I just thought I would share what inspired me to create
Mistique, a cloth needle-sculpted ball jointed boudoir doll. My greatest inspirations for Mistique were
the beautiful Lenci boudoir dolls. I
have loved them forever. The Strong
Musuem of Play in Rochester NY has a very extensive doll collection and also
has a wonderful online collection. These
are some pictures of the Lenci dolls I fell in love with in their online
collection.
You can click on the link to see more of their online
collections here
When I started out making my own dolls I imitated the
child like Lenci dolls and covered bought face masks with felt. As I progressed in my doll making I became
influenced by Antoinette Cely and started creating my own clay masks that I
used cloth overlays on after reading her book on Cloth Dollmaking. You can see a tutorial on Youtube that
Antoinette Cely shared on facial coloration by clicking on this link
After creating dolls with cloth covered face masks I
became intrigued with Needle-sculpting.
I had always taught myself all of my doll making by reading books and
just figuring it out but learning how to needle sculpt took quite a large dead
head pile before I liked the results. Until
I met Peggy Wilson at a doll maker’s retreat where she took pity on me
during my needle sculpting attempts, sat me down, gave me one of her doll
heads, and had me needle sculpt a head with her. My dead head pile grew but I caught on and
have been needle sculpting my doll heads ever since.
I needle sculpted Mistique’s swivel head and
incorporated ball joints at her elbows and knees. I then took inspiration from Marie Antoinette
for her costume. She was soooooo much fun
to create. I am currently teaching a
class on how to make her on A for Artistic.
It’s not too late to sign up. If
you would like more information about the class just click on the following
link.
Happy dollmaking J
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