Playing Favorites: body & soul

&rew
http://urbanpaperarts.blogspot.com




Kneeling woman - carved from plaster poured into milk carton and then dipped in wax.





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Lisa Renner
http://lisarenner.com


This first one is a new project: Jack in the Box. I have been wanting to make a jack in the box for awhile because I had found these very cool, rusty bed springs at an antique store, and thought they would be perfect for that purpose. I had to search stores to find just the right sized doll head to use, knowing I would use old patterns to cover the head. And so it began...

My projects always seem to grow.. and grow... and grow... becoming way more in the end than I originally plan.


I had the idea of putting something different on each panel. I decided to put wax on one panel (because I just love working with it,) a mosiac for another, polymer clay for a third, and impressed metal on the 4th panel. One of my finds was the antique window latch, which, to me, looked surprisingly like a "crank", and thus it became one!


As time-consuming as this project became, I was happy with the way it turned out. This Jack in the Box sits on my entry hall table in front of a large mirror, so all the sides of the box can be seen.


The concept for this doll started with a spikey, rubber ball I saw at a friend's house. It was a party favor she bought for her 5 year old daughter. I immediately picked it up and begged for it. She asked why I wanted it so badly- I exclaimed, "It is a doll hat!". She, thinking I had gone over the deep edge, of course handed it over to me! (She is a very close friend!!) I knew immediately that this very cool, "ball" would become a very unusual hat for my doll, and I couldn't wait to get started.



The process for construction of the doll's body is a deviation of one of the doll classes I teach, using wire and foil.








Sometimes I sculpt my own faces for my dolls, using polymer clay. I also like to work with molds which I use as a starting place many times, for the faces for my dolls. I always alter the face by either opening or closing the eyes, reshaping the nose, changing the mouth, etc. so when the face is finished, it is usually nothing like the mold from which it started.
I named her Esmerelda because it just seemed to fit her.
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Leighanna Light
http://lklight.blogspot.com/
http://lklight.etsy.com

"Baby Got Balls" is one of my favorites because I used all of my most precious found objects, you know, the ones that we hoard & never want to use! The cage like thing that I used for the body was found on a beach in Virginia. It was actually part of a huge cage like thing that I dragged for miles down the beach, until I finally realized that there was no way that I was ever going to get thins thing onto an airplane! The round thing behind the head is part of a road sign from Germany & the head came from a hardware store in Fort Collins that was going out of business.


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Inge Bekaert
http://web.mac.com/pinkepinke/pinkepinke/Blog/rss.xml

handmade dolls :
I always loved children's books and when my children were little, the books of Ingrid and Dieter Schubert were my favorites ( beautiful watercolored drawings and a heartwarming story). I'm also addicted to fantasy ( I still am....) : fairies and elves, witches, gnomes and giants....so the little witch "Flatfeet" and pirate "Tough Willem" from the books of the Schuberts became 3-dimensional with selfhardening clay...A few elves are still waiting for paint and a body....