What is an art doll?

I was looking at my posts and I don't believe I have addressed this question. An art doll is art being created within the medium of a doll. Dolls can be cloth, paper clay, polymer clay, sticks, grasses, stuff from nature. They are not meant for children's play things, but I'll bet some are kid friendly in that they don't have anything dangerous on them that would hurt a child.

The doll artist that pops into my head is elinor peace bailey. She is an incredible doll artist, but many of her dolls are very hands on friendly. She really doesn't treat them in a precious way. Whenever I have attended her classes and lectures she has them all over the classroom and she encourages you to pick them up. Elinor is very theatrical and colorful(if you have never seen a picture of her look at her site http://www.epbdolls.com ). She is the reason I began making dolls. I bought her book Mother Plays with Dolls. It is out of print now, but you can find it on amazon.com. She has a pattern of a Modular Doll(her name) that is so awesome and addictive to make. It is the doll equivilant of a blank canvas. I think I have made at 10 doll with that pattern. Thank you elinor!!! You rock!

So if you have never seen her work you must check it out.

Yes, I am making dolls. See.

Here are two dolls I am working on. There faces look very similar. I made the eyes even bigger than I normally do. I like it. When people know me they say all of my faces look like me. Well, all these years I've been drawing my face was the closest model I could get. I never quite know if the comment is just a harmless observation or if it is a compliment or insult. I can draw other faces, but I guess this is my most natural style. The doll with amber eyes is a bendi doll with a new head ( Bendi dolls are just so cheaply made). Here hair is made of feathers. I really like the way it came out. The other doll is completely made by me. Her hair is made of felt. I like the way it turned out so sleek.
I get into these bendi doll modes because the doll is made and I enjoy tinkering with the shape. I try to make it look very different fromt the original.

Our Round Robin in Doll Club

These are dolls are a part of a round robin we are doing in my doll club. We were working on the hair. The doll with brown hair belongs to a member who can't pariticipate for a while because of vision problems. Since that was the case I gave her clothes so she could go back to Sandy (we'll miss you) completed.

This is my cat, Stella, she loves to sleep on my fabric, so when I gathered up things for doll club in a basket she decided to have a nap there. Isn't she so cute.

Hooray for Mother's Day

These were some of my Mother's Day gifts. Bill made me homemade donuts! Yum!!

He got me this hilarious bottle of ale. Love it. My daughter picked out the little candle for me. It smells so awesome. Great Mother's Day.

These are goofy pictures. The first one is a picture inside my fairy tent on my birthday. The next day the wind blew my tent over and broke one side of the frame. I had to take it apart. Sigh.
I will be putting it back together again soon.

So the picture of me is with my newest aquisition, Sark's Nap Book. I am enjoying napping more in the last year, but I sometimes feel guilty and lazy. Well, I saw this book and I thought I could take a different view. Now I am going to work on my napping skills. Which brings me to the third picture. I blew up our air mattress and put many old comfy comforters and my t-shirt mish mash quilt on it. As you can see my dog and my son(yes, my son is Spider-man)are enjoying the nap nest I made. Just in time for the weekend. Now, I will nap and be inspired to make new and interesting dolls.

Learning more about my blog

Well, I finally have a counter and links to other blogs. Bill, my hubby, helped me update a bit. I might try to get a music selection on here also. Crazy! Ha Ha.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today, is my 41st Birthday. I thought 40 was weird, but now I am really and truly in my forties. Bizarre. I'm not sad, but it's weird because I usually don't feel like I am a "real" grown-up. Whatever that is supposed to be. I'll post pictures later of my 41 year old self.