Cloth Doll Making Explained

Today I have the final installment of the basics explained Enjoy!

Colours I love to use bright clear colours or black and white for the clothing on my dolls. That is my preference.

I think you should use the colours that Call to you on your doll. You will feel much more satisfied that way rather than forcing yourself to use fabric that you feel the need to use up! When I choose my colours I usually go to my stash and go through what I have. I pick one colour and then go through again and sort out one that I like to go with it. I mostly choose opposites. Ie Hot pink with bright yellow. But this information is for you, so you need to choose what you love! It is fantastic the variety that doll makers use. Some use lots of prints together (elinor peace bailey)

http://www.epbdolls.com

I love to use glitzy evening fabrics and silks and I also love to use Tyvek, paints and stamps and handmade felt and make my own fabrics as well using free machine embroidery and othere techniques. Some doll makers use mainly quilting cottons from Quilt shops. I use these sometimes as well. You have lots of time to play with all these fabrics and see what you love to use the most.

If you know of my designs, you will note that I absolutely adore bright colours. I love clear uncloudy colours. That’s probably one of the reasons and maybe one of the only reason is that I have never actually pursued making country dolls. I actually like the simplicity of country dolls and maybe one day I will make them and make them in bright colours, just for a change.

I find it really interesting that people actually believe, that colours can convey moods and feelings. Yellow for me means joy! What does that mean for you?.

Perception of colour is different for each of us. I like to put all clear bright colours together. I find this works really well, for me. When I was in San Francisco . I met a wonderful artist, who really thinks outside the box. She had actually studied colour, and obviously knew a lot more than I do about it. I tend to just go by my instincts and my intuition. Rosie told me that to make the bright colours, really bright and stand out you need to add a little mud and other words, the more muddy colours bring out the brights in the bright colours. I am forever learning, just like all of us. I love it.

Go with the colours you love, the ones that give you pleasure and make you feel joy. I believe that if we go with the joy in life then we are on purpose, and doing what we are meant to be doing

Faces To start I need to tell you that I am not naturally gifted at drawing, in fact my efforts to draw in the past have been downright dismal:-) When I first started to make dolls, I realized that although I had lots of experience with the sewing part and designing comes fairly easy to me, but my faces needed lots of work.

From time to time now, people in the doll world tell me they love the way I do my faces and in fact I have become known by my style, just shows you that anyone can improve a lot!

Because of my experiences, I am thrilled to be able to try to help.

I need to tell you that this learning process is one that will continue for ever. I am still having breakthroughs and learning as I go. I take as many “Face” classes as I can. I still want to retain my own “look” in my dolls but can always pick up more knowledge and techniques…just as you can.

I believe that a face can make or break a doll. I think if you have a lovely face but not so good doll body or clothes you get away with it. But nothing stands out more clearly than a badly painted face, even if the clothes and doll body is perfect! This is why it is so important to paint lovely and appropriate faces for your dolls.

I suggest that if you are serious about having lovely faces on your dolls you need to do the following.

1: Take as many Face classes as is possible online and live. If you are short of money then hunt out as many free lessons about drawing and colour on the internet as you can. Use your search engine to help you, I use Google and its very quick. Just type in “drawing faces”or similar and you will be amazed at how much information there is out there for free. It doesn’t have to relate to dolls at all.

2: Become serious about keeping a Face journal scrapbook, make it a priority.

Go through all your magazines and those of friends and family and rip out the face pictures cut them out and glue them into your book. Also have seperate sections just for noses, lips and eyes. Fill them up then use them for your studies.

3: Make an appointment with yourself once a week. Get out your calendar and mark off a couple of hours once a week just for you. Mark it AWM.. (appointment with myself ) .2pm-4pm. Tell no one what its all about. Let no one take that time from you. This is your time ! You deserve it:-) If someone asks you to do something for them at this time, just say sorry I have an appointment that I cannot break.

Make sure that you always have about 10 flat faces made up and stuffed and a few heads to practice sculpting on, this way you don’t have to spend your precious few hours actually sewing the heads.

On your ” play day”, take the phone off the hook and spread all your crayons and coloured pens and pencils out, get your face scrapbook and start drawing. These heads are not for making a doll with. They are only for you to play with and if they turn out terrible..no problem just date the back of them and throw them in a bag. These will be fabulous for looking back to see how far you have come.:-)

Try tracing over some of the face pictures you have. Play with the placement of the features. Try using crayons for blush…see if you like the texture etc. Play with bright colours, see how bright you can colour that face. Play play play and practice, practice, practice. You will be amazed and delighted at what you can achieve.

4: Always take a small blank notebook and pencil and eraser with you wherever you go. While waiting to pick up kids from sports or school, while waiting at the Drs or Dentists, play at drawing faces. Fill in all your spare waiting time by drawing faces. Also spend a lot more time observing peoples ears, eyes, nose placement, expressions, what does the face do when they smile???????? etc etc

I bet you will be good real soon:-)

I always remember what elinor peace bailey said at a faces class I went to of hers, she went to art school for 5 years and drew everyday. She said if we all did that for 5 years we would all be good at drawing. I believe this to be true.

Personally I have my favorite pens and pencils. I think as you have more and more experience you get to like certain tools and hate and discard others. I must tell you that I don’t think the most expensive are necessarily the best. I have covered what I use in the way of pens and pencils in the Tools section of this ebook

Embellishing

Embellishing to doll makers means to decorate or enhance or beautify! This is such fun to do. When you first start doll making you probably will not embellish much, but later on as you get more confident, embellishing may become your favorite part of the doll. It took quite a while before I started to use beading on my dolls, but now I love to bead them. I do choose larger beads than some, that’s because I get very frustrated threading those tiny eyes on the beading needles!

Exploring embellishing will take you places you never thought you would go, after all, you don’t just have to use conventional products to embellish with. What about tiny black rubber washers???? What about bottle caps, pot scrubs, shells, chains, jewellery, watch parts etc etc etc. The list is never ending, think outside the square.

A lot of free machine embroidery is done these days on doll clothing, once again this gives you a canvas to finish off with embellishments. On the canvas of the doll you can use almost any other craft you have ever played with. What about ribbon embroidery, embroidery, stamping, painting, decopage, dyeing, beading, burning synthetic fabric into interesting textures??? These ideas are unending. Spend a day a week playing with these ideas,bet you have lots of fun.

One more little tip here, I believe the more embellishing you do the better the doll. What a big statement that is, howeve from my observations we stop too soon!!! When you think you are finisheddo some more !LOL LOL

Websites I am going to list some of the most interesting websites for you to use. Of course mine will be at the top! I have some free mini online classes for you to get started with. Simple dolls, with the beginner in mind. Just go to the” free stuff” pages of www dyzee.com, they will teach you heaps and heaps.

Other interesting websites are:

http://www.dollmakersjourney.com

http://www.joggles.com

Patterns

Choose patterns marked for beginners. PLEASE READ the instructions BEFORE you start! I stock lots of different designers patterns at http://www.clothdollpatterns.com.au

Other resources

There are so many resources for the beginner doll maker you just need to know about where to find them.

1: Wonderful Magazines

For instance.

Art Doll Quarterly by Somerset Studio

Available at http://www.stampington.com

Books to Read

The first book to start with is

Anatomy of a doll by Susanna Oroyan This book has a HUGE amount of information for you to learn from. I know someone..a designer actually, who learnt her skills by reading this book one chapter at a time and learning all the techniques in the book one by one. She did all the exercises and learnt heaps! For instance Susanna has instructions on the many different types of joints you may use in a doll.. This is a great way to learn and you will come back to this book for many years. Each time you will find something new you hadn’t seen before! Often your local library will have this book..if not, request that they buy it in!

Susanna has written other fabulous books that you will learn heaps from as well. The two I recommend are

Designing the Doll by Susanna Oroyan

Finishing the Figure by Susanna Oroyan

Patti Culea is a well known American designer who has recently published her second fabulous book for doll makers.

Creative Cloth Doll Making by Patti Culea

Making Creative Cloth Dolls by Martha le Van is also a great one especially if you like more arty dolls. It has simple patterns in the back of it as well.

The Art Doll Chronicles by Somerset Studio

Available at http://www.stampington.com

Is a fabulous book if you have money to spare and love the more ARTY dolls and journaling

I really think that if you borrow or buy the first on the list you will have plenty to occupy yourself for ages. I would build up my collection as I could afford it.

Getting help & Support

Getting a mentor. If you feel you would like ongoing support, some designers would be happy to mentor you. I am happy to provide mentoring for doll makers as I have the time, just ask me if you are interested.

Joining online internet groups

These groups are fabulous for making friends , asking questions, learning whats going on in the doll world, joining in challenges with other doll makers the world over.

Dollies down under is a popular Australian internet doll

makers list

To join up go to

http://www.yahoogroups.com

and type ddu-digest@yahoogroups.com in the search lists box.

Yahoogroups have groups on every subject you could think of , there are lots more cloth doll groups to find there.

Joining up with others

Doll clubs

Doll Clubs are EVERYWHERE!

Just go to

In Australia nearly every small town has one or maybe even two. The same in USA. Sometimes these groups are just three or four ladies getting together once a month in someone’s home. If you can’t find a doll club in your town . why not start one up, especially for new doll makers. I would just put a small advert in your local paper and wait for the phone calls. That is also a great way to meet other people, especially if you find yourself suddenly single or living in a new town.

I was so excited when I found the first couple that I went to. There is something so wonderful about meeting women of all shapes and sizes who all have the same artistic pursuits in common. All of a sudden you have found

If you would like to find out what goes on in a doll club . but don’t have want to go visit then e-mail me on di@dyzee.com and I will consider writing an article on the subject. I have seen and experienced many Doll clubs over the years, and I feel that I know what makes them work well.

Play days

Once you have made a few friends who live locally, it is a great idea to have play days. Sometimes these can be arranged in advance but it is also fun to announce them spontaneously. My friend and great doll designer Jill Maas does this all the time. They may decide to just have a mixed play day where they play with anything or they may decide to hold it to explore a new product and see how many different ideas they can come up with. They enjoy the socializing, get to know friends and also do something productive for their art! I know how enjoyable these days can be too as I have recently moved to a new area and have had one play day in my home and I plan to hold more in the future.

To Finish

I hope you really enjoyed reading this ebook and that you have learnt a thing or two.

Please check out my websites and email me if I can help you at all

Di McDonald

http://www.dyzee.com

http://www.clothdollpatterns.com.au

email: di@dyzee.com

LOve Di