I am taking a year long healing doll class with Barb Kobe again this year. You can read more about this here
At the beginning at this long healing proces, we are invited to make 3 paper dolls:
The Creative Guardian,
The Original Inner Creative
The Inner Critic
I used Barb´s pattern for this paper doll, and spent a whole afternoon searching for a photo of myself that looked kind and supporting. My printer is almost dead, so the quality of the print was poor. Somehow it printed my face in blue all the time, so I I took a sheet of watercolorpaper and splashed a lot of acrylic ink on it: blue, green and purple colors.
The paper doll look´s allright, but I struggle with the face. (Inner critic is jumping up and down). It is over decorated. I mean, I can print a new face and glue it on top, but for now I´ll just keep the first one.
It is a new face. Much more color. And it looks brave.
Very interesting....
The text is a page from Louise Hay´s calendar: One positive affirmation a day. I kept them, and use them for different purposes, like this.
The background is just a acrylic painting on a piece of paper that I´m working on.
You can purchase the Barb Kobe Inner Selfie ebook at this link: Inner Selfie
Still working on this project. My paperclay made some cracks, so I had to put some more diluted paperclay on the doll. After that, I sanded them all down, untill det studio was covered in fine white dust ;-)
After sanding the dolls, I changed my mind aabout the wolf´s fur, and covered his whole body in a very string joint compound and made some structure looking like fur. After sanding them again, I painted the base coat using some cheap acryliv paint.
Tip: I have a lot of acrylic paint, and I usually use the cheap quality for priming and basecoats. I like to paint with very expensive paint, so I am not using that for that.
Tomorrow I will sand the paint again and perhaps give it another layer. Then I´m going to start painting the faces.
I had an idea today. I was thinking about hair and accessories as eg a crown. How to make then stay ontop of the head? I think I want to try to drill a hole in the head, and make wigs that have a stick that fits the hole. Small crowns can also fit in the hole. I must think about how to make that. It really could work, because these dolls are going to be moved, and I don´t want to worry about things falling of the doll. That kinda ruins the magic, don´t you think?
Now, I´m off to bed. I must get up early tomorrow, because I have an very early appointment with a speech therapist ;-) I need to learn how to breath properly ;-) I´ll tell you more about it later...;-)
I´m home alone tonight. Hanging out in the basement studio, having fun with paper clay, watching The Sopranos on HBO (mostly I just listen to the tv) and waiting for my frozen vegetarian pizza to come out of the oven ;-).
Tonight I´m working on a witch bust project. I recently found these nice old wooden thread spools in a gift shop, and I bought them to make the busts. I´m planning on 3 pieces, and right now I am working out the wooden armature. I found this picture from Moonhallow Vintage:
This is the style I´m going for. My dolls never look like the one on the picture, but you get my basic idea.
I used the wooden thread spoole, flowerstick. white woodglue and some news paper.
I use the newspaper to stabilize the flowerstick inside the thread spoole.
A rubber band is also holding the wooden ball in place while the armature is drying.
Good evening! I havn´t been around much lately, because I´m not doing much work in the workshop in my basement ;-) I´m studying norse mythology these days ;-). My great interest in shamanism and druism has got a new perspective, and I feel great satisfaction in finding similarities and commmnn grounds. You see, I never really got any good at being a new-age-native-american-wanna-be ;-) But still I am drawn to the earth based pagan belief systems like shamanism. I recently found a lot of information about the ancient nordic shamanic practices like seidr, and this is very interesting for me, because it is much more in my own spiritual dna, so to say.
Here is a link to an article about the subject.
Very well, I wanted to tell you about my new doll. I am sculpting a earth goddess doll. I have been working on the body proportions and her armature, and as always, I am split between making her anatomical correct, or just making the doll using eyesight and intuition.
I started with some drawings, and allready I had problems deciding. I started with the body proportions as used by Andrew Loomis, but she wasn´t right... She was to skinny, to masculine and not very earth goddess like at all.
I made my own drawing, following the "rules" of body proportions, but she still didn´t look right. I then decided to change her: larger breasts (she is an fertility goddess afterall!!), longer neck, bigger head, hands and feet, and a bit longer torso. I remembered that, I liked my dolls looking like dolls, and not to realistic hahahahah. I seam to get caught up with my desire to create something very correct, but it isn´t really me! It is just my ego wanting to make art that looks like it is made by an grown up, and not a 40 year old childlike soul ;-) One shouldn´t fight ones own style, right?
Here is what I came up with:
My cat Julie is allways following me in the workshop ;-) Isn´t she beautiful?
Here is my armature finished. It isn´t very complicated, it is just the way Wendy Froud makes it on her tutorial. I never made the armature this way before, so I am excited to learn if it is functional and sturdy. It is made by strong steel wire, covered in masking tape, with tinfoil in the head and torso. She will be covered and sculpted with polymer clay.
This is what I have for tonight. I will be working more with this doll in the days to come, so stay tuned. Remember to get the feeds on your reader!
I like to make uncomplicated projects from time to time. This is one of them:
I sewed it in some white muslin (I think) It was just an old piece I had lying around. I found the pattern here: Emma Hall Art. It is quite easy and very well explained.
On the first picture the fox is sewed and covered in white gesso. I don´t think the artist behind the pattern did that. I did it to make more fur strukture. My gesso was old and a bit lumpy ;-) Perfect for this project!
I like him! What do you think?
I have had a thing for foxes for quite some time. The painting in the background is also including a fox, and a raven!
Just a quick update! I´m painting the medicin doll. I am trying to keep her pale, feminin look. I´m trying to create a celestial look, but not some pale vampire look ;-) I´ll add some hair tomorrow. Sometimes the doll changes completely when it gets hair. I´m thinking long purple hair. What do you think?
Good evening! I´m back, after a couple of busy days, filled with family visits, a trip to an annual medieval festival in Horsens (where I bought a slingshot, and I am going to learn how to shoot/throw with it!!), a Sunday in sleepwear and studying. After a couple of years of working in the kindergarden, I am going back to school part time to take a degree in art and aesthetics. It is very fun, but also a bit exhausting. I need to remember to retreat to my studio, just to breath and let my thoughts run free, without having to relate to anyone. This is how I generate energy.
Tonight I´m back to working with my medicin doll: The Guardian. She is really starting to grow on me! It feels like something inside is communicating itself out to me. I have no idea if this doll making process is nothing more than my imagination running freely, making everything up along the way, making me believe a little, that there really are universal benign forces, looking down on me, encouraging me to keep on working with her. And does it really matter?
I have problems with my perfectionism. I tell my self all the time that this is NOT an art doll, but a medicin doll. I don´t know why I keep on remembering myself that there is a difference, because in fact, there are no rules when it comes to dollmaking. I can do what I want. But to me, it feels safer to work in this manner, because the art doll is made for display, but the medicin doll is made from the heart. In order to work with the heart, I try to keep my focus on the doll´s feeling, and not so much how it looks. But it is rather diffecult. I like perfectionism.
I realized that in my last post I made a mistake. I wrote that the human hands are the same size as the distance from the chin to the top of the head, but this is off course wrong. The hands would be to big. I´m sorry about that. It has been too long since I made a doll. The correct size is from the chin to the forehead hairline. See this link
I decided to paint her body a beautiful dark Prussian Blue. This color symbolizes in my opinion pure femininity and it symbolises feminine power rising. I will paint swirling waves in silver on her body. This will symbolize the waves of creation.
I like her white pale face, but somehow that look also make her a bit distant. I will start the painting process tomorrow evening. Right now I am working with a image of her much like a snow queen. As I am writing this, I am listening to one of my female muses and great heroines in life: Clarissa Pinkola Estés. She is talking about the story: "The Snow Queen" (The Joyous Body). Isn´t that fascinating? Is that synchronicity, or what? My nightly dreams also show different aspects of both my feminin shadow and power.
This process is fascinating. Medicin dolls are fascinating ;-)
Some pics:
Good evening, I´m back as promised with som work in progress of how I sculpt hands.
I am not really good at sculpting hands. Really. Not any good. I find it very very hard and challenging. Polymer clay is a bit easier than paperclay, but over all I think the hands are the hardest part to sculpt.
Continuing from yesterdays decision, I am not trying to make it perfect. This is a medicin doll, not an art doll.
Okay, first I roll the clay like this:
Then I divide the clay in two:
I make sure that the hands have the correct size. They should be the same length as the face. In my case 5 cm (2")
Then I cut the fingers halfway down:
And then I start to sculpt. This process is hard to describe. I´m not really any good at it as I said, but I try and try, and at some point I get a hand that I can accept. Then I add a thumb on both hands.
I totally forgot to take pictures after this, but here is the result. I am going to sand a lot tomorrow night, in order for those fingers to look a bit more slender and elegant ;-)
The paperclay was dry tonight, so I was able to start sanding and thereafter fill some of the cracks with diluted gesso. It works just fine on those very tiny cracks.
After sanding her, I started to become unsatisfied with her closed eyes. Her eyelids are too thick! I tried to sand them down a bit, but it didn´t work. I tried two different drimmel tools but neither one worked. I decided to love the eyes anyway. I try to supress my urge to start over and make better eyes....
I am making this doll both a bit primitive and detailed. I want her face and hands to be very detailed, and the rest of her body to be quite primitive. Making something primitive is really hard for me, and I admire those who work intentionally in this way. I always try to make something better and better, an making it primitive feels all wrong, even though I just love the style when others make it!!
A dollartist once said that one should not fight one´s own style, and I think there is much truth in that statement. A big part of the creative journey is to find ones own style, so why fight it?
Very well - my artdoll is not an artdoll, but a MEDICIN doll, so I try to brake all my own rules of perfection, an just go along with my feeling more that my head.
After adding the gesso, I drilled a hole through her wooden body and pulled a rope through the hole. This will be her shoulders and arms. She will stand with her arms hanging down, but I like the mobility in the arms. I also made some breasts with Magic Sculpt. She is partly mother earth, so large breasts will be appropriate ;-) The Magic Sculpt will be rock hard tomorrow.
Well, enough for tonight. Tomorrow I will make her hands, and I will show you how I do that. See you there?
It has been a while since I´ve updated this blog. I haven´t had much time for creative projects lately, but now I am back with new adventures!
As many of you know, I just love dolls. I have always love to make them, and I also spend a lot of time admire other artists work. There are so many talented artists out there, and many, many collectors of their beautiful art.
I´m not quite like that. I don´t particularly like having them displayed in my house just as nice decor. To me, they are personal and part of myself. It looks like, that I just have a hard time making dolls, or other kind of art projects, if it is not deeply personal. I can´t change that. Perhaps it´s just not who I am. Perhaps I am doomed in this way, because it means that every piece of art I produce is made with blood, sweat and tears.
Sometimes it feels like a birth-giving process. I get an idea (fertilized), I work with the idea in my imagination and collect materials for making it (pregnancy), I create the character with a lot of hassle (labor and finally birth, if I´m lucky). At first, I feel very attached to the the doll, like a mother with her newborn child.
I fall in love with it, and want to have it close to me all the time. Silly, I know, but it it´s true. I also have a hard time parting with it. It feels like I am parting with a piece of my own heart. It can also feel very intimate to discuss my art with people. They are talking about a nice piece of creative art, but I´m talking about my inner feelings like stress, love, anger, hate, sorrow, longings and more.
Sometimes I´d wish I could make lots and lots of art and just sell everything fast and easy, without hesitation. That would be so easy. Just to have fun making it.
My art is not like that at all. Like I said, it´s blood, sweat and tears.
During the proces of making a e.g. doll, I travel inside and explore often unknown aspects of myself. Sometimes something shows up, and I don´t know where it comes from. Did I really make that? Who am I really, if I can make this? Questions like that.
At the beginnning, I often get carried away by old stories, myths, fairytales, old paintings, music and lyrics, poems and so much more. Very often lyrics actually. The first time I heard "Princess of China" by Coldplay, my head just exploded with ideas for painting, just after hearing the line "You stole my star".
I had like 10 paintings in mind just like that in 10 seconds! Music often do that to me.
The hard part is to actually go downstairs to my studio, sit down in front of my easel and get started.....
I have had this idea, that dollmaking could be a like a therapeutic process, but I didn´t know how to find a tutor, or any litterature to guide my process. Untill I found it it ;-) I found a tutorial by Barb Kobe, purchased it, and now I am making dolls again. Barb Kobe calls it medicin dolls. I couldn´t believe my luck!
In her tutorial, besides a lot of exercises in unlocking the creativity, she teaches how to make 4 different medicin dolls. The first one I am making is "The Guardian". This is a doll that will protect me while I am going deeper into my shadowself. I have had a hard time making her. I have an endless amount of excuses. I´m the queen of procrastination! I have soo much resistance, even though I really, really want to make her. Do you sometimes feel like that too?
One of my problems, is to choose how to make her. I have a tendancy of being a perfectionist, and it is really a terrible drag! I have it all in my head, but I would like to just sit down and make the god dammed doll with any crafting materials I have lying around, but no, not this person. I will sit and look at the sketch, long for the feeling of clay in my hands, jump around cheering, because I love some fabric or whatever, but keep on hesitating instead of just go ahead and do it.
This Guardian doll has kept me on my toes for some time now. I learn så much about my self during this process.
So, now I am in labor. I am to give birth to my medicin doll. She is a universal protector from another dimension. A beautiful blend of mother earth, a galactic warrior, vulnerable as a butterfly but brave as a raging tiger. She stands with her eyes closed, dwelling into the Infinite Light, but still alert, in case I need her. I welcome her wholeheartedly into my artistic process and life.
2 years ago, I attended a course in puppetry, at a very famous puppet theatre here in Denmark, called Teater Refleksion.
Tonight, my puppet is all finished! Can you believe that? After I finished the construktion of the doll, I left it for a very long time....I guess I was a bit scared of finishing it alone, because I was worried that I would destroy my perfect puppet ;-)
Here are some photos of the process:
This was my idea. I wanted a puppet, that would look like a little boy.
The head was sculpted with treemass, and glass eyes.
The torso was carved in balsawood
He is looking soo cute!
Legwork. You wouldn´t believe the amount of work involved with that....
Here he is! I liked him like this too!
Puppets like to hang out with famous people too. This he is with Boxy Georg.
More photos and poses:
I call him "Garnet". It is danish for "the yarn", and is a nickname because of his hair ;-)
I will use him in the kindergarden, as a puppet interacting closely with the children. I have this very old antique suitcase, as will be his "home". I can´t wait to start telling stories and playing with him infront of the children. He is very mobile and have so beautiful movements!!!
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