Category Archives: Art Dolls

Featured Artist and Art Dolls

Up Close

Up Close, is the title of my featured artist show with painter Linda Carmel and textile artist Alice Levinson.  The show will open later this month at The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts.  The art doll sculptures that I have been sharing in my most recent posts will be included in this new show. Up Close runs June 26th through July 23rd, with an opening reception on June 30th from 6-9pm during Hillsborough’s “Last Friday” art walk event.

I admit that I tend to horde my newest pieces as I approach each year’s featured show. Several new figures are in the studio awaiting installation the last week of June.  I took the opportunity to photograph a few more this week.

Walden Nap

I quite literally (or is that literature-ly?) pulled this art doll from the pages of Thoreau’s writings.  My serenely napping figure is sculpted out of paperclay and papier-mâché.  I photocopied pages containing favorite passages for the surfaces of the sculpture and the art doll’s hair.

sleeping art doll figure sculpture, paperclay and papier-mâché

Walden Nap

Spinning or Weaving?

This magical art doll figure is creating some type of magic from the fibers in her hands.  This figure sculpture is unnamed at the moment.  Something along the lines of Dream Weaver seems a bit too easy.  Her hands and face are sculpted from paperclay.  The body is a padded wire armature with clothing sewn in place.  I played a bit with needle felting some wool fiber to create her rising magic over a wire frame.  Her “dreadlocks” are made from a thick blanket yarn.

seated art doll figure sculpture, paperclay, fabric, wire, wool

untitled

Sketch

I shared a “selfie” of Sketch in my last post.  Here you see the completed art doll.  I have several past reading and writing figures in my portfolio, but I think this is the first that is specifically drawing in her sketch book.

seated art doll figure sculpture, paperclay, fabric, and wire

Sketch

These art dolls and a few others will be in the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts starting June 26th.

 

"Blank Pages" seated art doll

Art Doll Selfies

Material Shift

I noticed myself incorporating more and more paperclay into my art doll figures. This shift in medium has been gradual.  I think that it has been influenced by two main factors.  I’ve increasingly given myself permission to edge away from my copper sculpture roots, and I don’t feel as obligated to have metal present in every piece.  Figures with hand wrought copper faces were the launching point for my art dolls, but I have allowed them to grow and evolve as all my work has over time.  My work has become almost exclusively figurative, I want to explore and refine the elements of that type of sculpture.  Working with paperclay facilitates my ability to develop facial expression beyond the more mask-like visages of my earliest dolls.

Art Doll Selfies

I decided to take some “selfies” of the pieces that were sitting around the studio this morning.  As you can see, all three of these art doll sculptures have faces that I sculpted in paperclay.

"Blank Pages" seated art doll

Blank Pages

Blank Pages is a seated figure contemplating the pages of the journal/sketchbook in her hand.  “Pages” has her pencil in hand, and is captured in that moment before free reign is given to creativity.  She does have several predecessors in my gallery archives. There is a portrait piece and a couple of commissions within that number.  This is obviously a theme I enjoy returning to.

face of commission piece

commission face

This second doll selfie is the face of a recent commission piece.  As she will soon be a gift, I can’t divulge any details about who she is, or what she is doing.  I can tell you that her task involves deep thought and concentration.  She certainly looks focused on what she’s doing.

face of Balloon 2 art doll

Balloon 2 selfie

This last shot is a closer look at last week’s Balloon 2.  I was trying to capture surprise and wonder in her expression.  I  concentrated on providing her with a face with more childlike proportions

 

You can see how the choice of media has allowed me to expand what I can incorporate and capture in the faces of my art dolls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

art doll Balloon 2

Balloon Surprise

A New Balloon

My newest art doll sculpture features a young figure looking up with awe at her bright red balloon.

art doll Balloon 2

Balloon2

This mixed media art doll is a bit of fun, and another look back to an earlier piece. I wanted to feature gesture and expression with this figure sculpture.  Guess I hit the mark, as one viewer commented that she “really looked alive”.

I created Balloon 2’s head and hands from paperclay that is lightly tinted with watercolor paint. Her costume is sewn in place over a padded wire frame that is anchored through her shoes to her base.  I chose to wig this art doll with paper fiber as well.  Her curly pigtails are secured with blue ribbons that match her blue top and polka dotted skirt. Balloon’s boots are hand sewn faux leather with purple chord laces.

Looking up again

My first balloon themed art doll figure was apparently being taken away by the balloon she was holding.  This figure is being transported as well, but in a more figurative sense.  I’m not sure what about her balloon is surprising her so.  I guess that part of the story is up to the viewer.

I crafted the red balloon itself out of traditional papier-mâché, and used red tissue for its top layers to achieve its bright color.  The balloon “floats” atop a string made of cotton string wrapped around a steel core.

I have left the base unfinished for the time being, but I think that I will most likely paint it before she takes a trip to the gallery.  Balloon 2 will also make her official debut in June for my yearly Feature Artist show at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts.

I will probably not have a new sculpture to share next week. I am just putting the finishing touches on a commission piece, and she needs to go to her home first.

 

close up of facial features of Pinocchio art doll

Pinocchio Inspired Art Doll Becomes Real

It’s Story Time

It is once again time at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts when we to turn to things literary.  Each February, we team up with one of the many well known authors who call Hillsborough home for a show titled “It’s All About The Story.”  This year is “Volume V, John Claude Bemis.”

John is an award winning Young Adult author.  This is the first time we are working with a YA author, and the first time that all the HGA artists are using the same story.  Our previous four shows have drawn from short story collections by Michael Malone, Jill McCorkle, Lee Smith, and Allan Gurganus.

pinocchio's heart

pinocchio’s heart

Retelling Pinocchio’s Tale

 Out of Abaton: The Wooden Prince, is John’s retelling of the Pinocchio tale set in medieval Venice.  As you can imagine, a magical story with fantastic beasts, fairies, and the like would be right in a doll artist’s wheel house.  After much personal debate, and quite a few unfinished sketches, I settled on the main character.

close up of facial features of Pinocchio art doll

detail Pinocchio’s face

Pinocchio is not a simple puppet this time around.  He is a finely crafted automaton servant boy who is automated, like all of of his kind, by magic from the kingdom of Abaton.  His automation is slightly special and he is slowly becoming real as a result.

detail of panocha's torso

torso detail

I decided to depict my Pinocchio before his transformation starts.  I am working with the title , “Servant Before You Are Real”, and decided to create him mostly of wood like his namesake. The photos throughout the blog post are Work-In-Progress pics.  I will share a finished image when the show is installed in a couple of weeks.

image of panocha's heart door closed

heart door closed

As usual, this show will open the “Last Friday” of the month on February 23rd from 6-9pm.  HGA will also host a reading by the author on Sunday, March 5 from 4-6 pm.

 

 

Questions for Alice

A New “Alice” Art Doll

Chilly winter weather can sometimes serve to inspire new works.  I created a piece titled “Snow Day” on a snowy day when I wanted to use mostly materials from my indoor workspace. My latest, “Questioning Alice”, isn’t directly the result of cold weather nudging me indoors, however I was inspired by the idea of curling up with a good book on a cold day.

Full length view of Questioning Alice art doll

Questioning Alice

I created an earlier art doll sculpture titled “Paper Alice” a couple of years ago. Though not completely a paper creation, I incorporated elements pulled from Adventures in Wonderland in her design. This time I wanted to work as much with paper and paperclay as possible.  I’ve found myself enchanted by altered book sculptures, and wanted to create an art doll that had that feel to it.

Questioning Alice

Anyone who has read the tales of Alice’s adventures may have noticed that the stories contain a lot of inquiries and decisions to be made. Playing with that concept, I created this art doll sculpture.

I created my Alice primarily of paper mâché, paperclay, and tissue paper decoupage.  I sculpted the main figure over a wire armature.  The mushroom I formed over heavy cardboard rolls, and a corrugated support under the top. Alice’s clothes I created through tissue paper layering and tissue paper decoupage.  I added printed images of the classic Sir John Tenniel illustrations within the skirt’s top layers.  Text from the tales “tattoo” her paperclay sculpted face.  Questions asked to and by Alice were fit to spiral paths and then printed on to orange tissue paper. Layered within more orange tissue these form the mushrooms “questioning spots”.

Detail of Questioning Alice art doll

Alice detail

This Alice will be showing up at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts the last week of January for, “Now and Again”, the Gallery’s 10th anniversary celebration show.  The show will celebrate the milestone and will include HGA’s current and former members.

 

 

Art, Holidays, and Updating

Hello, It’s Been A While

Well, I’ve certainly taken my sweet time in putting up a new post.  I started the draft of this post a while back, and had to edit out the items that had already passed. I began that draft by thanking those that turned out for my feature show at the end of September.  Seems in the interim, the holidays snuck up, and are here in full force.  Below is the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts‘ post card for this holiday season.  As you can see, it features my art doll sculpture “Glide”, and her shiny copper skates.  There are a lot of wonderful things by all of the talented HGA artist in the gallery right now.  If you are in the area, you should really check it out.

Postcard for HGA 2016 holiday show

Postcard for HGA 2016 holiday show

I have been busy the last couple of months refreshing my jewelry inventory, completing a commission, making holiday items, and working on background administration for our yearly juried show Resolutions 2017.

A New Art Doll Figure

art doll Juggle

Juggle

I created an updated version of an earlier art doll,  Jester.  I decided to go with the greater flexibility of paperclay for this sculpture’s head and hands. I wanted to push the expression in the face of this piece, and go a bit beyond a simple smile. He wears a wry smirk instead.  This Juggler seems to know something you do not, and will no doubt, only communicate it to you in the form of a riddle.

Back To Work

This time of year I seem to spend most of my time on the small holiday items.  I promise to not take so long to share new work with you next time. I have two special sculptures for the gallery shows in January and February.  I like where they are leading me.  In both cases, it seems to be into uncharted waters design wise.  I’ll give you a peek next time around.  For now I’ll leave you with an ornament card panel in progress, and a few of my  ornaments.

ornament card copper panel work-in-progress

panel for ornament card

copper holiday ornaments

a collection of hand wrought ornaments for the gallery

 

 

 

Art doll, "Sunshine on a Rainy Day"

Rain, Secrets and Art Dolls

I know it has been more than the promised “couple of days” since my last art doll in progress post.  I do however have two finished sculptures to share with you, so hopefully that can make up for the delay.

Art Doll Secrets Revealed?

My secret keeper review now has her complete costume and coiffure.

Art Doll, Secrets Kept

Secrets Kept

She appears to me to be a wise keeper who will not be sharing the confidences you relay to her. I’m not sure exactly what magic is contained in the blue gem she holds, but I can only guess that it is quite potent and effective.

This art doll figure has a half mask of hammered copper over a paperclay sculpted face and torch fired enamel eyes.  Her snowy curls are made of natural wool fibers.  Secret’s rich fabric clothes are sewn in place over a padded wire frame.

A Little Sunshine

My newest completed art doll figure sculpture is “Sunshine on a Rainy Day”

Art doll, "Sunshine on a Rainy Day"

Sunshine on a Rainy Day

This sculpture is also a look back at an earlier piece I titled “Spring”.  In my constant striving to introduce increased gesture, expression, and narrative into my work, “Sunshine on a Rainy Day” shows that she isn’t deterred by a little bit of rain.  Her umbrella bearing predecessor merely posed quietly showing off green boots and a parasol that matched her dress.  “Sunshine on a Rainy Day” in contrast seems to be enjoying her walk in the rain.  This art doll is costumed in yellows and greens highlighted by a pair of bright yellow boots. The umbrella she is holding aloft is made of copper tooling foil.  Sunshine has paperclay sculpted head and hands, and her eyes are made from dark iridescent glass beads that seem to glow on their own.

Art Dolls in Art Show.

Both of these new art doll sculptures will be part of my upcoming featured artist show at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts later this month.  I will share more details on the show and the opening reception as we get closer to installation

 

Work Back in Progress

I have been away from the studio for a couple of weeks traveling, so I do not have a new completed art doll to share with you.  However, I did have one figure waiting patiently on the work table for my return for completion.  I’m not completely set on a title just yet, but she is a new take off on an earlier art doll sculpture titled “Secret Keeper”.

Unlike her predecessor, who was costumed in sort of an “Earth Mother” type style, this doll is covered in rich fabrics in an ornate style. Perhaps she has more valuable secrets she is guarding.

work in progress image of Secret art doll

Work-in-progress of Secret

At the moment, she looks a bit alien without her hair. I will be sure to share some new images when she is complete in a couple of days.

More Work in Progress

Perhaps a few days late, but as promised, here is a completed image of the Lacing III art doll that I showed in progress last week.

Lacing 3 art doll

Lacing III

I’m not sure that the title will stay exactly the same. This art doll will most likely remain in the studio as part of inventory build up for my gallery show in September.  Available sculpture in the gallery will have a part to play in that decision making process.  The piece I shared two weeks ago, Cello, will definitely wait until that show, as I chose her image as my early publicity piece for that show.

Lacing III is similar to Cello in scale as well. I have been increasing the size of my art dolls slightly.  I find that it is easier to focus more on details of the figure’s features with a bit more room to work with.  Taking a step back however, I notice that I have increased the head and face much more than the proportions of the rest of the body.  This does give an interesting stylistic look, but I’m not sure I’m quite where I want to be.  I spent quite a bit of time soft sculpting Lacing III’s body, but she still looks thinner than I want her to be, and her hands and feet need to be increased as well.  I’m obviously not going for any form of hyper realistic rendering with these figures, but I want to avoid them falling into the realm of caricature.

I guess the next art doll sculpture will offer ample opportunity to address those design challenges.  Each work teaches me something new for its successor.  It is interesting to go back and look at the evolution.  This not only illustrates change, but highlights some interesting past design choices that I may have forgotten.  I just had such an opportunity prior to starting to write this post.  I was adding images to the gallery available for insertion into my posts, and updating the Art Dolls page of this site.  If you have not visited that page. I have most of the art doll figures I have made in the gallery there with prices listed for those that are still available for purchase.  I try my best to keep all those available toward the beginning so that you do not have to scroll through them all unless you want to.

I’m off to put in an order for the Professional Doll Makers Art Guild coffee table book.  It is only available to members at this time, but I will share a link in the future if you are interested.  In the mean time, the link above will take you to my page on their web site.

Another Art Doll in Progress

Art Doll Work in Progress

Had a busy couple of weeks outside of the studio, and I don’t quite have a finished art doll to share with you today.  So, I thought that instead I’d show you my current work in progress.  Like the piece from my last post, Chello, this one is with inspired by earlier art doll sculptures, and is on the slightly larger scale that I I want to shift my figures to.

Lacing III

This current art doll figure sculpture is a third seated dancer figure who will be lacing up her toe shoes.  I like to pour over internet images when in the thinking phase for a new piece.  Degas’s dancers offer up a wealth of visual inspiration.  I find myself drawn most to his behind the scenes pieces. Images of dancers stretching at the bar, engaged in conversation, and of course putting on their shoes, catch my eye.  Those images make me imagine more of a story to go along with them, than a grand leap captured during the performance of someone else’s storytelling.

Paperclay elements and wire armature of art doll work in progress

Paperclay elements and wire armature of Lacing III

Lacing III will be seated pulling across the ribbons of one of her shoes.  Her eyes will be slightly down cast focusing on her task, and will draw the viewer down closer to see her fully. In the photo above you see her paperclay head and hands on her body’d wire armature.  Her final position will be set after I have her all together to balance the gesture I want to achieve with the stability of her seated posture.

Refine and Reshape

detail of paperclay hands. 2nd clay layer drying for sanding and shaping

detail of 2nd layer of paperclay hands drying

I chose paperclay for this art doll’s hands.  This choice will allow me to have greater control and detail since the eye will be drawn to what the figure sculpture happens to be doing. This image was snapped after my second layer of clay was added to the wire and floral tape hand armature.  Additional shaping and sanding will refine their shape a bit more.

One of the advantages of creating my art doll figures the way that I do, is that I can tweak and change things as I work.  The sculptor that carves or chisels is confined by earlier choices and decisions.  My figures are even more forgiving than those sculpted fully in clay, because I leave so much of the sculpture able to be repositioned.

close up of art doll with face plate to guage eye placement

need to shift eyes a bit

Even though my Lacing III art doll will have her eyes looking down at her shoe, I see from a quick test fitting with her copper face plate, that I will have to reposition her eyes just a bit.  she looks just a bit suspicious of her doll artist sculptor at the moment.

With any luck, Lacing II will be complete and ready to meet you in my next post.