A wrap of of 2017 dolls and stitching and tutor recommendations :-)

Well its 2018 and I am back in the saddle after 2 months of no posts.   But in the interim I have been busy travelling and stitching and doll making.  

In late October 2017 I went to the ContemporaryCraft Retreat at Canberra and did a workshop with Bobbi Oliver – a doll maker from the Central Coast NSW.   I highly recommend her – she is generous in her skill sharing.   After two days I came away with “Mago” – a fixed doll with wired, padded and wrapped armature and sculpted polymer clay head and hands.   I was chuffed.

I also did a class with Lex Sorrentino using Makins Clay.   Lex always  seems to comes up with techniques I want to try.    In Lex's  workshop  we made a  hollow fish form - the wire armature was covered with Makin's and partially covered- a bit zombie like.   

Zombie Fish WIP

November was a busy month.

I made the plunge and exhibited a selection of works at the  Albury Horicultural Show.  And was staggered to be awarded  Best of Show.   I entered a painting, a paverpol Llama, some stitchery and a cloth doll and a small mixed media doll.

I travelled to Swan Hill Vic and lead a Paverpol weekend with 9 ladies at a CWA craft retreat.   We made bandaged birds, a small person form and a larger lady.   It was bags of fun.  They were a great bunch of women to spend a weekend with 😊

Circque de Soliel inspired girl - yet to be named

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Pietro - my medieval inspired boy

At the end of November and early December I had a catch up with some girlfriends at the Gold Coast and we had a crafty few days with doll maker Susie McMahon.   We sculpted faces with Creative Paperclay and after three intense days had completed a cloth doll with a paperclay face mask and sculpted a full head with a shoulder plate. Susie's technique included covering the sculpted face with cloth.  As a textile junkie I really like this look.  Susie was generous in sharing her moulds and I also came home with a baby face mask and a child face mask.    

Lots of learning and lots of fun.  I am in love with the other worldliness of these two dolls and will make more in the format.  Susie will travel to conduct classes and I highly recommend her to you.   

Add to this mix a workshop with textile artist and tutor Sue Senewiratne (and sequin lady extraordinaire) where we sampled and sewed sequins in a Bollywood Bling style.    Sue loaded her car up and travelled 4 hours up the highway from Melbourne to Albury with an amazing selection of sequins, braids and beads.   Her workshop instructions included a number of Indian style motifs.   I was so enthused I did another two motifs and a sampler in the next few weeks.   Sue has a lovey easy teaching style and coped with my dive into the deep end approach!

Two of Sue's examples

My sampler

Last year was a great learning year.  The challenge is to incorporate what I learnt into my projects this year 😊.

Up date on doll making

In November last year I posted that I had become interested in doll making.

Whilst I haven’t written about it since but I have been slowly progressing with my skills.     

I got two craft orientated presents from my better half this last Christmas a: doll pattern by Cindee Moyer and an online course  with art doll maker Deb Wood through A for Artistic (no affiliations).   Deb's course was polymer clay face making over four weeks  I haven’t quite made the soft female faces that Deb makes but my faces have improved leaps and bounds.

Meet Arnold -  not quite the beautiful smiley girl I set out to create.    But he is alive with humour and is patiently waiting for a body.

The next face I made was more like an old crone.  But Deb kindly said she reminded her of one of her fairy godmothers.  I have made a few more and there are more faces in the pipeline..

Cindee's pattern was called "the Gatherer" and involved simple needle sculpting and a a lot of mixed media :-).

In the past I have resisted courses because I didn’t want to duplicate other peoples’ work or replicate their projects.   Silly me!   Very rarely is anything ever exactly the same.   And now I realise that have missed opportunities to learn.   But most importantly I have missed making friendships and connections in the creative community.  

And of course like everything in life, if you want to get better one must practice, practice, practice.  Which is fun, fun, fun when it comes to creating.  

To this end I have been working on a small series of cloth dolls which I have called Garden Girls.   They are simple skittle shape and the  purpose is to practice painting faces  and designs on cloth.  This is Lily who is singing in the garden.

I have heaps of idea to work on  - recorded in my visual diary   The trick is to remember to look through it occasionally :-).

So where am I going next in this doll making adventure ?   I will keep at the faces and bring embroidery back into the bodies or the costumes that I put on them.    I have ideas tucked away in my visual diary for garden girl variations and will remember to look at them.

And I am finalising pieces for a group exhibition with Six Running Feet.   We are five textile artists who have each worked on pieces which reflect what "off the beaten track" means to us.   We have a date next year and I will tell more next week.

Cheers

MORE EYES :-)

A post card -  inspired by a visit to a touring exhibition of embroidered works called the Scottish Diaspora Tapestries.   I was surprised and delighted that this exhibition of some 300 panels was touring the world and stopped off at my regional town :-).   An amazing story of community endevour resulted in works which record the effect of Scottish migration around the globe.

I was intrigued by how the human face was rendered in crewel wool on heavy linen and gave expression and character to the individual faces.    The faces were variously completely stitched or just an outline.   The textures in pieces made me want to reach out and touch.  

Here are a couple of my favs.    You can see them all at the site  which is linked above :-)

dream weaver

Mixed media work started at a work shop with Pamela Priday.

muse

Started a new job in mid jan and it has been full on. Between that and the hot weather i have had little energy and works have been progressing slowly. I started a life drawing class on Monday night and sketch club started again on Tuesday. Sadly didn't get to the latter as a committee meeting ran later than I hoped.

I finished a little play embroidery - canvas work - which arose as i saw a pattern which I thought would do well as water. it came up a treat. I will put photo up once I have found a matt board to suit it.

I have been continuing to play with faces - the photo with this post is one which I have incorporated into a frame using the limited photo program I have. It was fun to play with the program - change the colours of the frame (and the frame) - gave me too many ideas for embroidery. I have a couple of small faces which I have drawn which please me. Might even and try and do an icon like frame with gold work...

Really must stop side tracking myself when I have so little time. Still looking at maps and jumping from one stream of thought to another about what I might do to for an exhibtion late next year. Stitches Plus is exhibiting at the Embroiderers' Guild in August so need to consolidate (and finish) a few pieces. The Guild is holding an exhibition 29 April to 2 May and I am helping with that. I really need to stay a little focused on what I do and not keep extending myself ... but is is all so interesting.

Cheers