A new kind of gourdie doll...

Just playing around this weekend, and decided to use a gourd as the head for a rag doll.  For some reason I literally dreamed about doing this, so I figured I'd best give it a try.  What do you think?  She's a little sweet for my taste, but it was an interesting exercise.

The body is two piece construction, gathered around the "small end" of the upside-down bottle gourd.  Stuffed with raw cotton, rags, and bee-bee's in her butt to weight her so she sits upright unaided.  Her hair is a wig sewn of yard and glued on.  I didn't use any paper clay--there was a bump on the gourd just right for her nose.

I like to think if a mom back in the pioneer days were trying to make a doll for her daughter, she might have made one sort of like this.  She'd probably do a much better job on the dress and bloomers, and she'd have had to figure a different way to paint the face, but they did have oil paints, stains, dyes, and pencils.  This dolly is just under 11" tall, which surprised me, because she seems so small sitting in my hand...

Maybe there's just too much.

Lately I've been wondering why I've leaned more and more toward the old antique dolls and toys--the nostalgia of rag dolls and wooden puppets and such.  I really don't care about Barbies, although I absolutely loved mine when I was a girl.  Surely some of it is due to the calendar ticking off birthdays...47, 48, 49.

But yesterday, as I was wondering through the thrift shop, I went over to the toy area...which in most any thrift store I frequent is HUGE and chock full of almost brand new, fluffy, stuffy, toys.  Not just bears and dolls, of which there are an amazing number, but every imaginable stuffed critter, in every color and size.  Plastic toys line the isles, and in some cases are so numerous the store bags them in lots to clear them out faster.  Look at 90% of them and you'll find "Made in China".

It occurred to me that part of my longing for rag dolls and hand-carved wood stems from this waste, this easy-come-easy-go flood of cheap imported crap.  Don't misunderstand me--I'm grateful that the thrift stores have these things for families who can't afford to buy new.  I bought my share of it as a single mother of three.  But so many of the toys seriously looked brand new!  Never played with?  Really?  Why?  Is it the soul-less nature of the mass-produced toy that makes it so unappealing?  Or is it that our kids literally have so much stuff they can't play with it all?  Out with last year's pile and in with this year's pile?  Or maybe it's this month's pile...

I don't see how me making antique-inspired dolls and fabric animals is going to help, since the market for them is mostly women my age.  I can't stem the tide of imported junk OR help repair decades of increasingly rampant consumerism and qualitative apathy.

Normally I avoid a rant, avoid negative posts, and try to keep things on the high side.  But right now, I think I'm going to go sew a rag doll and imagine one of my grandkids would actually like to have it, play with it, and love it longer than a week.

Monday Morning Philosophies

My morning began at 1:00 a.m. because I couldn't sleep. Then I had coffee, which didn't help.  Well, it did help, because by then it was time to get up anyway.  But overall, I had more than the usual amount of wool-gathering, net-surfing, and laundry hauling time on my hands. 

Old picture...Jan making Duck Lips.   Maaaaaybe too much coffee.

1. Being a forgetful coffee drinker has probably given me more walking exercise than I ever got at the gym.  I have walked miles in my lifetime looking for my coffee cup.
2. There are many people on Etsy who really don't know what Vintage means.  I prefer to think they really don't know, because the alternative is less pleasant.
3.  One of the best ways to derail a good night's sleep after the midnight potty-break is to get thinking of the day's To Do list. 

Hope your Monday--and the rest of your week--is fabulous.

Mmmm, tomatoes...

With my job recently leaning toward a 60/30/10 split right now (that is the real estate to housework to art ratio) I am especially grateful for a few days of cooler temps and actual rain--so the garden can sort of tend itself a short while.  Last Thursday's half an inch might not have been enough, but it was something and the landscape breathed a big sigh of thanks.

Apparently the tomato plants were happy about it too.  They smell so good, still warm from the sun...

Works in Progress

I've been working on an idea.  The doll's head is paperclay over an armature, w/ dowel neck and wooden bodies.  The arms and legs are wood dowel, carved, or w/ paperclay hands/feet (or paws, hooves, etc.).  Much like Sydney Cat (sidebar) they will dangle loosely when picked up, will sit unaided but require a stand to, well, stand, and they will have a sort of modern folkart look about them.  That is the aim.  I picture a folk art toy, like the ones made back in the day when kids took care of their toys because new toys were few and far between.  I realize I can't market these as toys, this day in age, but that's the image I have in my head...

Here are a couple of pictures of the work so far...way early in its raw stages.  There are four girls, two boys, and a goofy fellow who will someday wear a bow tie just under his adam's apple.  There are also a cat, bunny, and donkey w/ eyes like the cat girl, but they didn't make it to the photo shoot.  Click twice to zoom, as always.

Lots of sanding, more painting (sooo much more painting), arms and legs made, costumes researched and sewn.  I love my job.

Still more to learn about the face shapes and features of the real antique dolls, I'd love to re-create the effect of the mid-nineteenth century mache head dolls w/ cloth bodies.  That's the next project, ahem, when I finish this one.  :~)

Crackle anyone?

Today was my turn to post on Art Dolls Only blog, the not-so-regular Tips and Tricks Friday post.  So, having asked Moriah Betterly of MLB studios if she's up for sharing her two part Crackle Tutorial (and receiving a hearty "Sure!"), I figure I'll share it here too. 

Part One...

and Part Two...