Medicin Doll

I have started working with making dolls on another level than before. I´m making medicin dolls and are attending a year long course with the wonderful teacher Barb Kobe. It is a wonderful proces.
This is the first doll in a series of 6. She is The Guardian. I haven´t come up with her name yet, but she is a very old, wise woman. She is the protector.
It has been a very special creative proces until now. I don't just make her out of my imagination. I ask myself through intuition, dreams and feelings. I try to work with the inner feeling guiding me in the direction of healing. This is the medicin doll way.

I am working with paperclay. The brand is Creative Paperclay. It is hard to find here in Denmark, so I have to order it from USA. That makes it very expensive, but I really like this clay, so it is worth the money. It hold the details nicely and becomes very hard and durable after curing.



I thought I would show you how I make hands. There are many ways of making hands, and for a long time, I found it very hard and frustrating, because it was difficult to make them identical. They never looked like my drawing. At a puppet workshop, I was tought to make the armature from styrofoam and small pipe cleaners. It is quite easy. At this picture you can see that I have cut out two identical small squares of styrofoam. This is the size of her palms. Then I cut the pipe cleaners in different lenghts. I use my own hand as reference. After this, I glue them into the styrofoam, and let it dry completely.

After it is dried, I take a little portion of the papierclay, and add some water to it in a little bowl. It becomes liquid, and then I paint it on the entire hand. After drying again, I can add small pieces of clay, and use my sculpting tool to smooth and sculpt the hand.

This dolls hands are supposed to be quite big, because they are a part of her symbolisme.

I will make her feets without the styrofoam, They need some weight. Perhaps I will put some lead in them. Don´t know yet.

This is not just an art doll. Itis not supposed to be sculpted entirely with clay. It has another purpose, and therefore I need to change my normal way of making it.

I like to make the body proportions correct. I am a little perfectionistic.
I think I have to throw this habit out the window in this creative proces, because it is not helping me much. Too much thinking is not helping. It is leading me astray.

I was thinking about this for some time. How could I let go of my perfectionisme, and insted try to follow the creative proces? Should I make her with just natural materials like twigs and such? Should I make her as a paperdoll? Would she be an abstract version? Symbolic? Surreal?

I had an inner picture of her, but my feelings kept telling me to go in another direction. My inner picture was an old hag, living deep in the ground, heavy, grey and with dark colored, coarse clothing. This was the doll I wanted to make. But my feelings kept on showing me another version: lighter, happier and much more colorfull. I saw bright blue and yellow with green. Not dark blue and grey.... This version had another feeling than the first one. I had a little difficulties changing my original idea... Do you know what I´m talking about here?
Killing your Darling is very hard, right? I could write a long blog post about that....

Of course I will follow my feelings. That is the sole purpose of my intention of making this medicin doll. Of course I will make her younger, lighter and brighter if my feelings are telling me to.

I decided to make the armature as I had planned, but head, hands and feet will not be anatomical correct. They will be enlarged. Her dress will be big, colorfull and decorated with all the symbols that this doll is trying to show me.

The armature is made with strong steel wire, covered with masking tape. When the feet are done and attached with the head and hands, I will cover the body in batting strips. Then she is ready for clothing. But this is all I have for today. Keep coming back for updates ;-)