Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Enjoy these two minutes of amazing art dolls created  by artists world wide in response to the theme LOST ...  (Tip: This looks much better on a full screen if you able to view in this mode .)  

Here is a video of all the dolls in the Art Dolls Only Black and White Challenge... Just press on the image above to begin - only 2 and a half minutes of fantastic dolls!  And here also are some images of the doll I submitted for the challenge. It has been created from fabric which was made by putting black and white cotton scraps  side by side and stitching over them in different directions with different stitches on my sewing machine. The face is stitched free hand on the sewing machine.  To do this, lower the feed dogs on your machine, put your fabric tightly  in a hoop ( optional, but safe) and "draw" with your needle by moving the fabric in the hoop as you stitch. If you are a beginner, you might like to put some coloured pencil marks down to guide you, but I find by doing it freely, the faces are never the same and although they are not symmetrical, they do have some expression. 

My little doll has arrived home. Thank you Ayala Art and Lulus Apples for working on her. A vision of colour and flowers - did we name her? What about 'Marigold ' ? This is how I sent her off to California... Then Lulu worked on her ...for the full story - look here And then off to another part of California to Martha . The details of her adventures with Martha  and other traveling art dolls are documented here . Just as reminder - here are the two dolls I worked on  - Lulu , Martha and I were the Tiny Team!  The Traveling Art Doll was an Art Dolls Only   Members' event. However, each month, there is an open challenge   and all doll makers worldwide are encouraged to enter. Thanks again to the talented members of the team - your work is much appreciated!

This week, when I was trying to think of what to create for this month’s Art Dolls Only Challenge – Animal Totems. I first thought of my owl woman doll, who now lives with my sister in her owl collection. However, with the news of the devastating floods in Queensland, and now in Victoria and NSW in my thoughts, I couldn’t get the image of green frogs and the Aboriginal story of Tiddalik out of my mind. The tale of "Tiddalik the Frog" is a legend from the Dreamtime mythology of the Indigenous Australians. In the legend, Tiddalik awoke one morning with an unquenchable thirst, and began to drink until all the fresh water was greedily consumed. Creatures and plant life everywhere began to die due to lack of moisture. Other animals conspired against Tiddalik, and devised a plan for him to release all of the water he had consumed. This was successfully coordinated by a wise old Wombat, when Nabunum the eel made Tiddalik laugh when he tied himself in comical shapes. As Tiddalik lau...