Aroha - an Artdoll

Meet Aroha

She really evolved while I was working on her, she started as a calico doll bodice on wire legs on a block of mdf.I added some clay and she got her striped tights, oh btw she has perky little boobies and a heart ♥

Then when she needed clothes, this cloak sort of happened, so I finished her of as a little tribal Maori-like doll. I have a little sweet spot for her...named her Aroha, which means "Love", 'cause she just LOVEs those tights, hehe ;)

Kidnap

I will never really understand people..... This art healing doll I made and called "Hurt" carries a bit of my soul obviously. Yes, I would have sold him, but instead he's been taken and that doesn't feel right. I hope he'll get wrapped up nicely and put under a Xmas tree somewhere, to help someone else get a bit of healing. Still.....I never got to hand him over and give his little "birth" story to the new owner ....

Old Bird

  

Here is an "old bird" I made a few weeks ago, but I never did anything with her photos yet. And since I am EMPTY !!!! and frustrated I thought to share her with you today. After two weeks of busy kids art classes during the sachool holidays I got drained of energy and did not get much creating time myself, then yesterday I thought, yeah ! just me in my studio.....I'll go and make something nice today, and guess what ? I messed up again and again and nothing looked good and I threw everything I sketched in the bin and scraped off all the encaustics I attempted and now I feel lost

Irie Hart

 My second table leg doll, started off a little different, had a little mishap on the way and then this little deer just "wandered over" from the bush behind my studio :) Don't you just love his colourful dreads ? 

I call him Irie Hart - Irie, the Jamaican Patois word for excellent, feeling great  and Hart, because with his proud antlers, he looks like a young male to me, oh and did I tell you he sings ?

 

New Cloth ♥ Art Dolls

Here are a couple of the cloth art dolls I made recently.

They are such fun to make !

Introducing the little Delft-blue: 

"Dutchie"

and 

"Hurt" 

{a healing doll}

- Dutchie is already spoken for, Hurt is in my Etsy shop-

Frida little-art-doll

She stands about 12 cm tall and is a clay doll on a wooden dowel or phinneal ?

Choir Boy

 

So, just real quick, okay, because I should be doing a lot of other things in preparation for tomorrow, but I just HAD to share with you all my latest art doll !  I call him Choir Boy. I don't have this feeling often that I really REALLY love something I have just created, but this one.... I don't even know if I want to hang a pricetag on him tomorrow.......

{♫♫♪♫ can you hear his falsetto ? ♪♫♪}

 

Some good ol' legs

Finished FAirY

Rather fitting as my own knee locked up a few times again and doesn't feel so good {softly said} at the moment. Nothing a bit of Counterpain cream and knee band cannot fix - hopefully, it's an old injury come-back :( - Well nevermind this, the good message I want to share is: a little while ago I thrifted 4 beaut old tablelegs 
aren't they just delish ?

the leGs !

  Anyway, I have started to turn them into dolls :) ONE is finished so far, a Cloth +Clay Gritty kind of TabLeleG-FloweR-fAirY, Another one's head is waiting to dry and 2 others are in the earlier wip stages. They are fun to make, take more time than I thought {but what art/craft doesn't ?} but all worth it in the end for me :)

have a look and if you feel like it, make one too !!!

 

head and petals on

first paint stage

aging

Kakariki

Kakariki means "green" in te reo Māori and since I live here and this little doll is mainly green, nature like and earthy, I thought about naming her Jade or something like that, but Kakariki sounds so much more like her with her long curly lock on her left shoulder and her (allthough they are vague) curly fern-tip like details here and there. So here she is, I like her to bits ♥ she is in my shop if you love her too

Gone soft for dolls ♥

 

 This is kind of a long post with lots of pictures (I like pictures) and links about kind of smallish creatures...... ;)

I want to share this other soft spot of mine, my other desire, a possible challenge ? something I really want to give a serious go a little more at some stage. I started the odd project over the years and some of those are still waiting patiently (as if they have a choice ? - see pics of them below-) to be finished .... if I ever will, because by the time I make some time for them I have other ideas about them already. Now, with having the school holiday kids program in my Art studio for the last 2 weeks, I had been looking for something "simple" to do myself and I made up some super simple calico shapes and stuffed them and started painting little faces. The first two born the other day, I gave wings and they became little angels

 

(a little like my Matryoshka dolls I did a few years ago)

  

the last one is a free little spirit and I really dig her!

 

But seriously, I have been admiring very special dolls for quite a while now. I would love to make some of these really really GR8 and amazingly beautiful dolls. I am in love with the out-of-this-world-oh-so-super-gorgeousilistic dolls by Nefer Kane  

and the tender, fine faces by Paulette Goodreau

   

 but also the grungier folky-arty cloth dolls by some dollmakers like Gritty Jane, and the Steampunky ones by Paula Nerhus and there are so many more. 

Tim Burton - dollmaker extraordinaire

  Of course I understand that it takes time and practise and YEARS of improvement, just like painting and sketching and everything else for that matter.  So .... one day .... I guess when my days have 48 hours and my weeks have 21 days and I will be immortal hehe......but before all that, I WILL make some more "simple" dolls for sure

♥

cloth doll wip 1

same doll wip 2

face start

face done ?

not happy with the nose, but ah well

want to finish her regardless

see where she ended up, stuck in a pot with legs up and all ?

this one is even an earlier one, kinda creepy actually....

♥