Paper dolls continued...

I'm almost done with my block-printed "paper dolls" project.


Before I went to Julie Arkell's workshop in France, I drew an illustration of two toddlers making snow angels. From that illustration, I made some "block-printed paper dolls" of the children. My goal was to experiment...to make stitches into the paper and add more media to them.

This is what I brought with me to the workshop. At this point, I had only carved a block print (outlines of children) and then printed them on top of collaged paper and acrylic paint.


At the workshop I added fabric to some of the girls' hats and made suffolk puffs (little fabric flowers) for the hats, stitched yarn into the girls' coat collars, made pom-poms for the top of the baby's snowsuit, and glued ribbon onto some of the coats.


Here's the lot of paper dolls as of today. They are cut out and are fulyl clothed. Now all they need is a background. I knit mittens for most of the baby dolls, stitched seed beads into the girls's jackets, added more of the same things I added during the workshop, and lastly, painted their faces with watercolors.

Handmade gifts

There's nothing quite as special as receiving a gift that was made from a friend. I met Diane Foster at the Julie Arkell workshop in France. She lives in Manchester, England. Diane knows how to make just about everything. She takes workshops of all kinds whenever she gets a chance.

She calls the little glass and silver bobbles "dobbers". She even made one for Mabel but I've decided to keep if for myself. The pictures behind the glass are hard to see in my photograph but they are really crystal clear. There's one of Mabel and a suffolk puff I made in the workshop. There are even surprises on the backsides. I asked her how she made it and she said she soldered two flower arrangement glass drops together with lead free solder (with silver content).

The necklace has a great weight to it. I think I might never take it off...

A fairy in my studio

I noticed Samantha Bryan's mixed media sculpture when I was looking at an exhibit that included Julie's Arkell paper mache figures. Samantha also lives in West Yorkshire, England. I immediately fell in love with her fairies. My family got this fairy for me for my birthday. This piece is titled, "Brain's Pre-flight stretch fairy" and on the base it reads "Participating in pre-flight stretching procedures."