Progress!

I've been working away at my special project, apart from a couple of trips to Hobart and a week away at music camp (which was awesome.......and I started learning the viola) Progress has been slow but steady because with the good weather we've been having, I'm spending more time in the garden, which is producing wonderfully at the moment. I'm also dealing with gluts as they occur.

Oh yes - I now also have a puppy - a beautiful kelpie girl called Maisie. She's a treasure, but what a time-waster!

So, back to the project: I've drafted a body pattern and made up the parts and tried everything together for size. So far so good. Of course, I had to make the legs and feet the right size to fit those beautiful little boots, while allowing a bit of room for the stockings I'm planning to knit. 

I underpainted the head with burnt umber acrylic paint, prior to the first layers of oil paint. Oil painting takes time and the way I do it, I like to work in multiple thin layers, with drying time in between. I'm reasonable happy with the head as it is, but I will probably add more to it as I look at it and think about what needs doing. Next step will be to assemble the doll and finish the lower limbs with size and paint. I will then be ready to give some serious thought to the clothing.

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!