Art Doll: Nest Eggs

During the Easter weekend, I have been doing some" catch up" work, completing some orders and finishing a little art doll I started a week ago as well as eating a chocolate Easter egg or two and going out to dinner and movies with friends - perfect weekend! Here is my little Forest Friend, rescuing a nest of eggs at Easter... and here are the basic steps:
1. Have a good friend to inspire, motivate and help...

Bobbi (Lambo Art) explaining anatomy and armature

2. Make an armature from wire and check the proportions against an anatomy chart.

Wire armature, secured with insulation tape.

3. Flesh out the armature by covering with lots of aluminium foil.

Armature covered with foil

4. Make foil bases/ armatures for head, hands and feet

Foil armatures

5. Cover and sculpt with polymer clay. I used Sculpey" Living Doll" and I made two pairs of hands because the first lot looked like lobster claws! Cure in an oven at 130 degrees C for 30 -40 minutes.

Sculpted pieces ready for the oven.

6. Colour the pieces. I used acrylic paints, powdered pastels and chalks and wax rubs. I also sanded the face a little to smooth out a few wrinkles I didn't want - I did leave a few.

Head : first colouring.

7. Put the body together. The hands and feet and head fit onto the wire armature. I also added and stitched a thin layer of batting to the foil armature, and then another stretch layer of underwear ( like a skin) - I used a sock.

Work in progress ; layer of batting, and"underwear".

8. Now that the doll's personality is beginning to make itself clear, add some clothing. I intended this doll to be a Russian woman like a babushka, but he wanted to be a little forest friend, a bird lover and protector. All the clothes are recycled from old bits and pieces, discarded jumpers and scraps of fabric.

Clothes from re-purposed jumpers and fabric scraps.

9. Make accessories. In this case, this forest friend has rescued a birds' nest , so I made a nest from painted and textured wire and some birds' eggs from polymer clay (a mixture of translucent, turquoise, and pearl white Premo Sculpey) .

Nest and eggs

10, Straighten out the wire limbs and pose the doll to stand up on its own.

Whatever your beliefs are, I hope your Easter weekend was filled with peace, love, laughter and creativity.

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Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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