Skip to main content

Divas? Goddesses? Sages?

This week, I finally put the finishing stitches to these little dolls which have been on my work table for some time. You will see that for most of them I used fabric with a horse motif. These were all meant to be ready  for the beginning of the Chinese New Year  "Year of the Horse"  ...
Here is the basic process I've used for making these  ....
1. Draw a basic shape,
 2. Use it as a template 
 3. Sew around the outside of the template with the right sides of fabric together
 4. Cut from the doubled fabric, leaving a small seam. 
5. Turn right side out ( turning tubes are useful) 
6. Cut a small slit where the polymer clay face mask will cover.
7. Stuff polyfill through the opening to fill the shape firmly.
8. Stitch up the opening 
9. Embroider a  free form design and add beads. 

10. Make a small face mask from polymer clay.
( You can use a commercial mould as I did or sculpt your own.) 

11. Stitch and/or glue the polymer clay face mask over the opening.
12. Embroider or bead around the face.
14. Use braids, ribbons or trims to create these dolls. 
Do you think these are divas? goddesses? or sages? Or do you have another suggestion?
Labels:

Comments

  1. Shashi NayagamMarch 4, 2014 at 6:20 PM

    They are beautiful

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMarch 20, 2018 at 12:57 PM

    they are gorgeous! I am going to make one as a pin for my coat.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

29 Faces

"29 Faces " is an online art challenge - blog and Facebook . The challenge is to create a face each day of September ( with one day for catch up) .... I decided to take up the challenge to practise drawing faces for my dolls and to practise techniques with coloured pencils.  I received a set of 60 pencils  from my daughter last Christmas so I wanted to be sure I used them before next Christmas! I love making tags so I combined tag making with "29 Faces", so I will also have some unique Christmas gift tags for gift giving  this year. Here are the first 9 faces for the first 9 days of September 
13 comments
Read more

Covid Man and Book Print

  This is my tag for the current theme at Tag Tuesday - Book Print. I like using text as a background for tags and today, I reduced one of my recent  line drawings and printed it on a small book page .... as you can see,  the book's chapter is entitled "Of Holy Living and Dying ( from The Book of Books) .  I thought this was appropriate as this 'Covid man' drawing depicts Nature happily thriving while man appears to be "unravelling " at the edges of body and mind...  Original drawing - Wilma Simmons   Silk screen print on fabric  : Wilma Simmons  Silk screen print on paper : Wilma Simmons  And here are some other tags on book print backgrounds - these are free motion stitched "Nature" portraits done earlier in the year.  
13 comments
Read more

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks ....  The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and  message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or  my husband or from off cuts gifted to us  from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks.   Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt  or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...
3 comments
Read more