Dolls



Some people think they're creepy. Millions of little girls adore them. I have become fascinated by them, and over the holiday, I decided that I needed to learn how to make them myself. So lately, thats what I've been up to: making marionette like polymer sculpted dolls from scratch, with no experience, for my own, girlish enjoyment.

I really wasn't much into dolls as a little girl. I liked pokemon and dinosaurs. I mean, I had Barbies, and I had sisters, so I'm no stranger to it, I just prefered dinosaurs and dirt. This is me with my dinos, all dressed to the nines.

I'm super interested in my own childhood, and sometimes I see myself trying to recapture it in my art.  Jake's little niece was unwrapped Barbie after Barbie this Christmas. I helped free them from their boxes, and was designated to play the boyfriend doll. I started to really look at the things, and wonder how they were made. There was a lot of cool detail and intricacy. I began to look at them like little sculptures.

 If that wasn't enough, we rented Team America, which is Trey Parker and Matt Stone's super hilarious (although highly inappropriate) movie made with puppet things. Then I was hooked. I get this feeling sometimes where my hands begin to burn with a desire to make: I become desperate to gain the secret power of creating something I can't yet create. Its a thrilling want, the want to create. And I'm fortunate to feel it often. My hands were burning to make dolls. So, about a week ago, I went for it. Here's how I've been going about it.

  I had made some sketches on the airplane and was using them as a reference. I started by balling up tin foil as a sort of skeleton, and covering that with polymer. I just worked with it from there; sculpting features and forms with my fingers.

Like all good women, this lady is held together mostly by bobby pins. (Remember, I was mostly working with whatever I could find around the house.) Linking them together actually worked really nicely for creating joints, and they also helped strengthen the arms and legs. After the polymer was sculpted and set, I baked her at 270 for about a half hour, and sanded her down.

Then I got to have fun! I painted the whole doll with acrylic.

  

Once painted, I invented some clothes with spare ribbon. I would later learn to steal clothes from nasty old Bratz dolls that even the garage sale shoppers rejected.

To top her off, I stole from an old halloween wig so she could have some hair. She was a first attempt and a learning tool--rough for sure-- but I was very fond of my first doll. Jake was pretty creeped out by my new art project, and I got some fun out of that too. He said I ought to name her Eve, since she was my first doll.

My first-- but not my last. One of my favorite things about being an artist is allowing myself to follow my unbridaled imagination-- that is, letting myself do absolutely whatever I feel like. So now I have a Bollywood dancer, a ballerina-ish doll with fabulously pink Marge Simpson style hair, and, of course, Wonder Woman.

I kind of became fond of the semi creepy look that these dolls have. So I HAD to make a Michael Jackson doll.

I've only been a dollmaker for a week, but its been a cool week for sure. I hope to keep getting better and learning new ways to make these little guys. Next on my list is to make the entire Justice League in puppet/doll form, because that just sounds hilarious and awesome to me. I also may start taking commissions if this sticks with me. So. If you want a doll, holla!