Another Wise Woman

This last weekend was the annual exhibition of one of my dollmakers' groups, Hello Dollies. While I was "minding" the exhibition, I finished the doll pictured above. She is another version of my WOW (Woman of Wisdom) pattern. The body of the doll is embellished crazy patchwork and her costume includes hand dyed laces,brocade and silk. This doll has been named AGB because the type of embellishment is very much in the Anne's Glory Box embellishment class style. AGB is a stump doll  - a cloth doll with a "stump" as a body.

 

The Challenge for the exhibition was another stump doll - Oriental Dance by a fellow Hunter Valley dollmaker, Ann Maullin. I made mine as a Chinese Court concubine of earlier times. Her head was sewn from cloth, needle sculpted and then painted with gesso ( I think I did about 15 coats). After each coat of gesso, I sanded it with a fine sand paper. The last few coats were painted with gesso coloured with skintone acrylic paint and a flow medium. I chose the Chinese red coloured brocade and gold embroidered dragon panel to indicate her "regal" status.Someone said this doll looked as though she had a rather concerned, anxious look on her face. I jokingly said, that as a concubine, she was wondering whether this was her night! What made me happy about this doll, and the WOW was that I didn't buy anything new for these dolls - I just used fabrics and trims I found in my stash!

This other regal looking doll (below), which I called Empress Wu, was the winner of the competition. She was created by my friend, Fay B, from Sydney Hello Dollies group. If you want to see the other 15 beautiful dolls entered in this competition, just click Hello Dollies blog