I don't know if it's all the snow we've had in the past week, but I've been making some very pale dolls of late; white faces and white dresses.

I don't yet have a name for this young lass (am open to suggestions!) but she was not very happy about me showing her in her skivvies, so I had to promise to put the 'after' photo before the 'before' photo, if you follow.  I used some boning attached to lengths of ribbon to make her skirt hoop, which makes her look a bit like a circus tent in the picture below:

I'm nearly finished this somewhat troubled looking waif; she needs her wig and the source of the red stain on her dress (hint: it's not blood.)

Both she and the pink lady will be similar to Agatha in that she won't have legs, but rather is supported by a stand.  Another of my deconstructed-y dolls.  I'm having fun with their clothes; lots of ripping and pinning and sewing in place.  I feel freed from the tyranny of the teeny, tiny pattern pieces that have plagued my poor eyes these past years.

And of course, I can't call this post 'Snow White' without some pictures of snow.  I know I've had a few of these already this year, but it's winter in Montreal - this is all I got!   

It will hang around for another two-and-a-half months at least, so I'm trying to embrace the aspects of it I find beautiful in order to cope with aspects I find horribly, painfully, terribly frigid and interminable.

It was a shocking -30 the past few days, but look how pretty!

The most amazing part of doll-making for me is the transformation between a bare, clay face and once the face is painted.  While I often have an idea in my mind of how the doll will look, I am almost always surprised.  There is always some little detail, some quixotic expression - the particular arch of an eyebrow, the tint of the lips - that seems to arise out of nowhere.  I think of it as the doll demanding its own character, and it is so delightful.  Just like in so many fairy tales, books and old episodes of the Twilight Zone, the doll seems to come to life.  Here are a few ladies I'm currently working on in that nascent stage just before they become who they are going to be:

Even the shape of the face tells me relatively little about how the doll will end compared to she gets her make-up on and her hair did.  Exhibit A: here are two of them all (well, partially) gussied up: 

Even if I do have a particular vision for the doll's hair and clothes, this will often change once she has her face on and I begin to feel like I know who she is, and what her story might be.   

The tricky part is making the hands ahead of time in a gesture that I think matches my idea of how the doll will eventually turn out.  If she evolves along the way, then I have hands that might not seem right with her final form.  We'll see how these do (shown here in their rough stage): 

Or these, which are a little further along:

And I have all these naked babes waiting for faces, waiting for stories... 

What will they tell me?

After a short but lovely trip out East to visit my family for Christmas, it is back to school and back to work.  Over the holidays I saw the ocean, watched my bother's hockey game (cold!), ate too many of my stepmother's shortbread cookies, drank brandy and played Mexican dominos...in short, I enjoyed myself much more than I did today making photocopies and dealing with the broken computer in my office.  I so don't want to go back to work (a refrain that I imagine is being uttered throughout the land.  On Sunday we went for the best dim sum I've ever had, and I invited a friend who couldn't make it because, she said, she had to "brood the last day of vacation away".)

But one good thing about coming back to life (other than my three darling cats) is coming back to dolls.  I do miss my little studio when I'm gone, and I confess I took a few body parts and some sandpaper with me on my trip!  And poor little bald Elspeth finally has some hair, so here she is to flaunt it: 
Her full name is Elspeth at the Funeral.  Not quite the right hat for grieving, you say?  And how about that décollotage?  Well, perhaps her woebegotten look is not entirely heartfelt...

I didn't manage to make nearly as many Christmas gifts this year as I usually do, but I did give away some dolls that never made it into the shop as well as these skull pendants for my brother and sister. What self-respecting teenager wants a Santa pendant?

What I missed most was the homemade Bailey's I usually make as gifts.  There are recipes for it online, but mine it pretty simple:

Whiskey
Sugar
Instant Coffee
Cream (I use 5% so that it's not too heavy, but you can use any kind you like)

Melt sugar in simmering water until dissolved, then take off heat and add instant coffee.  Add cream and whiskey to taste. No measuring  - I just fiddle until with until I like it. 

Another thing I did a lot of over the holidays was read.  Given that I'm studying literature, one might think I'd read some impressive-sounding classic or some revered poet, but no.  I am utterly absorbed by Tina Brown's The Diana Chronicles, a gift from my husband's mother.  I do feel a bit guilty devouring a book about someone whose life was so exploited, but Brown does not go the lurid, tabloid route I would have expected given the subject matter.  She was the editor of both Vanity Fair and The New Yorker for several years, so she's no slouch as a writer.  She handles the material with a lot of insight and empathy, and she views the whole madness of the very idea of Royalty through a kind of layman's anthropological lens; they're even more bizarre than I would have thought, and I've always thought the whole business of Royalty very bizarre.  So if you're looking for something light - but not totally mindless - to ease you into the new year, I wholly recommend it.

Tata for now...

 In the spirit of the season, I've made this snowbound lass, Freya, part girl and part reindeer.  I was walking home from the store one snowy day and found some cut branches  lying on the ground.  They had these lovely little buds at the end that reminded my of deer antlers, so I gathered up as many as I could and brought them home. (And got many a bemused look as I dragged huge, ice-covered branches through the streets.)  I coated the branches with several layers of thick, clear varnish to preserve them and they turned out beautifully:

Then there is this bald little dear, Elspeth, who now has hair (ringlets even, and a little hat).  But, as usual, I'm behind in my photos, so she'll show up bewigged in my next post.  Elspeth is paperclay and quite a bit bigger than Freya.  I think someday I might make some bald dolls - there is something quite striking about bald women.  We all remember Sinéad, right?  She was so stunning without hair.

While we've had nothing like the ice storm that hit the Northeast, it's been very cold and icy here.  My husband and I went for a long walk the other day; it was sunny and bracing and the light shone beautifully off the ice.  It always fascinates me how ice can coat even the the tiniest, most delicate surfaces, making every thin little leaf and stem  glitter.  This is the view from our front step:
  

And this is beside the train bridge near our house.  I love our neighbourhood because it is a lovely contrast of prettied-up Montreal architecture with gritty, industrial landscape.  And the major ethnic groups are French, Irish and East Indian, so that keeps things interesting!
 

Happy Winter Wonderland, Everyone!  I hope you're keeping warm...

Today I finished two busts, and was so happy to have a new batch of wool in lovely colours  for the hair.  Meet Elliette:

I actually  used to dye my hair this colour, back when I was in my twenties and could scoff at fears about what kind of chemicals might be needed for such an unnatural colour.  These days I'm back to my mousy brown and lie awake worrying about my mercury fillings!  (I've decided to take the plunge and have them removed in the hopes it will cure my tinnitus, but that's another story.  Cruel aging!)

And here she is with Edith, a big band singer of indeterminate age.  Just imagine what she goes through for that head of platinum wonder! 

So the political situation here in Canada is very bleak and unstable at the moment.  I won't get into all the murky details of parliamentary democracy, but suffice it to say that while the US has an intelligent, charismatic (and rather handsome) president waiting in the wings, we have up here a ruthless conservative who has lost the support of Parliament (and much of the populace) in the midst of that economic crisis we all keep hearing about.   And I have about a thousand papers to grade in the nest four days (well, over a hundred.  No joke.)  And it's cold. So I need a bit of a lift. So the other night I was out with some friends from my prose workshop to celebrate the end of the semester and we got to talking about our ideal karaoke songs. I have actually managed to live through the nineties and the noughts without EVER having done karaoke (not by accident) but I think these ladies might have convinced me.  Anyway,  I managed to dredge up my hypothetical karaoke song on youtube and I'd like to share it.  This is a Canadian band from the eighties, so many of you might never have heard this song, but I urge you to give it a listen and check out these INSANE outfits. Hilarity.

80s Nostalgia Video, Installment the Fourth:

WARNING: crude language, lewd gestures, women who look like men trying to look like women, a keyboard player who will make you pee your pants laughing

So school is out for the holidays and I could NOT be more excited.  I still have a absolute mountain of marking to do, but classes are finished, so in theory I could do the rest of my work in my underwear  while drinking a mai tai (although, given the frigid temperatures, this seems unlikely...maybe in my dressing gown with some brandy...)  I've been thoroughly enjoying last few days off and have  been working on some doll figurines. Maudette and Claude are the latest results:

Maudette has a cedar and dowel base in place of legs, and the most beautiful auburn hair.

She's similar in construction to Agatha and silent Annabel, but not nearly as big.  Also, she's made from polymer clay and epoxy instead of paperclay, and so did not take nearly as long to make as those first doll figurines, which took weeks.  Claude is quite short - no legs, no base, but enough charm to keep her standing.

I have a few more figurines in progress - these ones are very small and very bald but I'll take care of their pretty little heads soon.

Well, we're off to enjoy this sunny Sunday - brunch, then a long walk to the cinema to see a Swedish vampire movie (I wouldn't want all that beautiful sunshine to give me an overly optimistic view of life...)

A big thank you to everyone who took the time to comment on my last post and share your thoughts on my work-in-progress.  There were people who thought the print would distract from the overall look of my shop and dolls, and then there were those who suggested I go out on a limb and not worry too much about  'branding'.  Is it terribly wishy washy of me to say I agree with everyone?  I do think it's important to experiment and try new thing and be willing to take risks, but I also wasn't totally satisfied with that particular image, which I suppose is why I was asking for feedback.  So I'm still feeling my way and experimenting with the illustration/fabric collage idea.  What I liked about the last one is that the face reminded me of an illustration from a  children's book, but with the straggly edges of torn fabric to give it bit of that shabby Victorian look of which I'm so fond.  So I decided to try an illustration of one my dolls, but in the same simple style of the last one, and here is what I came up with:

It's still in the rough stages - I think I'll enhance it with some ink - but I do feel like she has more character than my last attempt (although maybe her hairstyle makes her look like Minnie Mouse?) I'll keep playing - it's so much fun!

I've also experimented with a couple of pendants, which still need much refining.  I tried to give them an old-fashioned-y, desaturated look, but I think maybe I went too far because the image is not that crisp under the glass.  Also, this is not a great photo, but it will give you an idea of what they'll look like.  I'm thinking some nice ribbon for the necklace, instead of the standard ball chain:
I've also been playing with some new glass eyes.  I had been making them with acrylic cabochons as the eye lens, but I was so pleased to find some glass cabochon small enough for doll eyes.  They're irregular and distort the image somewhat,  but I feel that will just add to the charm - I so prefer natural substances over synthetic when I can find them.  

In non-doll related news, my husband got a new job!  After a fairly anxious  month of looking and us trying to survive on my graduate school teaching stipend, he got a job writing for a science show.  He'll be paid more for less hours than his old job and  he can work from home....yaaaaayy!!!.....We are going to see The Duchess and then for dinner to celebrate.  (Really, what could be more celebratory than Kiera Knightley stuck in a corset and an unhappy marriage with hottie-pants Ralph Fiennes?) I'll also be celebrating with a giveaway of some sort fairly soon.  I let my one year blog anniversary go by without even a mention (shame on me) so I'll make up for it soon, I promise...watch this space...

So you might have noticed that my last post with this title did not, in fact, have any girls with antlers.  This was because Typepad was going so slowly, I couldn't bear it any more.  And in fact i still find there is a significant delay - is this just me?  I'm not haveing this problems with any other sites or programs.  But I digress.  This is not an acceptable excuse for my absolute wretchedness at blogging of late.  Le sigh. It's been a very stressful few weeks.  My husband lost his job, and mine has been so busy, and I've been taking on extra work to try to make ends meet.  But things are looking up - husband has job possibilities in the works, my course ends in less than a month and I really and truly have some girls with antlers.  Well, I have Zoe for the second time, because she got a snazzy new hairstyle, and i have Lila, but first I have the Sad Match Girl:
Poor match-girl...she has seen better days, before she was made to go work in the match factory, her stockings torn and dreams deferred...

Lila is one of my first experiments with plaster bandages  for clothing.  As much as I love sewing, these plaster bandages save so much time, and also give a nice, decaying sort of look (if decay can be nice?)

And here is Zoe with a rather more sophisticated hairstyle...a more mature upsweep in place of that hapless, hangy-down thing she had going on before.  (When I was little, my mother used to call my long hair a rat's nest and convinced me that there were rats living in it and that's why I should let her brush it and she would utterly terrify me by using her hand to pretend there were rats running down my neck...either I was an incredibly naive child, or my mom had a sinister streak.  Probably a bit of both.)

Finally, I've been working on some prints that I'm considering putting in my shop.  They are a combination of an illustration a did a while back, cut fabric used for the clothing, and vintage paper as the background.  I really don't want to 'cheapen' the look of my shop, or make it look unprofessional by putting amateurish-looking prints in, so I would love any feedback anyone might have - even if it's critical.  This is the first one, and still needs some tidying up around the edges of the dress (where you can see the original edges) but I'll post it for now and see what people think:
I'm also working on some doll-related jewelry, so I'll be back soon with pictures of those experiments...

I had so hoped to have some Hallowe'en dolls ready by now, but while I have a few that are very close, it will probably a few more days until they're ready to be photographed. They're just so vain after all!  They won't let me near them until they look just so. (That's something my grandmother always used to say.  And whenever she described how she'd cooked something she'd say things like, "then I cut it like so, and put it in the bowl like so". I miss you, Vovo!) I did manage to hand in three chapters of my thesis this week, but the dolls languish.  So all of this is to say I got nothin' today, but I have been on the front page of Etsy a couple of times in the past two weeks, as well as in a Storque article, so I'm just going to engage in some shameless self-promotion for a moment...

In lieu of any new Halloween dolls, we have this lovely seasonal showcase.  And the one below was curated by Esty's HeyMichelle, who was also the staff member who helped create Etsy's new Dolls and Miniature's category.  (Yay!  We dollmakers of Etsy have been working on that one for a while.)

There's an article on Etsy's blog, the Storque, which also features one of my dolls...I was honoured to appear there for the first time:

Now just so this post doesn't seem too horribly self-congratulatory, I also have good news on the kitten front. Of those five we've been fostering for the past two months (a mother and four gorgeous black kittens) we are keeping two and have found homes among friends for the mom and the other two! We are so please about this happy ending to our kitten saga because I knew I wouldn't be able to take them back to cages at the SPCA. All the adoptive parents are good, kind people who love animals - we couldn't have been more fortunate! Here are some pictures of the little dears...they're quite a bit bigger now, but just as cute. (And how much more Halloweeny can you get than four black kittens? We call them 'Coven' for short...)

After having a few near-panic attacks in the past week, I've decided to drop my Old English class.  It's sad in a way because I found the material fascinating and I was so looking forward to reading Beowulf in its original Anglo-Saxon language, but the grammar required so much memorization, and with my thesis, my other class and the class I'm teaching (which requires sooooo much marking - basically thirty essays a week) I just couldn't manage it all and have any kind of a life left.   Like the life where I make these little creatures...

The lighting wasn't great for this shot (it was almost six o'clock) so I'll have to get some better ones the next time I'm home during the day.  But here's a little preview of my latest lady... I'm thinking I'll call her Zoe.  She'll go in the shop later this weekend when I've managed to get some better photos.   Over the weekend I also experimented with photoshop, trying to figure out a way to produce prints of my dolls that might be interesting.  I came up with something like an old vintage photo or  daguerreotype, and this is the first one I was happy with:

Finally, as a little homage to the course I was sad to drop and hope to take sometime in the future when things aren't so hectic, I'm including an image of the first page of the original Beowulf.  By all accounts it is a rollicking good time: knights, dragons, ogres, slayings...those  Old English really knew how weave a good yarn...

My goodness - it all looks rather shocking, doesn't it? Poor Grendel - just trying to live a monstrous existence...

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind, and as usual I am annoyed with myself for letting my blog fall by the wayside when life gets crazy.  Another school years has begun and my schedule is intense: I'm teaching a undergraduate composition course, and having sixty eyes stare at me for an hour-and-a-half twice a week is certainly a powerful impetus to work hard.  It's also a huge amount of marking, as the students are supposed to hand in multiple drafts of several different essays.  Then I have my thesis and my own courses to contend with; fascinating but demanding (more on those later).  So.  All aplologies... My blog has suffered but I will keep trying to do better!  Here are a few ladies I finished this week:

Voilá Bebe. (Hmm...can't get that accent to go the right way.)  Some of you might remember way back when I went to labcab and found this lovely black and white poster:

It inspired me to make a doll using only black, white and shades thereof, and Bebe is the result.  She is another of my 'deconstructed' dolls, as she has no legs; she is supported by a wooden stand, which is covered by her skirt.

I'm pleased to present Agatha, the (almost) finished doll/figure that was just a head in the picture in my last post.

I loved doing this deconstructed idea, as it gave me a lot more freedom when costuming.  Her bodice is made from handmade paper that I affixed with modge-podge, and her skirt is a series of covered wire hoops and ribbon ties.  I also like the fact that she can stand on her own, so that she really feels like a display piece.  And, to my childish glee, I figured out a way to make a parasol so that it can actually open and close and be shaped however one might like thanks to the wire supports along the spines of each panel.

Just mucking about with photoshop for this picture below...Usually I find it horribly crass and obnoxious and depressing when stores start advertising holiday products months before the actual holiday.  It used to be just Christmas, but now it seems the that Valentine's decorations go up on Boxing Day, and then, on Feb. 15th,  there are great big bunnies being shoved in your face.  But when it comes to one holiday, I start thinking early...I think you know!  I'm already dreaming up all manner of mummies and ghosties and witchy-types for that one glorious, freaky day and it is only September 1st...do you despise me?  I'm sorry - I can't help myself.  So here is a ghosty version of Agatha...

...as well as my beloved ghost doll from October Effigies...

...and two rather ghoulish offerings from Dame Darcy:

I've also fallen in love with Emily, the Mummy Girl made by the very talented Colleen of Loopy Boopy.  The poor girl has been shut up in tomb, and yet she still looks quite sweet, like someone you could have a nice cup of tea with.

Happy September, everyone!

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.