Crochet and soft sculpture in Tel Aviv

Vividly colored sock dolls and serious words from a textile artist working in Israel. Neta Amir's blog shows details of her textile based installations, tiny and delicate crocheted birds, and her dolls and sock figures. They are a reminder that doll art is truly international and multicultural.

She holds sock doll workshops periodically, and has an Etsy store.

News from Skeelhaven

Judy Skeel is an inspirational cloth doll artist. Her dolls have lovely personalities, and to me they definitely look like they are thinking about something - life behind their sparkling painted eyes. She shares her talent by selling patterns through several sites linked from her website, and has several new online classes coming up very soon including one about doll faces in February, and one about hands in March offered through the wonderful supplier, Joggles. Fun, fun, fun.

If you need to clean dolls...

Just in case you haven't heard of them...Twin Pines of Maine has a line of several gentle cleaning products for cleaning dolls, including vinyl, doll's clothing and doll's hair. I have a number of their products and they seem to work as advertised. The cold wash is also good for spot cleaning food stains from people clothes, and highly concentrated so only takes a drop or two for that purpose.

They also have a book about restoring and cleaning vintage dolls. I know there is some debate about the wisdom of cleaning antique dolls, and concerns about diminshing the value of such dolls through cleaning. However my personal use for the products has been for old but not super rare or special dolls that kind friends have given to my daughter for play and alteration purposes. For this the Twin Pines products have worked fine so far.

Some of Jayn's Favorites

My daughter loves her Only Hearts Club dolls. These are a commercial playline, very poseable with high quality hair, faces (including glass eyes) and detailed clothing. Jayn uses hers as characters in stories, to help her develop the storyline and dialogue, eventually writing it all down. Currently she is using the mermaid and fairy characters as inspiration for a fantasy story.

They seem to be reasonably priced, available at national chain stores. For collectors of playline dolls, Hannah Faith, the Asian American girl is relatively new and a bit of a rarey. So if you spot her at the store, snap her up.

Tricia Anders always intriguing

Patricia Anders probably needs no introduction. Her work in mixed media art dolls has been featured in and on the cover of Art Doll Quarterly, a must have mag for doll artists. Her figurative paintings are wonderful also. I am always inspired when I see her sculptural figure forms especially those incorporating found objects, which have such distinctiveness. More power to her.

She has a blog too. Check out her just a bit bizarre ornaments.

Witty little pixies from Gypsy Hollow

I just like these strange little polymer clay people, the Topo-Popolos with entertaining stories and funny names. The artist also has a portfolio of fairies, mermaids and cute wee doggies. Look how itty bitty they are.

Little Bird and XO Studios

Little Bird Studios - pretty, whimsical cloth dolls and adorable dioramas called "theaters" too.

Contest and Expos

Denver Doll Artisans is hosting a doll contest with theme of Art Nouveau - oooh delicious. Unfortunately it is probably too late to register for this year, although I did already and am entering two Dream Star dolls with Erte inspired costuming.


The resulting dolls will be shown at the Rocky Mountain Sewing Expo running February 5-7, which looks like a great expo for those in the area.


People local to the Los Angeles area can visit the magnificent twice yearly Pasadena Bead and Design Show January 15-18. I went last time and it was wonderful fun - and they let kids in so my daughter had as much fun as I did. No doll makers with stalls though, something I am thinking hard about for the next one towards the end of the year - maybe a group of us local doll artists could get together (hint, hint....)

Freaky Little Things - Win a OOAK Doll

Yve is offering a beautiful OOAK doll (not the pictured one, another) as the prize to celebrate Valentine's day.
Details and delicious sketch of the prize doll on her blog.

She has an Etsy store too.

A little bit o'plush.

For handmade softies, my daughter loves her crazy pink Barbara the Beaver toy from Flaky Friends. These all have personalities and stories, all hand made in Pasadena, California. More on the Flaky Friends blog.

Meanwhile here's Jane Austen,.... part of a line of commercial plush character dolls from the Unemployed Philosopher's Guild, and I just think they are cute. I saw a bunch of their colorful historical artists at the Graphaids Art Supply store near my house, and they look cuter in person than the photos. I think my favorite may be the always distinctive Frida Kahlo.

A reason to buy - the philosophers support and donate a "substantial portion" of their profits to a list of worthy causes, as described on their website.

Walldancers

Keri Joy Colestock makes these whacky, whimsical wall dancers from polymer clay, charms and found objects. I love how bright and lively they are. You can't help but smile when you see them. She also has a blog.

Magnificent Doll Houses

It's not a photo from an architectural magazine. It's a close up of an incredibly detailed doll house, one of the most famous ever made - Queen Mary's miniature Windsor Castle.

This is just one of the lovely photos from an article at Dark Roasted Blend. The page might be a little slow loading, but worth devouring - and there are more links there too. Really the detail in the featured doll houses is mind boggling.

Kokeshi dolls

I started sketching ideas for these little cuties before I knew what they were. It seems they are an ancient tradition in Japan, being reinterpreted by modern sensibilities like many other cool Japanese crafts and visual motifs.Kokeshi Designs has a nice historical overview, as does the Wikipedia entry.

Meanwhile on Etsy, Temple 7e sells his turned and painted ones. I think my favorite might be the Boba Fett.


My friend Kat, also sells a sweet, tiny version called Shakespeare people in her Etsy store, Kats-in-the-Belfry.

Enchanted Dolls of fairy tale, legend and folklore.

The luminous skin, the liquid eyes, the encrusted beading, the delicacy of the limbs. Come and be amazed by the exquisite, diminutive ball jointed porcelain figures of Marina Bychkova. Either costumed or nudes, this artist creates remarkably poseable interpretations of archetypes from the folklore of many cultures.

Her website is a portal to gorgeous galleries, intriguing artist's statements, a blog and twitter feed. And she's coming to the USA for a solo show very soon too.

Doll Street Dreamers Online Classes

If you ever wanted to make art dolls but didn't know where to start, the wonderful doll makers of the subscription online doll club, Doll Street Dreamers, can help.

This page shows the currently available classes with enchanting dolls of polymer clay or cloth, as well as other crafty projects.

Techniques learnt can be applied to many other doll and fiber art projects.

And stuck for a gift for a doll enthusiast or fiber artist? You can buy a gift certificate good towards classes in a couple of different amounts.

Online classes are open to the public.