inktober: a challenge to create an ink drawing every day in October and post it.

It is now past the half-way mark in inktober and I am still in it! I started out not having done an ink drawing before. Now I have done 16 of them. So I am still a beginner. At the start I thought I would use water-color paints as well to give color to the drawings.  However, I have not used water-color before and I realized that I had taken on too many new things at once.  Perhaps I will try again to add color in the second half of the inktober challenge.

The 16th drawing is of a cloth doll. Long before I started painting, quilting and making temari balls I used to make dolls. Most of them are long gone to other homes. This one has hung around.

She is a Victorian doll complete with white lace-trimmed petticoats. The doll is 35 cm tall. The face is embroidered. The dress is in blue satin and her necklace is a string of pearl beads.

Making dolls and stuffed animals was a lot of fun.

Mood Doll

This is another doll I made, probably the most complicated. It is a two headed doll that pictures two moods.

This picture shows how the two heads are combined into one doll.

The long skirts cover the head that is not being shown.  You change moods by turning the doll over.

The photo on the left shows the angelic mood and the one on the right the devilish mood.

The faces and hands on this doll are soft-sculpted – small invisible stitches are used to give shape to features on them.  In this case, the noses and chins and fingers are sculpted.

Making dolls and stuffed animals was very satisfying, but life happened. For a long time I did not do any fibre arts or painting of any kind. Looking back on those years of doll making has been good. I don’t know if I will ever make another soft-sculptured doll but anything is possible.