Tag Archives: nursery rhymes

The Girl With The Curl

Art Doll Leads The Way

Last week I wrote about working on art doll sculptures that were somehow related to earlier works.  I was working on one of those pieces, and she too led me to an interesting place by the time she was complete.  She even told me what her name should be.

I had been thinking about one of my own favorites among my art doll sculptures, Wednesday’s Child.  She is the piece that I use as my profile picture on my Lynn Wartski Sculptures Facebook page. I like this particular art doll because of the amount of expression and gesture I was able to capture in her copper features.  She is relatively simple in comparison to many of my figure sculptures.  Just a seated figure clad in black, but her posture and face tell you all you need to know about her mood.

Looking Back and Ahead

Wednesday went to a good home quite a while ago. I wanted her reprise to have a very different look, but capture the same feel.  I started with the same girl dressed at the turn of the 20th century look, but this time in all light hues.

seated art doll figure sculpture titled Girl with the Curl

Girl with the Curl

Where Wednesday’s Child had a very simple dress of black lace gathered at the neck, I chose to create a separate skirt and top with lace hems and cuffs this time.  Her clothes being much more complex lends that “poor little rich girl” feel to Curl.

My Name Is…

I must admit that I had a working title something more like The Second Wednesday for this art doll.  Her title screamed itself out the minute I decided to wig her with some of the natural wool I received from one of our other very talented Hillsborough Gallery of Arts artists, Susan Hope. I was going for sort of a “strawberry blonde” in the food coloring dye job I was doing. I put one single drop of red in with the twenty or so yellow I added, but bright orange it is.  I decided to go with it, and the wonderful natural curl of the wool.  I just couldn’t help myself in adding the accent curl that dips down into her forehead.  So, The Girl With The Curl (in the middle of her forehead) she is.

 

Themes and Challenges

I would guess that most often artists find themselves creating from their own ideas, or perhaps those of a patron for a commission.  Occasionally we do create for an upcoming show’s predetermined theme.  For these shows serendipity can sometimes play a role, and when a “call-to-artists” is read there is already something completed and on hand that is just right. Other times you have to sit down with the sketchbook and think of something that perhaps you wouldn’t have.

In general, I like creating for these shows, and the way they force you to stretch creatively.  That is not to say that some do not drive me to distraction.  About a month ago I worked on one such piece.  I’ll share that one in a couple of weeks when the show goes up in the gallery.

Below is my newest art doll “Wednesday’s Child.”  She was created in answer to a monthly challenge that is posted by an art doll group that I belong to.  I hadn’t created any dolls to date that were based on nursery rhymes, though it does seem a natural area for fodder given the medium.  Gesture in these small figures is always a focus for me.  I think her body language says woe, but hopefully she’s thinking of ways to make things better.

Wednesday's Child

Wednesday’s Child