Lady Hara of the Green Leaf - PaperArtsy

May I introduce her ladyship Lady Hara of the Green Leaf to you? This hare art doll is my most recent creation for PaperArtsy. This time the blog topic was "Books and Journals". As you can see, I did the topic with a twist! 

Lady Hara is done using an old book in four ways. Can you spot all the places where the book is used? I guess the skirt is quite visible and obvious, as well as the little book she's holding, but the two others might be a bit harder to spot. The stomacher part of her dress is done using a book spine and the Medici styled ruff edging the neckline is a tape transfer of the book pages. 

If you want to read more about her and see the creative process, please head over to PaperArtsy blog. I've written a long post (link) about her there! Also, keep an eye on my Instagram (link) as I plan to share a couple of Reels from this make. 

Thank you for stopping by today! Wishing you a lovely day!

Materials: PaperArtsy, Fimo

Julia bunny - an art doll

It's Maundy Thursday and time to share the other Easter bunny. Yesterday I shared the matron, the mother and today I'm sharing the daughter bunny. 

Like I wrote yesterday, I sketched the two bunnies to have stylized epoch robes. The strict matron got a 16th century, Elizabethan inspired gown with darker tones, but the daughter has a lighter color scheme and look. When I say stylized epoch, I really mean _stylized_. It's more fantasy, but somehow this muddle of styles still echoes early Italian Renaissance to me and the other one reminds Elizabethan rigid court costume.  

Julia bunny has a ruff, like her mother, but her only decoration is the two bows on her sleeves. The mother (link), however, wears long gold chains around her neck and even a big drop-shaped pearl. I added hints of European hare coloration to Julia's head with the added darker areas. 

These dimensional dolls are quite tricky to photograph! In my opinion, they look better in real life than in photos. I'm planning on posting a couple of Reels about them on my Instagram, so maybe you'll get a better look that way.

I'm happy how the pair turned out, but still need practice in sculpting. Luckily, I already have a new idea for a doll and hope to start making her during summer vacation the latest! I first liked the matron bunny more and I like the jewelry pieces she has, but I also love the lightness of this Julia one. Which on of the two is your favorite - the mother or the daughter? 

Thank you for stopping by today and peaceful Easter time! 

Materials: Fimo, PaperArtsy

Matron bunny - an art doll

Hello there and happy Easter week! This week is a bit different blogging-wise. Usually there's a post each Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, but this week the Friday is Good Friday, so it's just two posts. Instead of the usual days I decided to put the posts closer to Easter and publish on Wednesday and Thursday. The posts are quite alike, too. I'm sharing two Easter bunnies!

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have noticed a sneak peek of these art dolls some time ago. I've had the urge to do more dolls since I did the crow and the great tit ones for PaperArtsy (link). The only hinder in the process was deciding what character to do, if you don't count the ever present time issue. Suddenly, when thinking about projects for March, it hit me - Easter bunnies! I did a quick sketch and on my next day off  I hit the fabric store to get the materials for the garments.

From the sketch already, I drew the bunnies in a stylized epoch garments. The other one was more 16th century, Elizabethan inspired robe and the other one had an air of early Italian Renaissance. The gowns are made using cotton-linen mix and like the bird dolls, I made the heads using polymer clay. 

After shaping and baking the heads, I added some paint on top, too. Unlike the birds, I made the bunnies with aluminum cord hands, so they can be manipulated to different positions. The fun part was making the costumes! I mixed stitching using machine and by hand on those. 

I do like how the two turned out, but the heads could be neater. Luckily each project teaches you something and I now have better understanding of the clay and what I want. I also got excellent advice from my super-talented co-worker, who uses polymer clays all the time to sculpt the most amazing dragons (her Insta).

I'm sharing this matron bunny today and the daughter one tomorrow, so hopefully you'll be back! Thank you for stopping by today!

Materials: Fimo, PaperArtsy

Mrs. Kraai, the doctor's wife - PaperArtsy

Yesterday you got to meet Mr. Kraai and today I have his wife to show, Mrs. Kraai. Like I mentioned yesterday, they both are made for PaperArtsy and you can see the original post here (link) at PaperArtsy's blog.

Yesterday I also wrote how I saw the crow character immediately. I then wanted to make another one, too, but for her my jumping off point was color. As the crow character was totally black, I wanted a bird that was at least somewhat black, too, but had another shaped head. First one to pop into my head was a great tit and I went with that. Could you guess her species? The coloring is quite delicate, so you might have missed it.

I enjoyed this art doll project so much! When I was studying in Turku Polytechnic, I had one class about different theater dolls and during that course I did a marionette. Even if the construction is much simpler in these, it's fun to see how far I've become when it comes to the shape and character. These two birds sparked something inside me and I intend to make more of these in the future. Maybe it's even connected to the story part that started to evolve in my head - I love to conjure stories! Maybe I'll make them some relatives next, or who knows, maybe a whole family tree!

Again, if you want to see the process more in a step by step form, please visit PaperArtsy blog (link). You can find a bit more info about the materials there, too.

Thank you for stopping by today! Wishing you a fabulous Thursday!

Materials: PaperArtsy, Fimo by Staedler, Tsukineko, GelliArts

Mr. Kraai, the doctor - PaperArtsy

Hello! Come and meet Mr. Kraai, the doctor. I made him and his wife for PaperArtsy's "Art Dolls" topic. You can see the original post here (link).

The figure of a crow headed character was my first thought when I started thinking about art dolls. You don't have to look far for the reason of the crow - it's my favorite bird and I've done several pieces with this flying creature as you might remember. One of them is even this canopic jar looking crow headed character (link), which has quite the same basic shape as the doll. The other previous crow piece, which has some things in common with this project is this amulet piece (link). It's painted on top of thick felt, embroidered and then cast in resin.

So, the crow part we've covered, but where did the idea of the pale human hands come from? I mean I didn't think even for a minute to make wings or anything other than translucent, pale hands for the characters. I can only think it coming from the Finnish artist and print-maker Outi Heiskanen, who made etchings of hybrid creatures. I visited Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, a couple of years ago when she had a big retrospective there. I especially recall a horse-head character with a black dress and very delicate, elegant hands. The artist re-used and combined her plates, so there's several pieces with the same character. The hands are not clearly seen in this version (link) I found from the Finnish National Gallery collection archive, but I guess that's better than just my words.

The characters I created also have another Finnish source. Another artist and print-maker, in fact, Kirsi Neuvonen. Among other topics, she makes prints with fantastic dresses. The shape of the dress is always simple, but the skirt is decorated elaborately. You can see some of the dresses here (link) on her web page. The idea of decorating the dresses of the character can be traced here. The shape of the garment the dolls are wearing is very simple, a rectangle to be honest, but the patterns and especially embroidery turn them into something precious, even something regal.

I was debating whether or not to include a ruffle to these characters through the whole process. I made some sketches before starting with and without a ruffle around their necks and was leaning towards not adding one when I started the actual making process. During it I changed my mind and wanted to highlight the Baroque feel of the characters. This silhouette of a black dress with an elaborate ruffle is something I've used before, too. In this statuette (link) I used air-drying clay as the sculpting material and used tea bags as the ruffle. I've always loved Rococo period, but it seems Baroque is way more presented in my art!

One more thing, like TV character Lieutenant Columbo. I want to share how I incorporated the quarter theme of "Transparent" in my project. The first idea was to include little wings to the characters. Even though I was thinking about birds, I didn't want to include feathered wings but instead something more delicate. Scrapcosy stamp set with beautiful blooms for the dresses and butterflies for the wings seemed the perfect pairing to these characters! I wanted to highlight the delicate nature of the wings by making them translucent and used a transparency as my substrate. I also made the paints more transparent and even included a translucent polymer clay in the make. 

If you want to see a step by step version of the making process, please visit the PaperArtsy blog (link)! I've tried to open the process even more there.

Thank you for stopping by today! Wishing you a fantastic week!

Materials: PaperArtsy, Fimo by Staedler, Tsukineko, GelliArts

Introducing Tom and Pom

Boo! Did you get scared? No need, these two guys are friendly even if they might be a bit scary looking. My husband named them Tom and Pom. They were made for a Halloween collection at Artful Academy (back then Mixed Up Creative) and you can see the course here (link). Nowadays they live at the editor-in-chief and owner of the Artful Academy Katy's house.

I've done some art dolls before these but they all were a part of a canvas or had another kind of background to support them. When thinking of what to do to this collection, I saw some little paper mâché pumpkins and an idea sprung into my mind to turn those into little characters. One of my favorite Halloween -styled films is The Nightmare Before Christmas so I took some inspiration from that. 

On top of the paper mâché pumpkin the dolls are made out of air-drying clay, pipe cleaners and some other elements. If you want to see a step-by-step tutorial to them, you need to enroll to the collection! There's five video tutorials and four step-by-steps in the collection!

Have an inspiring weekend! Thank you for stopping by today!

Materials: Prima Marketing, Sinelli

Tiny art doll - GDT Paper Garden

Hello there! Long time no see! Today I'm sharing something a bit different. It's a guest project done for Paper Garden, a Finnish online shop (link). Namely I had the privilege and honor to get a lovely box of treasures from Paper Garden and created several projects using the content. You can see the unboxing of my parcel of goodies in a video form below.

For this first project I created a tiny little art doll out of a clothes pin. Even though the box was filled with gorgeous vintage papers and old book pages, I wanted to think outside of the box and use the sweet little wooden peg to create something. The shape was totally that of a ballet dancer as it seemed the pin was on pointe. 

I started the project by adding an eyelet screw to the top of the pin, so I could use the little doll as a decoration. Then I painted the top and bottom with acrylic paint, collaged some paper for the top and used seam binding to make the tutu styled skirt. I also added some fluffy hair, lace pointe shoes and a little lace crown to the doll. I recorded a video while working with the project, so you can see what I did. 

I hope you liked my first project with the box! I’ll be sharing more gradually. 

Thank you for stopping by today! Have a great Thursday! 

Materials used from Paper Garden:

Paper Garden Vintage Paper bundle 

Prima Marketing Brush set 

Prima Marketing Heavy Gesso White 

Prima Marketing Soft Matte Gel

Materials: Paper Garden, Prima Marketing