FINISHED her dress, blommers and bonnet.

I finally got her dressed.Why is it the dolls always take the back seat to other things in my life?

Maleah Jokella ,(means pretty jewel) is her name.
Her shawl is a vintage collar.Her bonnet and bloomers are homespun fabric.Her dress is reproduction civil war fabric.She is about 20 inches tall and oil painted. She is made from my own pattern.She is for sale.$500.00 plus shipping.

I knew if I did not get her done soon it would be summer before I got back to her.

 The gardens call, to me, when spring comes along. The problem is spring is here for one day then is gone again and it is back to cold weather. Gave me a day to sew.

We have a frost warning again tonight. I had hoped the tulips would not get frozen off this year. I will cover them tonight the buds are just ready to burst open.
I will try to do better with posting.
Any one working on a classic cloth doll?
hope you all have a safe storm free weekend.j

Painting

Monica Johansson sent a comment to the last post.
Hi Monica,
All I can say about painting is just practice. If you can take classes do so. It is what got me started.
Really look at what you are painting. Don't be afraid to experiment.
I found that a tiny dot of paint can be moved  with a shader brush to give detail.
Look at the nose. There is more to the nostril than a line.
There is a hole that needs defining with a darker color. The shape is like a comma. The  nose has 2 defining lines on the outside but also on the top there are soft lines defining shape and detail..
For me I could see the detail but did not know how to achieve it. Messing with the paints and practice helped.
I still have a long way to go but I keep trying.

With oil painted dolls I never know when they are done. I have repainted many dolls.

I finally got arms and legs on the last doll of color I painted. She is darker than the others I have done. Not sure I like her. May have to redo a bit. You never know. The progress on this doll has been very slow.Any one working on dolls?
Share pictures if you can.Have a good week. j

doll finished

It has been 4 weeks since my last pot.Where does the time got?
I finally finished a doll.
I got side tracked with red work and small quilts plus all the everyday stuff.

I also spend way to much time on the pc just looking at STUFF and reading blogs.

Any one else working on dolls?


This doll is from a Susan Fosnot pattern. The clothes are my design. The 1st picture is her in progress picture. The 2nd is before I found the right ribbon and the vintage collar. She has narrow shoulders and the collar is perfect.

I am going to list this doll for sale on the new Doll Town site if I get approval.

If she sells ---I have a room full of dolls I am going to start selling. I have no more room.
Some of the dolls are classic style some are more modern.
judy j

Another face

I painted another face today as long as I had the palette.
She has been waiting a very long time. She started a simple rag doll from a vintage pattern. I don't remember which one. I actually think she was a challenge doll that I didn't like.
She has a sweet face now.

All the dolls in the group picture have faces except the one Alabama wanna be on the right in the back. It needs work.Needs a cloth over.

progress

Progress on the face.

As you can see I did a bit more on her face today.There is still a lot of detail to do.
After putting her nose on several times and wiping it off I found that when I drew the nose it was to far to one side.Not centered under the eyes or over the mouth.I am not trying to be exact just want to be comfortable with the way it looks.

I actually spent several hours trying to figure out what was wrong. It would have been best if I had just gotten up and left it for a while. I do get intense when I paint the faces.Relax!! take a deep breath!!Walk around.I need to remember that.

I have done some shading with the lighter colors and will be doing more.

I am happy with her mouth shape and will work on color .As you can see the one eye pupil is not as round as the other.It helps to take pictures and view them on the computer.
Time to stop now wash my brushes and do some red work stitching.j

First steps to painting this doll

This is the first 2 steps to painting the doll.
To prepare the dolls head for painting i used paper clay to fill in the seams.Sanded them smooth.Added the cloth ears and used paper clay to smooth out the seam.
I usually use the top of a man's tube sock or cut the sleeve of a sweater and slip it onto the doll body to keep paint off the body.Of course,today, I forgot.
 The  first picture a wash of solvent and burnt umber. Nothing exact with that.
 I use masking tape to define the neck from the body. Painting far enough down to allow a lower dress neckline.
The doll color is painted on ----dark to light.
The darkest of the 4 brown color I applied today. I will do shading tomorrow.
I worked a bit on the eyes.A basic outline.
This part of the painting is always interesting for me.I really never know how it is going to look until I start applying the paint and blending and shading.It is fun.j

A new oil painted doll

It has been a very long time between dolls. This one has been sewn together for a while.
I mixed paint to paint the arms on the last black doll I made and decided as long as I had the paint palette there I might as  well paint another doll.
The first step is to draw on the face.I use water color pencils to put on her face .

I will give the head a wash of burnt umber. After it is dry I can get down to the fun of putting on her face.After the wash I will use a tiny brush and paint the features again with brown acrylic paint.

The paint palette is a lot of ultra marine blue and burnt sienna. I have never had any training with mixing paints so it is a guess thing for me.I did get the colors to use from the class I took with Susan Fosnot.
This mix gives beautiful browns. I never would have thought mixing the 2 would give brown. Shows how little I know.A bit of yellow orche and a bit of white give different shades of brown.j

Oil painting a doll

The pallet is white, burnt sienna ,burnt umber,blue.
I mix 3 shades of flesh using the white and the burnt sienna.From the base flesh color I mix all the other colors used on the face.The only black is the pupil in the eye.I use very little paint and move it with shade brushes.

Mallory Jennette,is one of my 24 inch dolls.I draw the face on the dry oil painted flesh color using burnt sienna water color pencils.