Play on Ning

I love the Ning networks. I am a member of several, but am so pleased to have found another I can join. Nancyes Art Dolls is facilitating an online doll making "playshop". This February one is free, and I gather there will be more advanced playshops with fees also. The welcome post has a nice roundup of materials needed. Nancye's polymer clay dolls have interesting characters and intriguing faces. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

A Doll Club

Flying Phoebe is a cloth doll club based in Hayward, CA. They have events through the year, including one in April. The website also has links to the personal sites of members, so a fun browsing opportunity. The picture is a creation of Workshops co-ordinator, Barbara Willis.

History

Wow, I've found another great reason to visit New York - the Madam Alexander Heritage Gallery which is open for tours every day of the week. Some 600 dolls and other memorabilia on display spanning the 85 year history of the company. Whew.

Vintage Paper doll style

Denver Doll Emporium has a gorgeous collection of vintage reproduction paper doll books in wonderful retro colors. In addition to being charming in themselves, I suspect that any of them would be a wonderful reference for doll makers wanting to make costumed portrait dolls of these classic movie stars. I can see some of the cover art inspiring needlepoint or embroidery designs too. Hmmm.

Star quality

Juan Albuerne is a Spanish repaint artist working primarily with 11.5 inch vinyl fashion dolls to make likenesses of classic and contemporary movie stars. Some of the dolls start out as commercial representations of the stars, but Juan reworks, including sculpting, the faces, hair and clothing to bring the likeness even closer including referencing specific movies. I also like the Kelly doll as Shirley Temple.

Golden Compass

German dollmaker Daniela Keifhaber makes miniature, highly poseable porcelain dolls, 1/12 scaled to fit in standard doll houses. Her website includes tips and tricks for working with polymer clay and also workshop news and a sculpting class on CD-Rom. Their little faces are very sweet, and their clothes highly detailed. These are some characters from "The Golden Compass" movie.
That little hat Lyra wears showed up all over the crafting world as knitting patterns (registration required at the Lion Brand site for free patterns) and kits.
Tonner also has incredible 16 inch character dolls from the movie.

Classic Hollywood

OK this site has my theme for the month all sewn up. Celebrity dolls created by Alesia Newman-Breen represent many movie characters, of polymer clay with cloth bodies. Here's Doris Day as "Calamity Jane".They are all very cool, and some are extraordinary uncanny likenesses, especially those depicting classic movie stars. More info on classic hollywood can be found at Turner Classic Movies (this month showcasing Academy Award (tm) winning films).
Alesia also has a blog.

Oh and here's another rendition of Tippi in "Birds".

Hooray for Hollywood

Since it is Oscar (tm) season...Angelic Dreamz, official dealer of many doll lines, has lots of lovely movie character inspired Barbies, including three from the upcoming new Star Trek picture. The men are clearly likenesses of the actors Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto - I'll be interested to see what the repaint artists make of them. The lady is mentioned as Zoe Saldana as Uhura, but I think the doll looks like the Raven Symone face mold with different makeup. She has a model muse body.

I'll be featuring more movie dolls over this month, but I just have to mention the "Birds" doll - Tippi Hedren being attacked by ravens.

Goblin open house

I've been eagerly waiting for February to post about Cody Goodin's goblins and publicize the upcoming open house at his studio complex which houses over 60 artists. Cody also maintains another blog about his mixed media art, which includes some cool art doll figures over the last year.

The Essex Studios open house will be next weekend February 6 -7th from 6-11 pm. They are located at 409 East McMillan Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio. Watch out for those mischievous goblins who might be up to all kinds of pranks including squatting in your wine glass!

Another Great Collector's Resource

...this time for those interested in antique dolls. This is an enjoyable site to browse around, full of great written information and pictures once you scroll past the google search bar and a few ads near the top of each entry. There are handy links to current Ebay auctions. I enjoyed clicking on the various types of dolls in the button column on the left. It's interesting to see some dolls that are clearly costumed as adults but have baby faces. The host of the site, Pam, is a longtime collector and lover of antique dolls, and includes comprehensive bibliographies with her articles.

Collector's resource of note

Doll collecting expert and blogger Denise Van Patten has posted about the first day of IDEX on her About.com blog. In an earlier post she has listed doll collector events throughout the year as a New Year's gift to doll lovers. Many of these are different events from the doll crafting conferences that I have noted here. Denise also maintains a forum, where you can ask her questions about doll collecting, including identifying vintage and antique dolls. Her shop is Katherine's Cottage.

Bear with me

I haven't shown any bears yet. Here is a doll maker who makes polymer clay and cloth dolls, and also makes very sweet antique-inspired dressed bears, with heartmelting personalities that look like they have been hugged and loved forever. Whimsymoon - what a wonderfully evocative name for a doll business. Don't be sad, scruffy wee bear; I love you.

From Russia with....imagination

Not only are Ima Naroditskya's dolls beautiful and polished examples of dollmaking, her website is extraordinarily fun too. I like the curtain pulling conceit. It adds to the fantasy element and makes every thumbnail a fanciful treasure hunt. All her characters so clearly have a history and a narrative behind them. She also designs glass figure christmas tree ornaments. (Don't fail to run your cursor over the little yellow fellows guarding the procenium.)

BTW I should give proper credit to this photo which I believe is by Mimi Kirchner.

And another convention...

From September 30th through October 4th in Las Vegas, NV, there will be a convention for paper doll enthusiasts run by OPDAG. Early bird discount registration is open until July 1st. Scroll down and find info about a Spring Gathering in Summerville, NC March 21st.

I found the info about the OPDAG conference visiting the blog of Paper Doll artist, Elaine Jackson. Her figures may be physically flat, but they carry a lot of beauty and love into the world.

Du Buh Du retro aesthetic

OMG, Christine Alvarado of Du Buh Du Designs is giving away the most beautiful, wistful doll for her One World One Heart contribution. Based on a charming Irish folk tale, she is holding a swan and is 14 inches tall. Look at her dear little detailed shoes.

Christine's figures prove what a versatile medium polymer clay is - she makes her figures (and ornaments) from pc, then paints over them to create the doll's faces, hair and personalities. Their cloth dresses have a sweet retro style simplicity, with focus on the tiny prints. I love, love, love the series holding the masks invoking fairy tales from the ages. She also has an Etsy store, where she promises more new things in February.

Nancy Drew

Ah Nancy Drew, one of my daughter's favorite characters. Tonner has a Nancy Drew character doll - contemporary with lots of nice clothing and cool accessories. My daughter wants one although she is unsure if the hair is really titian blond as the books specify.


Madame Alexander created a small and briefly available line of 12 inch Nancy Drew dolls in 1965. They are very rare and valuable, dressed in the clothes of that time.


Nancy began her life as an 18 year old in 1930, the height of the Great Depression. It is interesting to see the changes in the cover art depicting her in different fashions as the different editions were published.


In 2009 she is a peripatetic modern girl in the Her Interactive PC games. And some very cool dolls appear in some of the games. In the most recent, The Haunting of Castle Molloy, a bunch of handmade portrait dolls are weird clues, one needing completion, and there is a doll house game that gives important tools. There are also antique dolls in the set decoration.

There is also a very cool puzzle that is central to Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon, with part of the story being about a doll collector. In Legend of the Crystal Skull, the housekeeper has a voodoo doll in her room.

Author! Author!

Patti Medea Cularis is not only a spectacular cloth doll maker, but also writes the most luciously illustrated books about doll making. I have her Cloth Doll Couture, and I love her happy, colorful style. She has free patterns on her blog, runs classes and workshops, and travels the world sharing her passion for cloth dolls as a popular club and convention presenter. Talk about energy! And she still finds time to make dolls.

Bella bella

I love the look of Christina Bougas' Clea Bella - and she is made in the USA. There will be a whole line of limited edition theatrical and artistic characters with gorgeous costumes. Personally I'm interested in seeing the Sherlock Holmes figure being planned.

Knitted wire

Meanwhile Reina Mia Brill has just opened her new website featuring her portfolio of fanciful, colorful and award winning figures wearing knitted wire clothing and sometimes using wire as a surface treatment. Many of her figures are large in scale. They make me think of the happy side of fairytales.

Twisted wire

Another use of wire - artist Cheryl Button assembles mixed media "Lost Art Dolls" and puppets from found objects, polymer clay and wire, painting and distressing the surfaces to create intriguing yet vaguely disturbing human figures. Some are inspired by dark tales from folklore. They may not be pretty, but they have a remarkable ethereal beauty. The photography capturing the detail is rather wonderful also.