Rona and The Mourning Madonna

Rona

Okay, so I haven't been keeping to my word about blogging more frequently, but I have been working on stuff. I had taken a doll making class several years ago and only made one doll in class and that was it. I finally stopped procrastinating and made another doll last week. I was happy with her outcome! I tweaked the original design to fit my needs! I hate stuffing, so instead of stuffing her from head to toe,  I stuffed her from head to below the waist line. You can look up her dress and see that she has no legs.

The head is done with clay and the arms are very long and light aluminum nails used on gutters.

The dress is composed of scrap fabrics, lace, silk and paper. I played around with free motion stitching.

Madonna in Mourning

This is a pencil drawing I finished several months ago. This is an example of the type of art work I use to do many, many years ago until I burned out and moved on.

 Lately, it has been nice to revisit and see if I still had the knack for doing it. I think the spark has been rekindled a little bit by the inspring work of artist on Flickr that I come across. I can see a lot of potential for expanding and stretching beyond the comfort zone with this.

I am still working with the pine needles and hopefully will have some art dolls posted soon.   

Completed Pine Needle Art Doll

"Trudi"

Finally settled on a face for this doll. Pine needles are really great to work with, although they will tickle and prick you at the same time. I went a little over board and bought more needles that have been dyed. The colors are soooo beautiful!!  The shop owner of artgalstudio recommended soaking them first to get them to bend.  I haven't tried that yet because I'm content with experimenting with them dry. I've thought of applying hot bees wax on them to see how they look and how well they hold up.

There are more dolls to come!! I've started one that is done with black needles and the full length of the needles are intact. The art doll above has had her needles trimmed.



WIP - Pine Needles

This is one of the pieces I've been experimenting on with pine needles. I came across an artist at  one of the art shows last month and she was a basket weaver and she used these very long pine needles. Being originally from the Southwest, I had never seen such long needles. Their length ranges anywhere from 14"-16" long. So, I talked her into selling me a bundle and now I'm just thrilled to be working with them.  I also order some that have been dyed different colors, so I anxiously wait for their delivery.