She's A Doll of Clay

My little polymer clay, press mold doll is complete.  Now I need to make her look life-like by painting her face and blushing her skin. Although polymer clay can be painted using acrylic paints, I decided to paint this doll using Genesis heat set paints.. I ordered these paints about 4 years ago from a shop online.  They were sold as a kit for painting "re-born" baby dolls, but many polymer clay OOAK artists use these paints to set their work permanently onto the polymer clay surface.  Even though I bought these paints several years ago, they will not dry out and a very little amount is needed to paint the doll. In this picture, I have my tiny paint brush in the pot of Genesis glaze.  I painted the doll's eyes with the clear glaze before I added a tiny amount of blue to create her irises.  In this series of pictures, I added and wiped off the red for blushing and lips.  I also added a tiny amount of burnt senena to the red to s...

Today I am going to create a doll skirt and top out of felt for my tiny polymer clay doll. If you have been following my blog, you will have seen that I made this doll from a press mold that I bought from my local art supply store.  I wanted to see how easy it would be to create a little doll without having to sculpt the doll from scratch. I found that this is a great option for those who want to make a cute doll, but do not want to spend a lot of time learning to sculpt.   I feel that she did turn out to be a very cute doll, but I did have to re-sculpt her legs.  I also made her hands larger than the way they came out of the mold.  Adding an armature created its own problems.  In my honest opinion, I truly enjoy creating a doll from my own hands without the use of a store bought mold.   I think that a doll made from this mold would be easier to make if I had not added an armature for strength.  She could be un-molded and placed i...

                       Today I am going to show you how I glue mohair onto a tiny doll's head.                      Firstly, I add a small amount of glue to the back of the doll's head.  I use tacky glue by Aleen.                                                 Next, I cut a tiny amount of locks from the mohair skin.  This is a piece of mohair I ordered several years ago.  It may actually be Tibetan wool, because it is attached to a piece of skin, but I truly am not sure.  I have locks from a friend's sheep that I will be dying in the future to post on this blog.  The new locks are shaved from the animal, which makes me feel better about obtaining sheep locks.  Of course, this is just a preference I have now....

This post begins as I add arms to my little polymer clay doll I am creating using a commercial press mold. I bought the mold at a local craft store. Below I have a series of pictures depicting my process. If you have not seen the previous post, please take a moment to read it. There you will see the progress of the doll until this post.   The arms as they looked after removal from the press mold. In this picture I am carving out the extra clay on the hand.  I found that the mold makes the hands too thick.   After carving the extra clay away from my doll's hand with an xacto knife, I also used the knife to slit the fingers apart. Using my wooden sculpting tool, I shaped the palm of the hand into a more natural shape. I then added the armature wire through the arm. Because the wire was longer than I needed, I had to cut the extra wire off with wire cutters. I then smoothed the clay onto the doll body at the shoulder. (not picture...