My doll club, the Flying Phoebe Cloth Doll Club, hosted a workshop taught by doll artist Akira Blount during the Memorial Day weekend. For five days we listened, watched, experimented and learned some of her doll-making processes. I never really thought of using nature in my doll art but it was amazing to see how Akira used twigs to make doll limbs. A bend or tree knot became an elbow or knee. She touched on how she's begun using rust dyed fabrics in her latest series of dolls and how that tied in with the natural elements she favors so very much. It turns out that she doesn't really like to buy fabrics but prefers to walk out and about her "back forty" to gather materials from mother nature. We may have changed her mind when she saw some of our member's fabulous Japanese textile collections that were used on their dolls. Hopefully she found some lovely Japanese fabrics to take back home with her after visiting one of our local quilt shops that has a quality selection of Japanese imports.
Most intriguing to me was the concept of using fabric stiffener on sculpted knit cotton head/hands to create a hard surface to make the next step of fabric skinning with tea-dyed scrim easier. Wow! That is indeed something that I'd like to play with some more. Also Akira insisted that we all draft our own doll patterns. Suddenly everyone had minor differences depending on how they drew their head patterns or used the stretch of the cotton knit. That's definitely something I'll be going forward with! It's about time that I made my own patterns.
Since our group was comprised of experienced doll-makers Akira didn't have to go back to the basics. We most likely would have been quite happy with only three days of instruction. As it turned out, the extra two days were well spent in the company of friends while experimenting with new techniques and ideas.
Results of my experimentation (notice that I used oranges/rust as opposed to my usual color palette): 
Just a few of the dolls created by other Flying Phoebes: 
By next week my doll should be finished and hanging on the wall. She'll have a twig skirt and some interesting dried twigs as her hair ornamentation. Then it'll be off to trying out some new patterns. I need to practice making smaller noses!
