The Verity doll class taught by Deanna Hogan went very well. It was intense and I learned many new techniques. The majority of the second day was spent painting layers of Messy Mix*, gesso and then paint. We used a clothes drying rack to dry the body parts but as you'll see, I found an unusual container at home to prop up my torso as it dried.
Limbs drying in the warm sunshine:
The heels are made of paperclay and needed more than just a few hours to completely dry. Once they do I'll lightly sand them and then paint her boots.
The turkey was from a floral arrangement a few Thanksgivings ago. It makes a rather strange looking figure. Early Sunday morning before I got ready for class, I painted another layer of Messy Mix on the torso and then set it out on the front porch to dry. I wonder what the neighbors were thinking!
*For those of you who are wondering what exactly is Messy Mix. Here's a link to an article all about it. It's a hardening agent made of equal parts modeling paste and gel medium that's applied to a cloth doll prior to gesso or paint to make it more sturdy. Helen Pringle (a doll artist who specialized in gorgeous painted dolls) came up with this after a few of her doll customers told her about accidental falls. Their dolls had terrible dents that just couldn't be repaired. If you use very thin multiple coats and sand in between coats the result is a smooth texture that doesn't look like cloth. I didn't spend that much time sanding but the texture still turned out pretty decent.
