballerina?". Not one to say no, I answered, "of course I can". I had no idea how I would do it, but my challenge was set.

 If you have seen any of my other painted faces, you will know that I have been struggling to find my way to make appealing faces for my dolls using the style of painting I have always used.  Somehow, many of my faces were looking very harsh, almost mean, and I knew I wanted a much more 'sweet' looking face for this ballerina.  I started drawing and painting, and suddenly, there she was. The face above is suitably doll like, the big eyes are exactly what I want, and leaving off eyebrows means that I avoid the mean looking problem.  But something was whispering in the back of my mind, something started to look very familiar about this face, and then I realized what it was. This face, to me, resembles a Blythe Doll.  This is my own style, but it is sort of a morph I think, likely from my general adoration of the Blythe Doll look. Obviously, this is a flat single dimensional painting, and done on flannel to boot, so it is really startling to me that the shading makes me think Blythe.

 I started with this head by backing a large piece of flannel to it, and stitching closely around the edge of my face. I have no idea what I am doing here really. I know it will need hair at some point and I am still exploring how that is going to work, but I left a large folded flap in the back of the head so that I can sort out the hair and stuffing later.

 The face is so sweet for this ballerina, I really love the way it looks, even bald as it is. Below you can see a few images of the back of the head, the folded flap I left until I can sort out how I want to make her hair, and I also did a shot of the open flap so you can see how simple the construction is. This, of course, had to be hand sewn, as I didn't want to even risk an accidental stitch into the face area.

Head done, I now had to imagine how the heck I was going to do a body for this doll. Again, no clue what I am doing as I have never so much as seen a finished art doll up close, and never sewn anything other than my pillow like Stuffies.  I just decided to try a few shapes out. I made a template, and as I was drawing it, I made separate arms and legs almost as a habit. Below you can see my improvised body plan. I realized it would look rather silly to stitch the limbs into the main body, and not very dancer like, so I realized I can attach them with a sort of button joint, even if it is just for looks. I don't really know how button joints work, but I figure there must be some information somewhere online. That would come later.

So I cut out my template pieces, traced them on to white flannel, thinking they were just test pieces anyways, and started to hand sew the pieces with a heavy button thread, just to get an idea of their scale and to see if they would even work together at all.

 First came the torso, and gosh it was almost impossible to turn out after sewing, that is one small neck opening. I may be a total newbie at this, but I usually think ahead better, I managed to get it turned out finally and was really surprised to see that the curve of the waist was really nice, not too sexy, not too boyish, perfect really for a little ballerina. Maybe I can manage this after all.

 After looking at the white flannel blank for the test run, I wasn't sure where to go next. Do I use it as a model form, do I embroider it? I decided to try painting on the flannel, and found that even once it has been sewn, though a little challenging, it still took the paint and some shading nicely. I was quite happy with how it looked. I think painting it after stuffing might work better.

 I decided to work on the legs next, creating the two identical limbs with white flannel, stuffing them with PolyFil, and then painting some little pink ballet slippers onto the "feet". As i mix all my paint colours by hand from a basic set, there is always  little variations in colour from place to place, it's just the way I mix, but somehow it looks right to me. I don't like completely solid blocks of colour, if I wanted that, I could just buy the specific colour in some crafting paint bottle. I like to think of everything as a canvas and approach it like I would a large scale original piece of art, the shading is what gives it depth.

I roughly assembled the pieces into place with some pins, just to see how it might look all together and I have to say, it was love at first sight. Even with no hair, no arms, and no clothing, I am in love with this doll. How will I ever let her go?

 Here is another couple looks at the partially assembled art doll, I can't believe how cute she is. I really love that her legs look so long, and the way they sort of sit on her hips is very charming to me.  I really hope I can sort out the whole "Button Joint" thing, and decide how to go about making hair out of yarn, in order to make her really come to life. For now she is watching over me as I blog, making sure I am always thinking of her.

This doll is taking a lot more time then I imagined to it would, but I suppose that it what makes it special. I am completely hand sewing the pieces, since they are so small and there is little room for error at all. I need to stuff them very densely so that they are easier to paint and hold their shape well. I am experimenting with using both PolyFil fibre stuffing and PolyFil bead stuffing with this doll. I want to give it a little more weigh but also, adding beads to the knee and elbow areas make them just a little more 'pose-able', I think with gentle play they will hold up nicely, and also the doll would be nice to photograph. A dancer must be able to move a little bit after all.

I just started my next step, the arms, which are a little more primitive than I would have liked, but I just don't have the skill or the tools to make tiny little fingers and still be able to turn the doll out and then stuff all those tiny areas. I literally use a set of Mahogany chop sticks that I had in my kitchen to do the stuffing, so it is a very difficult thing to get it all the way down and into the tiny thumb on the arm.  I will leave things here for now, since this has already been a two day process on this doll, I will update her as she begins to come together.  I want to test out some ideas I have for the hair, and also need to figure out how the heck I can make clothing for her. I have never ever sewn anything like clothes at all, so I am completely at a loss when it comes to making a Tutu. Wish me luck.

Making Faces

I have two projects in the works right now. One is a new "Stuffie" for which I actually created "gasp" a drawing and a cardboard template [see, I am learning]. My other project is going to be my first OOAK Art Doll. As a novice doll maker, and seamstress, with no sewing machine, I have to make the entire doll part by part through trial and error. This includes clothing. So it may take some time until I manage it.

I started by cutting a panel of white flannel and tacking it down to a spare bit of cardboard. I drew the face in pencil in my own style, loosely placing all the features, then I went over that in vanishing purple fabric pen.   I pulled out a set of basic acrylic paints and a brush and began to work on the fabric, which is difficult because it is not a flat finish.  I painted the whites of the eyes and the irises first, then added the pupils in black and some white highlights. I developed a myriad palette of flesh tones and began to build on the features. In the first image I was very pleased with the forehead, but the lips and eyes needed work.

I continued to work on the face, actually not able to put it away, and added thin brown lines to highlight features. I had planned on doing eyelashes in pen or paint, but I am rethinking that step. The eyes came out smokier than I had planned, the brows more arched, but otherwise I think it is a good start, considering these are poor quality materials [all my good stuff is with my nephew].  The images are very dark, but the original is quite nice and the shading is complex.  I am planning on using a hand-spun wool roving to make the hair, but the body will be madke from the flannel, which means I will have to paint the hands perhaps.  We shall see.

Meet Beeple

After gathering a few scraps of fabric and some imperfect buttons, I decided to try to make my own "Alien" doll before trying to make one with my little nephew. For the most part, I just wanted to get a few of the dozens of mistakes I will be making out of the way before trying to look like I know what I am doing in front of a 6 year-old. Here is the progression of my little doll, made with no pattern, no instructions, no sewing machine, and a lot of lessons learned. Apologies for the poor photos, I am using my phone to take them.

I started out with a small scrap of  flannel, and  drew a little crooked smile. Pencils marked where the eyes would eventually go. I also used a blue Sharpie and colored the end of a Q-tip blue, then smudged on some blue 'rosy' cheeks. I have some liquid fabric stiffener, so I applied that over the face area with another cotton swab and let that dry. I traced a free-form alien blob on two different scraps of poly-cotton chintz fabric.  I forgot the like sides together rule, and cut around the shape, leaving a small seam allowance, then had to re-work things a bit so that it worked when I realized my 1st mistake.

My drawing only had one arm, not on purpose, I just was thinking of it as a drawing, and would have drawn another in front of the body. I added a second arm drawn on scraps and did the cut out, hand stitch, turn inside-out deal.  I did it with a pencil, forgetting I had a set of chopsticks in the kitchen. No cotton batting or Polyfil sent me off to the powder room to get a bag of 100% cotton swabs, which I pulled apart to make stuffing.

Next brilliant move, I cut a circle out of the front panel of the body and pinned the face piece behind it. I may do it differently next time. I hand stitched, in tiny stitches, all  around the face edge, you can almost see the row of white thread stitches below. I then went back with some matching embroidery floss and tried to do an "X" stitch pattern around both pieces, making it more secure and fray resistant.

Next step, I added two matching irregular buttons to the face where I had marked their placement.  I used the same embroidery floss, which made the eyes really pop.  You can see the face coming together nicely. 

Time for the big "sew". I placed printed sides together again, pinned, and then began the hand stitching around the line of the design. This took hours, particularly as I have some very bad Carpal Tunnel pain in both my hands. I took breaks and wore my wrist braces, but it was a challenge.

 I left a small, actually too small, hole on one side, and then turned the whole doll inside-out. Actually it was right sides out, but that is just going to confuse the matter. I used my chopstick to work on the "horn" and limbs, making sure they were fully turned out. They actually ended up so much smaller than I had anticipated. Lesson learned there.

It was now "stuffing" time. More time spent shredding cotton balls and then working the fluff into all the smallest parts.  This took quite a while, but I could finally see the doll coming into itself.

After fully stuffing the little critter, I started attaching the missing arm into place. I secured  it with tiny hand stitches in white thread first, then added more "X" embroidered stitches for fun.  I really like that the arm worked out to be the opposite pattern front to back. Closing up the last remaining edge and I was almost done.

Meet "Beeple 3", no idea where the heck the name came from, just popped into my head. Fully stuffed the horn curves over the forehead nicely all on it's own. The expression on his little face makes me smile too. This is my first complete "Art Doll" from start to finish with no pattern, plan, or guidance. I just dove in and went for it. I am likely influenced by the many amazing dolls I have come across in Etsy the last few weeks while writing my other blog Foraging For Fab.

When I was all finished, I noticed a tiny fraying hole in the back of Beeple. I decided to stitch, well 'darn' actually, it closed, and it made a great spot to place Beeple's ID tag. I made the tag from more stiffened flannel scrap, and then just wrote on it, punched a hole, and secured it to the back of the doll. I added an embroidery floss "bow" just to make it a little more polished.

I really like how my very first complete doll came out considering the fact that I faced quite a few challenges and forgotten rules. Not sure what I will do with him now, but he is going to go meet my nephew later today.  He measures 7" tall, so he is actually quite small, but since I had stitched the entire project, I think it was the right size to go with. Now I just need to make him some friends.