Today I'm having a slow and lazy and rather haphazard Sunday:  so far I've looked through the latest issue of Vanity Fair (a guilty pleasure that I usually get from the library due to the guilt of spending a small fortune on hundreds of pages of ads, but today sweet husband bought it for me); played with kittens; eaten alarming amounts of stinky cheese; complained about the heat several times (an act I like to think I've elevated to an art form) and listened to the family across the street screech for hours from their above-ground pool. (I used to think it was great that were having so much fun, but  after a full summer of hours  upon hours of screechy Mom, fighting kids, and  someone who thinks making fart sounds is the height of hilarity, I'm starting to resent them a smidge.) Yes, it's that time of month and I am bloated and cranky, a joyless scrooge of summer.

This week I finished Babette and fell a little in love with her.  I had planned to put her my shop, but I don't think i will.  While I've made dolls for my husband and sister, I've never kept one for myself so I think little Babette will stay here and live on my shelf. 

...Something about her big, smudgy eyes and  petulant pout - I just can't imagine putting her in a box and sending her out into the world.

After almost five months in our new-ish apartment, I finally put my childhood doll collection up on the shelf in my studio.  Like so many little girls, I had a China-doll fetish, and while these are not all of them, these are the ones that have survived in tact enough to not look like something out of a horror film.  My mother made all their clothes, so of course they are very dear to me.  Most of the wooden boxes on either side of them also belonged to my Mom, so it seemed like a good place for them to live.

I'm currently working on three new doll-type creatures.  They won't be traditional dolls, but rather a deconstructed interpretation of some sort (what a lot of nonsense...I don't even know what I'm saying...too much cheese.)  They won't have legs, and I'm thinking they'll be on stands, but they will definitely have heads, and arms of some sort (but maybe weirdo arms.)  On will be the black & white film star idea I mentioned a while back.  One has pink eyes, so I guess she's shaping up to be of the Albino persuasion.

Here are the heads, and more pictures will follow when I figure out what it is I'm doing with them.  I see cage skirts, parasols, birds, sheer billowy fabric, maybe a cloche hat?  What do you see?

Thank you to everyone who left such kind comments about my kitty.  I feel better as time goes by, but I still find myself dissolving into tears on a semi-regular basis...a slow better, I guess.

Some new dolls and busts found their way into the shop this week.  The dolls have arms, so being the vain little things they are, they have elbowed their way in front of the poor busts who can do nothing but sit there and look pretty.  Here is the deceptively lovely Violet: the voice of meadowlark, the scent of Baby's Breath perpetually wafting about her. Just don't play cards with her...she'll take you for all you're worth without even flinching.

And there is also Lulu, head of fire!

Lulu works as a governess for a cruel couple with four beastly children who are always short-sheeting her bed and putting spiders in her cold gruel. She is saving enough money to go live in a grotto in Paris, read Rimbaud and become a tortured painter.  In the meantime she wears fierce boots...

And now, elbow-less and waiting patiently, are the busts inspired by the one I made for husband a couple of months ago.  (I love that these are paperclay - my clay of choice - but can be made in a few days, whereas the dolls take ever so long...)  Betka was dropped off at a nunnery as an infant and raised in the cloister. She rebelled against the holy orders, however, when she ran off with a dark Slovakian traveller who stole her heart but gave her wisdom and new name.

And finally, sweet Beatrix.  I loved learning how to make ringlets for Thea (in my last post) and so tried more here...they might give her an air of innocence, but Beatrix is  headed for a world of trouble; she was a child prodigy and could sing every part in Madama Butterfly by age five. Recently she has started running with a bad crowd, crying into a gin-soaked hanky and listening to Bessie Smith.

You can see more pictures of all of these ladies in my shop.

Finally, I leave on this beautiful, sunny afternoon with a sad love song.  I've been out riding on my bike twice today, and have tried to enjoy the weather, but the truth is, I'm now having a glass of sherry and feeling a little blue.  I love that this song, by Scout Niblett (find this woman - she's melancholy and punky and she plays some kick-ass guitar AND drums) and Will Oldham, is so aching and lovely and yet the video is funny and quite bizarre.   

It's been a long time since my last post, in part because I was away for nearly three weeks doing renovations on my aunt's house, which ended up taking all our time and leaving none for seeking out wireless connections.  I did take some pictures though, so I'll be posting those over the next little while.  But another reason for my absence has been the loss of my much-loved, very sweet and rather odd little cat.  She was only three, so it was a huge shock when she became ill shortly before our trip.  We took her to the vet and they seemed to think all she needed was stay over night and be rehydrated, but then they called us a few hours later to say she had died and they could not explain why.  We were devastated, and I had hoped to do a little tribute to her here, but can't bring myself to go through all the photos I have (I'm a bit of a psycho when it comes to cat pictures!  Every cute pose is recorded...)  While we were away we were distracted by the overwhelming task of the reno, but now that I'm home again, I feel her absence acutely and it's been hard to get motivated to do much of anything, but I'm trying to keep myself busy.  The title of this post comes from a beautiful epitaph by Helen Hunt Jackson with which I try to comfort myself: "Oh, write of me, not Died in bitter pains, but Emigrated to another star!"

Before I left I finished a commission the lovely Faye L. Booth who writes Victorian-inspired fiction.  This doll, Thea, is based on one of her characters.  This picture was taken before she was finished (hence the pin sticking out of her head) and with all the chaos before we left, I didn't manage to take any others.

Some people have asked about the dolls from my last post.  They are currently on display in the Hands Dancing show at the Inverness County Centre for the Arts.   I had hoped to mail them into Art Doll Quarterly for the winter issue, but there wasn't time with the show, so I will send them in August and they won't be in the shop until sometime in September.  Below is a picture of them in gallery (the colour was horrible, so I made it black and white!)

Not a great shot, as you can see, so here are some of the originals:

The rest of my dolls  are in the gallery gift shop until Christmas:

And here are some flowers from my father's garden. It inspired me daily to keep working on that hundred year-old house (empty for the past twenty.)  Someday we'll move to Cape Breton and have our own garden, but in the meantime I seek solace in Led Zeppelin, Ghost Bees and Black Sabbath and dream of future flowers:   white and pink roses, Valerian, Dogwood and Rhododendron.  Imagine...

I have pictures of three new dolls that made the trip to LabCab and that I have just submitted to be  exhibited next month in a show called  Hands Dancing , at the Inverness Country Centre for the Arts.  It seems I just back town and I'm away again, as next week we are leaving for Inverness, Cape Breton, which is where my family lives.  I'm so excited to be near the ocean, breath in the woods and see my family. Oh, yes - and hopefully be in my first real art show!   I'll be taking some other dolls to put in the Arts Centre gift shop, so I won't be listing anything new in the shop until I get back in early July.  The first is Peggine, one of my favourites (something about her sad, knowing expression.)
Her dress is somewhat in the Regency style, with an eyelet apron over-top.  I hand-dyed wool roving for her hair, and was so delighted with the outcome - sort of dreadlocky but still soft and sewable.

This is the Huntsman's daughter, so named because she's holding a tiny heart which reminded me of the beginning of Snow White when that dreadful Queen demands that the Huntsman bring her Snow White's heart, but he can't bear to so brings the heart of a deer instead. (But this winsome creature would never murder a poor deer!  It must be the heart of someone who deserved it!)

A paramedic friend of mine observed that the heart is anatomically correct and I was all a-gleeful (I consulted my beloved anatomy textbook after all!)

Finally we have a full-length picture of Ivy, who made a brief appearance in my last post...she's all in lilac, all lady-like.

And finally, a few more pictures from the LabCab Festival.  I just loved watching this dancer, Djeni (in the white skirt) teaching kids Haitian dancing to Zouk music...by far the cutest thing I've seen in a long time.  She even brought matching skirts for the little girls - perfect for spinning!

The lady in the white shirt and grey pants is the most talented and lovely, Aviva, my friend, a brilliant actor and organizer of LabCab for the past three years. 

And here is the irrepressible Steve Nugget (aka. Christopher Sawchyn), who did a hi-larious skit about washed-up glam rocker getting ready in his dressing room.  It involved much audience participation and guess who got to kiss this hottie's  bad-ass skull ring?  Yes, yours truly...try not to let envy tear you up inside, ladies!

I'm off on Monday for nearly three weeks; I'll try to post while I'm away but it will depend on whether or not I can find access to wireless.  I'll be deep in the gorgeous woods, so I'll say goodbye for now. 

                                                            

Mwah!

 

I'm back from the LabCab Festival  and much fun was had by all!  It felt like a bit of a whirlwind trip, as LabCab takes place at the beautiful old Factory Theatre (below) in Toronto, the city in which I grew up.  It's always a bit hectic when I visit Toronto as there are so many people I want to see, and now most of my friends have kids, so there are exponentially more people to see.  It always fun, but I never feel like I have enough time to spend with everyone.  Throw a festival into the mix and it's busy busy beeness...

This was the view from my little table.  I was outside the whole time except for some brief rain.

And this was my display (cloudy.)

And sunny...your typical topsy tury spring weather.  Some of these dolls might be familiar, but the five large ones are all new, as are the cloth dolls and the four wall hangings

I'm in the midst of taking their individual photos (small tripod crisis partially averted by plumbers' glue.) I only have one close-up of one new doll (more to come soon) so here is a preview of Ivy (the one in the mauve dress):

I went for a little stroll through the theatre and found some great, old posters for different plays.  This was my favourite...I think I need to do a black & white silent film star doll very soon...

Wall of posters:

Recognize her?  Sandra Oh long before she hit it big on Grey's Anatomy:

These two lovelies are Drew and Natalie.  Drew was selling hand-cut, pop-up cards (very cool) and Natalie was selling sweet scarves and earrings made from Fender guitar picks. 

I tried not to drool on her dress form/ earring holder...perfect for doll dress-making and deeply coveted by me.

What a long day...time for a pink lady.  No, not the drink - a real pink lady!  (I had red wine instead, but isn't she gorgeous?  She was one of the performers.)

I'll be back soon with more pictures from Labcab and of the new dolls! 

Yesterday was my husband's birthday, so amid all the insanity of trying to get ready for labcab, I made him a this little bust (and a kick-ass dinner, of course!)  She's made from paperclay, with a mohair wig and eyes I made myself.  She's a little on the spooky side, but I like spooky and so does my sweetheart (when I asked if she was too creepy and did he want something else, he said ' well, she is creepy but I love her.' One of the many reasons I married him.)

She's sort of an albino-geisha lady, or some such strange hybrid.  I'm thinking of putting some similar busts in the shop eventually, as sculpting/ painting the faces and making the wigs are my favourite parts of doll-making.  I didn't quite have time to finish her, so that pin you see is just a temporary measure to secure her lace collar. 

I've also been working on some drawings, as I've long wanted to put some prints in the shop, but everything I've tried in the past just didn't suit it, so I scrapped them.  I think I'm finally moving towards something I'm happy with, although this is just a prototype...she still needs a lot of work (my husband says her forehead is too high, which was intentional, but maybe I went too far?)  Also, those weird little black stems on her head were antlers, but the image was too big for my scanner...all things that will be fixed...

During my travels around town last week I stumbled upon this charming little balcony:

Look up, look waaay up (that's a reference to the Friendly Giant, a Canadian kids' tv show, so it just occurred to me it probably won't mean much to most of you!)  But look waaaay up and you'll see why I took the photo:

Isn't she sweet?  Have a lovely rest-of-your-week, everyone! 

Pardon the cheap pop-cultural wink, but after a year of writing a blog primarily about dolls, I couldn't resist!  And I tried to remain true to reference by eschewing the neutral space of the lightbox for a valley-esque environment for my most recent work-in-progress.  Here they are in my backyard, lurking among the shoots of what will soon be one of my favourite flowers,  Day Lilies:

I confess, I felt rather silly arranging doll heads in the flower beds and could only imagine what the neighbours would think about the crazy new lady playing with tiny body parts.

I've been working with paperclay (an air-dry clay) for the past few days and I love love love it.  I can achieve to much more detail and control than with polymer clay, but it it very time consuming as must be built up in layers, left to dry,  and then sanded between layers. Polymer clay can be sculpted in one shot, then baked.  Sigh.  Polymer is instant gratification but paperclay is a love affair.

I think this one is my favourite...she looks pensive, a bit tortured even (but can one really be only a bit tortured?)  I'm almost finished this much cheerier little dear, but am waiting for a shipment of hair before she can be completed. (I was at a dinner party once and casually mentioned going to the post office to pick up eyes, then had a lot of explaining to do.)

I altered my cloth doll pattern to give them longer legs, because I thought they were looking a little stumpy.  I also tried a bit of silk ribbon embroidery on her skirt:

I've recently discovered the black & white setting on my camera (oh, the torment of being a luddite!) so I've been experimenting with trying to take artsy fartsy photos.  This is a beautiful statue of Copernicus outside of the Montreal planetarium that I happened upon one day:

I love how the elements have stained his face...he looks more than a bit tortured...

 

And here is me trying to be sneaky and get a picture of this guy's excellent mohawk (in the right-hand bottom corner) by pretending to take a picture of the fountain.  He caught on to me pretty quickly but was very friendly, waved, then did a little jig...

When I was little, every spring my Dad would recite the same poem: 

Spring has sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where the birdies is

I know he didn't make it up, but I'm not sure where it comes from.  And I also know I've already sung the praises of spring, but when you live in a city in which it's truly brutal winter seven months a year, spring is really, really significant.  By summer, I guarantee I'll be complaining about the heat, but right now I'm profoundly grateful for both the sunshine and the rain, and the gorgeously comfortable temperatures.  And the colour, oh the colour!  On that note, here is a little gal I've just made, unnamed as of yet:

Her hair is rather messy and needs some adjusting, but you get the idea.  I'm taking a little break from clay and making some cloth dolls. 

I've got a bunch of parts just waiting to be pieced together so that they need no longer be creepy disembodied doll parts.

Everything I make from this point on until the end of May is intended for the LabCab festival that takes place in Toronto May 31st and June 1st.  I'll be there with my little booth as well as a section of the art display, so if you're in the area, come on by!  There will be theater and music and visual art, and it has all been organized by my dear friend and the most talented actor, Aviva, so it is bound to be most excellent.

Thanks to the beautiful weather I've been tootling around the city on my bike.  I've recently become obsessed with Montreal rooftops because no matter how long I live here I can't get over how lovely they are... so much beautiful detail and colour.  Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a cross between a tale from Ye Olde Days of Yore and an Edward Gorey illustration.  Here are a few of my favourites:

Can you believe it?  A castle! And some turrets...

And balconies for all the star-crossed lovers...

More happiness everyone, and more spring!

... Nora Barnacle is here to make you walk the plank at the Swashbuckler's Soiree!! This event was the brainchild of the lovely Donna O'Brien (you can find her blog by clicking the link above...)

I joined the Soiree quite late, but here is my offering, Nora Barnacle.  She is named after James Joyce's wife, who was not -as far as I know- a pirate but with a name like that she should have been! 

Rumour has it that Nora purchases her head scarves at the same high-seas establishment as Jack Sparrow...

But the embellishments on her skirt are pure Nora...she goes diving for starfish, snails and sand dollars and of course sews all her own clothes!

And of course no self-respecting pirate would go out without a de-rigeur pair of striped stockings!  But the seas are a dangerous place for even the fiercest pirates, so Noraa carries a wee sword (which she was unable to photograph clearly - heads at the Canon camera factory will roll! Into the ocean!)

Argh, mateys!  I'm running out of pirate talk, so I'm going to try to talk Nora into holstering that bad boy long enough to check all you other swashbucklers...

I've read about the importance of taking good photos so often, but try as I might I was never able to get the  lighting right with my dolls.  There were always shadows and the lighting seemed cold.  So I finally made a lightbox (you can find the tutorial I used here) and figured out how to use the white balance on my camera (my dad got it for me in Japan, oh maybe six years ago?)  Let's just say I'm a bit of a techno-phobe and every little step I take I have to drag myself kicking and screaming...But I'm soooo happy I did because my most recent photos are so much better, my dolls' vanity has finally been satisfied and they no longer call out my name in accusing tones at night, demanding I do them justice. So forgive me if I go a little overboard with the pictures in this post...

This is Imogen.  She has one of the quasi-historical I mentioned in my last post: Victorian avec bustle!  But here is my question to you all, an informal poll if you will; I made her a little headband with antlers, but I wonder if it makes her look too busy, as her hair is already quite large.  It would be removable, but maybe it's overkill?

Here she is in her fancy-pants dress:

And from the side, because her bustle must be viewed in all its bum-you-could-balance-a-teacup-on glory:

And from the back because I'm rawther pleased with her train (ever read Eloise? One of my faves...  Nanny is always rawther this and rawther that):

Hmm - not sure if you can really see it that pic, but her underskirt does have a train...

Here is her bustle closeup:

And her pantaloons:

Imogen will go in the shop on Thursday. 

I also took these pictures of Delphine (who is in the shop now.)

And these ones of Cosette, who's going in the shop momentarily...

(Cosette has my first handmade pair of eyes!)

Whew!  I'm all lightboxed out for now.  I'd love to know what you think about Imogen...antlers oui ou non?

This is a doll I made recently as a commission. Her head and lower arms and legs are polymer clay, and she has a cloth and polyfil body over a wire armature.

The lovely woman who asked for her wanted a doll similar to this one I made over year ago, named Bridget/ Love Lies Bleeding.  I got the name ('Love lies Bleeding') from the gorgeous flower, which my father has in his garden.  He told me he chose it from the flower catalog based just on its name, which I found quite touching...its a rather melodramatic name and my father is decidedly not a dramatic person, but he is a brilliant gardener and the flowers - though somewhat bizarre looking  - are beautiful.  Here is a photo of the original doll:

Below is painting also called "love Lies Bleeding" by one of my favourite artists, Rozi Demant.  Oddly enough, I titled one of the chapters in my book "Love Lies Bleeding" and have toyed with the idea of making it the book's title (assuming I ever finish the thing!)  I mused one day to  O. that if I had the money, I would commission Rozi Demant to do the cover.  Then, lo and behold, she came out with an entire series of paintings by the same name!  I took it as a sign that a) I MUST finish my book and b) Rozi and I are destined to be friends (don't think she knows that yet, though.)

 
And here is photo of the real live flower, taken by the very talented Kristen nicholas.
Check out her blog!

 

Finally, I'm including a short video by the band Arcade Fire, a Canadian-American hybrid band with all kinds of wonderful string instruments and an accordian player and lovely, lush orchestral songs but also can go unplugged as evidenced by this performance in an elevator.  Enjoy!

I was away on Cape Breton Island visiting my Dad, stepmom and brother and sister for my reading week, as we spent this Christmas with O's parents in Maine.  My family and I had pretend-Christmas dinner and they even kept the Christmas tree up for me until the middle of February!  We exchanged presents (I'm now the proud owner of my very own trifle dish - no more making it in huge bowls!) and I had a lovely time going for long walks in the woods and sitting in my Dad's greenhouse.  I think I got more sun in a week than I had all winter.  I gave my little sister a doll for Christmas (as per her request) and she named her Emily.  Here's Emily chilling in the greenhouse:

She's made from a cloth over wire-armature body with paperclay head, hands and feet.  She has mismatched glass eyes which look slightly crazy - they are from a lot of glass eyes I bought on ebay that I thought were pairs, but when they arrived several were mismatched and when I checked the listing I realized it said "for doll eye repair." So I had to get creative... (I told this story to my sister and she then repeated it word for word to everyone to whom she showed the doll - I call her 'rain girl' because she has an almost eerie memory for anything she hears...an eleven year-old tape recorder.)

While I was "on vacation" I read two uber-long Victorian novels for a class, wrote a paper and marked twenty (I took the train 24 hours each way, so that helped my put a serious dent in the reading.)  As soon as I got back I handed it all in, went to some classes, then got in the car and went to my hometown of Toronto for a few days...not nearly as pretty as Cape Breton!  We were visiting my aunt, who recently bought a house in Cape Breton that she's never seen based on our recommendation (gulp!)

It's a serious fixer-upper, but it was really cheap and has very good bones.  We've agreed to help renovate over the next few summers and hope to move out there some day full-time...this way we would have a place to stay while we build our own place...someday!  My aunt will use it in the summers.

It has this beautiful  old barn which probably can't be saved (the other side is a big hole and the posts are literally hanging from the ceiling!) but there is so much beautiful, hand-hewn wood inside we can salvage that it won't go to waste.

This is a pretty bit of detail that I just love!  It's the trim around the roof - quite unusual for a Cape Breton farmhouse (this place is about a hundred years old.)

Here's the view from our land up above...too bad it was so overcast, but those are mountains in the distance and someday they'll be the view form our kitchen.

I'm dreaming of you green grass and trees!

I have been inspired by the generosity of some of my sister bloggers and am joining the one world one heart event.  I will be giving away Nanette on Valentine's Day!  You can enter up until midnight of February 13th (Eastern time) and I will draw and announce the winner on the evening of the 14th.  Then I'll put her in the mail and send her off to the winner.  (You can see the official site here, and check out the other participants as well.) All you have to do is leave me a comment with a brief observation or anecdote about dolls...maybe you love them, maybe they give you the creeps (but you still love them) maybe when you were a kid you would have to say goodnight to each one you had individually so as not to upset them and you were always convinced they were having a party in your room when you weren't there so you would open the door really quickly and try to catch them in the act but never could! (or maybe that was just me??) 

Nanette is one of my ornament dolls, so while she has no limbs, she does come with a lovely ribbon and hanger and is happiest on a wall or Christmas tree.  She is entirely handmade from polymer clay, hand-painted a wearing a hand-made dress.  Her hair is mohair.  She is truly one of a kind!

I'm really looking forward to hearing people's doll-tales! (And if you want to make it up, that's fine too.)

Here are my latest ladies, Kate and Lola.  Kate is a modern dancer and singer who composes music about heroes from the only novel by Emily Bronte (sorry - no patience for figuring out the keyboard witchcraft required for oomlots!)  If that sounds familiar to you, then hopefully you are a Kate Bush fan and might agree with me that this dollie looks a bit like her?  My husband guessed, but he knows I'm a huge fan so maybe he was just being kind!

I made her parasol from cotton, card-stock and lace...I think it makes her look very elegant!

Her skirt is dupioni silk, which is still my all-time favourite material.

This is Lola, who is holding a small heart in honour of Valentine's day.  Someday soon I will make another anatomically correct heart like I did for my first big doll, Bridget (there are photos of it my 'large doll' photo album.)

Lola's skirt is also dupioni silk.  I certainly dress the dolls better than myself!

This ladies will go in the shop this weekend...

Also:  Wheee! I finally got my new book about making ball-jointed dolls, Yoshida Style, all the way from Japan. 

It is indeed in Japanese, which I don't speak or read, but it has so many great pictures that it has already given me tons of   great ideas.  I don't think I'll actually have time to attempt a ball-jointed doll (very complex!) until summer when my course load lightens, but I can still apply some of his instructions to my regular doll-making.

And because I love Kate Bush so much, and because she is such a good companion to me as I make my dolls, I found this video for her song "Wuthering Heights."  It's rare that one comes across mainstream cultural figures as truly odd and eccentric as Kate Bush...watch this video and you'll see what a delightfully freaky lady she is.  People always talk about how cheezy and commercial the 80s were, but they hold a special place in my heart because I really wonder if someone as bizarre as Kate Bush or Robert Smith could be 'famous' today.  Not that being famous matters much, but it's pretty cool that these people were ever as popular as they were.  Well, enough of my ranting...here she is in all her oddball glory!

I'm taking an amazing graduate course right now in Fin-de-Siecle literature called "Aestheticism, Decadence and Degeneration" (how could I resist?)  We reading a lot of fascinating theory, but also some great novels and plays (The Time Machine, Dracula,  "The Ghosts".)  So yet again I find  Victorianism creeping into my dolls (the clothes, Oh! the clothes!)  Here are my two most recent works, both a little decadent...

This is the Barefoot Contessa.She is from a very wealthy family, but due to some unmentionable (and unjust!) scandals must now dance for her dinner. She is famous for her mastery of the fan dance, her different-coloured eyes and for never wearing shoes. Her only friend is the tiny bird, Minou, who lives in her hair.(The Contessa knows that 'minou' is a French term of endearment for a cat, but she is an melancholy ironist.)

My first bouffant!  Surprisingly secure...(some day I want to try one of those crazy Marie Antoinette towers of hair.)

I made the fan from bonded satin and lace.

Ah, Quelle triste Mademoiselle!

This is Sebastian; a lovely aesthete who likes to read Oscar Wilde while drinking Port and smoking only the best cigars.  He always has a clean ascot around his neck, a dab of black nail polish on his fingers, and a witty riposte on the tip of his tongue.

I will certainly be using more buttons in my clothes from now on (well, they are really tiny seed beads, but how cute?!?)

The Contessa is in the shop, and I'll be listing Sebastian this evening.

And finally, here is the trailer a movie I'm dying to see: Madame Tutli Putli, a Canadian animated short that was just nominated for an oscar. You can see more about it/ buy the dvd here.

Here are my latest ladies...Poppy (the blond) and Netta, who will be in the (rather barren at moment) shop tomorrow.  I've had a few dolls in the works for a while now, but with being sick and school (as always) kicking my ass (in a good way!) they've been going slowly.  Poppy is fully poseable with glass eyes, a little over a foot, I'd say...and my second blond doll ever!

...a little felt coat.

Her eyes are slightly different, but I think that gives her character.

I love her little ballet flats!

And her manicured nails.

Now Netta...a name I love, from Mavis Gallant story called "the Moslem Wife".

...a pensive face (what do think she's thinking?)

Pretty pink slippers...

And tea-dyed lace for her skirt.

Now I'm off to bed to read "The Time Machine".  This week we read all sorts of Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, Matthew Arnold.  I know it's a good class when my brain hurts at the end!

Here is the completed Elizabethan Vampire doll I gave my husband for Christmas...we named her Bess in honour of the Virgin Queen herself (not always kind but always very stylish.)

Isn’t her hair gorgeous?  It’s English mohair in deep auburn…. I went for a young queen Bess, before she became the uber-stylized, pock-marked and alum-coated Virgin Queen with the freakishly tight curls.  She’s got some vicious fangs, too – they are real (painted) thorns from Hawthorne trees on our land.  They’re extremely sharp and snagged on my sweater many times while I was putting her together, one time pulling away part of her lips which required immediate (and thankfully successful) dental surgery. The things you learn making dolls!  She’s a little frightening, but then that was sort of the point.

 

...With her hand out, demanding what?  Your very soul perhaps??

.

Her collar is crocheted (but not by me!) cotton lace, and her headdress is just a fanned-out spray of beads I bought at a craft store and sewed to the back of her dress.  I plan to make her a proper fabric headdress, but just didn’t have time before Christmas…I think she’ll need a fan as well. You can scroll down to see pictures of her in progress in my last two posts.

 

Here are some pictures from a walk we took a few days after Christmas, down to the bay close to where my husband's parents live in Maine.

It was very dark and moody and we came across these tracks in the snow...crow I think...

...with flash

Up close they almost look like flowers...

My last post was the included the first set of pictures I took of the  Elizabethan vampire doll I made my husband for Christmas (his idea, I swear!) Here are a few more...

I find it very hard to stuff long tubes of fabric for the arms and legs, so instead I wrap the stuffing tightly with yarn, going up and down the limb several times to ensure there are no cracks for stuffing seep out.  After I took this picture I wrapped the limbs again and glued down the errant pieces of yarn that you see sticking out.  The heels are made from paperclay then glued to the shoe.

Can you tell I’ve been influenced by Edward Gory and Tim Burton?  The limbs look almost absurdly long like this, but it all comes together when she’s dressed.

After many messy attempts, I’ve finally figured out an easy and tidy way to make fitted pantaloons (a doll just seems incomplete to me if she doesn’t have some decent underwear in which to go out into the world!) 

These ones were made from curtain material in the upholstery section of the fabric store – no hemming required!   

This is the embroidered fabric I chose for the over-skirt.  I cheated a little and attached a panel of contrasting material, rather than add an entire underskirt.  This is to avoid adding bulk to the figure and preserve her shape. (And that's my mom's cute tomato pin-cushion, and one from Chinatown in Toronto...love those little guys who hang on around the edge!) 

The completed skirt...

 

...and from the back.  In this shot you can also see the back of the one-piece corset.  But why is it so wide, you ask?

Most of my research involved making this Spanish Farthingale, or skirt shaper, which were emblematic of Elizabethan silhouettes.  It’s fairly authentic, although presumably the Elizabethan’s didn’t use strips of yoghurt containers to provide the rigid form…I sewed channels into the double layer of fabric and inserted the supports, which I attached with copper brads. 

Here she is, breast plate attached, and mostly clothed – I’m annoyed with myself for forgetting to take a picture of the corset before I attached it – it was fun to make.  It’s all one piece with two layers of fabric with channels for boning (thin strips of silk-covered cardboard in this case.)  I found the pattern on this website and made a mock-up from paper towel so that it would be perfectly fitted to her body…it took me hours, but gives her a very authentic look, I think. 

Her sleeves are the same dupioni silk as the skirt panel, and the puffed sections at the shoulders are sewn and attached separately.

I'll be back soon with the final pictures (I did give her hair eventually!) 

Happy New Year, Christmas Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice and whatever else has happened  in the past far-too-long since I last posted.  What a crazy month it has been!  My most-talented husband’s book, Mopus, has been published, which was very exciting.  We had a launch mere days after I finished three major term papers in as many weeks, which I was sure was going to kill me (and led me to the firm decision that from now on I can only do two courses at a time, as three courses plus my teaching assistantship plus my part-time job plus my own book leaves me no almost time to work on my dolls or blog.)  But back to more interesting things…

The launch was a great success, despite one of the worst blizzards Montreal had seen in years (and in a city known for fierce winter weather.)  Mopus was published by a small, burgeoning  publisher in Colorado called Counterpath Press, so a launch wasn’t really in their budget – we were on our own, which was just fine!   The car we share with three  neighbours   was in the shop, so the night before we hauled two boxes of books in a bundle buggy on the metro up to our friends’ place (they live much closer to the bar where we had the launch.)  The next morning we dragged said boxes the on a baby toboggan lent to us by said lovely friends with the wind literally driving ice-needles into our faces the whole time.  Thank god we had other kind friends, Matt and Tara, visiting from LA – they helped us drag for a good fifteen minutes!  When we arrived our faces were coated in ice crystals.  We feared no one would show, but Montrealers are intrepid; in the end the place was packed, we sold lots of books, drank amazing hot toddies and ate good food.  Oisin and I both read from the book and it seemed a good time was had by all.

Now we’re in Maine, visiting O’s parents, staying in a little cabin on their property that has a tiny but powerful wood-stove (thank god.)  Some of you may remember WAAAAY back in May when I started a doll for Oisin that was supposed to be for his birthday (also in May.) Well, life intervened, but I did manage to finish her for Christmas instead, and I tried to remember to take pictures as I went along (although often got so engrossed I forgot important steps!)  O. had asked for an Elizabethan vampire, so I did some research into Renaissance costume, and included as many authentic details as I could.  Over the next few days, I’ll be posting pictures...

Here she is in her nascent, rather primitive stages; I used paperclay for head, hands and feet and it works up quite rough until it’s carved or sanded.

Now she’s got a nose – not quite such a scary, featureless lump...

And now she is mostly sculpted but unpainted

For shoes, I cut out small pieces of dupioni silk, which I then shaped around her feet, glued in place and then lacquered with acrylic varnish and matte modge podge.

And her stockings are made from real nylons sewn up the back of the leg.

...A bit of nail polish for her royal self.    

Painted and a little bit creepy (did I mention he requested a vampire?  Her fangs are painted thorns from a Hawthorn tree on our land.    

And finally, the Bettie Page lunchbox I used to transport the fragile parts…very handy.  I'll be posting the rest of the pictures over the next few weeks, so stay tuned...

Ah!  My latest creation:  Evangeline la Deuxième.  Her head, hands and lower legs (featured in an earlier post) are polymer clay, and her body is stuffed cotton over a wire armature.

Her over-skirt is dupioni silk left over from my wedding dress, which i made myself (but it was relatively simple affair  - not a meringue-y wedding dress.)

I love her quixotic expression, part pensive, part sad, part somewhat-unhinged, perhaps?  She is my first doll to have bangs and I can tell there will be more (I just wrapped in a plastic bag and played hairdresser.)

I love doing hands - I feel like they can add so much character to a doll.

And I guess my Victorian Poetry Class is really starting to seep in, because I felt it was time for some mad, lace-up boots.  Her boot heels and thumbs are made from two-part epoxy, which is extremely strong, to make sure they don't break off in shipping.  Evangeline is in my shop, but I have to admit I'm having a hard time with the idea of letting her go...I sold the first doll to which I became very attached and I still miss her.

But I haven't explained her name!  She's the second, yes, because the first one I gave to my husband who, I think I mentioned, loves dolls.  One of the many reasons I married him... But the first one, as you can  see, was quite different.  I still have affection for  the first Evangeline because she was the first large doll I'd ever made (and at a fairly dark time, but more on that later) but as you can see, she was rather primitive by comparison.   Also, the cats knocked her over a few times, so her poor little nose got squished.)

Still, the boy loves her, so I guess that's all that matters.

Lastly, I mentioned before the animated film, Blood Tea, Red String by Christiane Cevagske.  Thanks to help from the super-sweet Vanessa over at A Fanciful Twist, I can now link directly to the trailer on youtube.  This movie is absolutely brilliant - a must for anyone who loves animation, puppets, dolls, music, art!

p.s. Thank you also to Beth at Lilies and Ether (don't I wish I'd thought up that name!) for telling me about this masterpeice!