Galah Baby?

 I've just completed this "galah baby" in recent days - another foray into oil painting heads. Why galah baby? Well, that's not her real name - she doesn't have one yet, but I've always loved galahs for their wonderful colouration and, well, their galahness. So the colour choices I made in the dressing of this new child.........soft greys and muted pinky mauves just reminded me of galahs, hence the "working title".

She's wearing a smocked grey cotton dress and knits from angora yarn that was gifted to me a while back. The doll has a jointed cloth body with a one-of-a-kind head sculpted from air-dry clay. To this I added a cloth covering, treated it with a special sizing mixture and then painted it with oil paints. There is a certain luminosity which comes from oil paint that you simply can't replicate with acrylics. I also like the fact that you can push the paint around for a long time before it dries. This doll also has painted hair.

I stained the muslin body with thinned-down acrylic paint mixed to match the head colour and there is a bit of blushing on the knees, hands and feet. The neck has a flange joint and it is attached to the body in such a way that it has side-to-side movement.

Here are a few details:

Smocked dress front

Crocheted slipper

Wired hand is posable.

Crochet edging on the petticoat

Fuzzy hat detail

And just for fun......here is a galah!