A Leash of Foxes, Oh My

 Although my first love in making dolls remains fabric, I do enjoy working in polymer clay using techniques I learned from the amazing Kate Church.

This strange year I was searching you tube and came across some short videos made by Kate Church on sculpting a wee fox.  Well I had to try and one fox became two, became three and so on and so on...  Here are the leash of foxes I made three of which have gone to good homes and one which is on its way to our Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry (in appreciation for the calm and compassionate way that she has guided this province during this Covid epidemic).

Enjoy!

I have moved on to making cloth bunnies from vintage linens based on the work of the incredible Mr. Finch.  I will be posting them next week. Until then, keep safe.

Two Giraffes and a Fox, oh MY

My goodness but time in a crisis does fly.  I have been keeping busy with my art dolls and wooly critters.  I am sharing my giraffes and fox: the first is Raj, an eastern Prince who loves his marionette and long walks in the gardens.  He is all cloth, gessoed and painted with glass eyes.  I made his costume using a sari top that I had in my stash from a thrift store.

The giraffe is my own pattern with inspiration from Marj Gorman

The marionette is from a Karen Shifton pattern

The second giraffe is a country gentleman who loves walking in the wood and foraging for mushrooms.  He is an avid reader and lover of good food and drink. He sits about 16" tall and in total is about 26", same as his eastern friend Raj:

Chilling without his jacket on

Ready to receive guests at his country home

The back of his embroidered jacket

This country gentleman is going to a good home in Duncan.  Finally, I made Mr. Frederick Fox a good friend of Gerome (the country gentleman).  He enjoys accompanying him foraging for mushrooms.  Once again, my own design and all cloth, gessoed and painted. As you can see, he sits about 10.5" and is about 18" in total.

These fellow were great fun to do and I may do more in the future!  I hope you enjoyed your visit.

Folk Art Dolls and Upcoming Doll Show

Well it is the start of a new year and I have fallen in love with making folk art dolls.  I found some great patterns on Etsy (Pixies Thimble by Cindy Conrad, and Sanker Studio by Brenda Sanker) and I went to town making animals.  They are all cloth, then gessoed and painted and antiqued with raw and burnt umber/coffee solution:

My Snow Bunny is made from a Brenda Sanker pattern

Mr Ollie, the carrot farmer, also made using a Brenda Sanker pattern

The remainder are from patterns by Cindy Conrad of Pixie's Thimble:

Frederick the Courting Froggie

Peanut and his friend Miss Emma

Miss Emma

Peanut

 All of these dolls and more will be in my upcoming solo show at the Coast Collective from January 31 to February 11 in Collwood (Victoria, BC). 

 I hope you come and visit if you are in the neighbourhood.

Black and White Challenge

Our doll club, the Cloth-a-dollics has a new challenge that is due tomorrow: create a cloth doll piece using only black and white and one colour.

For this challenge, I wanted to try something different, a primitive or "Prim" design so I chose a wonderful design by "Pixies Thimble" Etsy shop.  I did two dolls of course, in honour of Canada's 150 birthday: so black and white and red

They are quite large, at 21" seated and so have quite the presence.  I just loved making them.  I used a plain cotton fabric for the face and body and then used acrylic paint and markers for the details.  The arms and legs are make of cotton fabrics in black and white as are the clothes.  The colour I choose, of course was red in honour of the Canadian flag.

I was so thrilled with this fun project that I promptly made more "prim" animals once again using Pixie Thimble's designs.

First the sweet elephant, ready for her party:

 Next is the Froggie that is going "courting":

 Last, but with more to come, is the brown bunny that wants to show off his rather large radish: 

I had great fun using my cotton fabrics for the outfits and my acrylic paints to make sure the critters were just right in their features.

I want to use these techniques to make some Christmas ornaments in this "prim" style for something different than my usual (I will make my usual felt ornaments as well though!).

Bye for now.