Early French Mignonette

I have been working on an early French Mignonette inspired doll off and on for quite some time.  This week I have been working on her costume.  She still needs shoes, hair, and more embellishments.  

The early French Mignonette dolls were “pocket” dolls that could be taken anywhere by their lucky owners.  The early ones were bisque, jointed, and had inset eyes.  My inspired doll is a needle sculpted cloth ball jointed doll.  She is hand painted with watercolors and has a unique needle sculpting technique around the eyes to give the illusion of inset eyes.  

While researching this project I learned some interesting information about the bisque mignonette dolls which I will share with you in my next post.  Until then wishing you a very creative week.

warm hugs,

Marla

The Eyes Have it

I recently read Lisa Lichtenfel’s article on eyes in the current edition of Art Doll Quarterly and was so inspired that I have been working on painting my own doll eyes on glass pearls for the past few days.  I didn’t paint them quite like she did and will be experimenting on how to insert them since I don’t use a Styrofoam base for my needle sculpted doll heads.  Not sure quite how I will do it yet but it will come to me when I get ready to put them in.  If not, there just will be a few more heads entering the dead head pile.  Hope you are having fun creating something new!

It’s not too late to sign up for Poinsettia, a Christmas in July class that I am teaching on A for Artistic.  If you would like more information on the class just click on the link below.

http://www.aforartistic.com/christmas-in-july-poinsettia-with-marla-niederer-cloth-doll-artist.html

Advanced Needle Sculpting in Tulsa

 I just wanted to share some picture of the Advanced Needle Sculpting Class I recently taught in Tulsa. I enjoyed every minute of teaching the class!  The Tulsa Dolling Dames are a wonderfully talented and fun group of cloth doll artists.  

You can see more pictures on their facebook page by clicking on this link 

https://www.facebook.com/TulsaDollingDames