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| Doll by Barbara Schoenoff |
I recently received
this beautiful doll created by Barbara Schoenoff. Don’t you just absolutely love her? I do!
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| Doll by Barabara Schoenoff |
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| Doll by Barbara Schoenoff |
I was really
honored that Barbara wanted to exchange a doll with me considering she was one
of my first doll making teachers.
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| Doll by Barbara Schoenoff |
I met Barbara quite
some time ago when I attended a doll making conference in Ottawa Canada. She taught a class on how to make her doll
Delilah which I loved and had to make.
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| Delilah made by Marla L. Niederer from Barabara Schoenoff's class and pattern |
In the class
Barbara used woven quilting cotton for the doll and used watercolor pencils to
add facial details. I was enthralled and
have been using watercolors on my cloth dolls ever since!
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| Delilah made by Marla L. Niederer from Barbara Schoenoff's class and pattern |
Upon our parting
from this class she told me that she hoped to see me again as a teacher on the
doll making circuit.
Little did I know
that the next time we would see each other I would be a teacher at the Artistic
Figures in Cloth and Clay conference in Ohio!
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| Marla and Barbara at Artistic Figures in cloth and Clay |
Before I took
Barbara’s class I had been making my dolls out of “doe suede” which is a
synthetic suede fabric. But in order to use watercolors on cloth you need to
use a natural fabric such as cotton.
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| Sleeping Angel by Marla L. Niederer created from "Doe Suede" |
So I switched to
using woven cotton fabric for my doll making in order to use watercolors on
them. I continued to explore a variety
of techniques with my watercolors and started incorporating the use of tube
watercolors in my doll making. This is
the doll that I sent Barbara.
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| Sleeping Mermaid by Marla L. Niederer created for Barbara |
I will be
teaching an online class on how to make this mermaid this June on AforArtistic.
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| Sleeping Mermaid by Marla L. Niederer created for Barbara |
In all of the
classes that I teach, I share my techniques for using watercolors in doll
making. You can check out my current
online classes here.
I also just added a
free tutorial on using watercolors on cloth dolls for you here. I hope you enjoy it!
Until Next time……..
warm hugs,
Marla
