Bea Bea the Bee Brushing Fairy
Bea Bea is a type of fairy that lives in flowers and her job
is to gently brush the pollen from the
bees' knees and legs to help fertilize the plants. She has
little brush filaments growing on her 3 fingered hands
so she can carry
out her assigned task.
Bea is a my original design made for Judi Ward's
Design Your Own Doll class.
She is approximately 13 inches tall, has articulated fingers and toes,
invisible button joints, and she stands alone. She has inserted cat eyes
and applied eyelids, real eyelashes, hair made of  yarn and her ears
are hand dyed.
Her face is painted with acrylics
 and she has a little flower collaged on her face.

Supplication
This is my second original design
made for Judi Ward's
Design Your Own Doll class.
She is approximately 15 inches tall
and has very simple hands and lightly
needle sculpted toes.
She is offering a sacrifice of praise
and prayers and is barefooted because
she believes she stands on holy ground.
She is a type of priestess and is dressed
in the virginal white of a chaste woman.
Her dress has a simple circular skirt
and an organza train. Her face is lightly needle
sculpted and is painted with watercolor pencils.
Pearls and crystal buttons are the simple
embellishments on this doll.
I was influenced by the fact that several of our
friends have developed life threatening illnesses
and I believe Supplication is a symbol
of the prayers and praise we are
holding in our hearts for these
loved ones.

 

Merri the Mermaid
and her pet Finagain.
Merri is listening very carefully
because she hears the
engines of an approaching ship.
She is deciding whether
to show herself and lure
a sailor to his fate
or to have Fin take
them deep so the sea
men never know the
beauty and adventure
they missed.
This is my interpretation
of Kate Erbach's class
pattern named
Merna Takes a Test Drive.

Little Nettie
This is my interpretation of
the Baby Brooke pattern by
doll  designer
Sue Sizemore.
She is made of craft velour; her face is painted
with colored pencils and Gel pens
 and a small amount of acrylic.
Her hair is of fine Alpaca and her dress
is made of a pink and white cotton print
and she wears matching bloomers.
Nettie is named in honor/memory
of someone I knew long ago
who died far too young.
 

Heads and Faces
One of my tasks in the design class
 is to design heads for my dolls.
 I made up twelve designs.
Out of those twelve I have four
 patterns that I like and will keep.
I also painted the faces
 using pictorial resources.
I like four of those.
I have posted the failures as well
as successes.
See why  here.
  

This is Boup the Honey Elf
His job is to strain the impurities
from the honey in the bee hive.
He is my original design and is
nineteen inches tall.
His body is made of woven cotton
and his head/face is made of velour
and painted with acrylic paint.
He has clay in the nose to keep it
pointed and perky; his features are lightly
needle sculpted.
His face is stamped with an "Impress Me"
stamp by Sherrill Kahn
Vest and knickers are made from
patterns by Judi Ward.

All Honey Elves have
to have their names on their
backs. Boup doesn't like this.
He thinks it helps the worker
bees identify elves who defy
the rule that they cannot
taste the honey.
Boup is one of the
self-declared "graduation" dolls
I am making for this
Advanced Doll Making Class.

I told Boup I see
why he doesn't like
those rules made by the bees.
The beautiful
honey drop
was provided by
doll designer and friend
Kate Erbach

This is a fairy doll
with no name and no
known job! I adapted
a  handkerchief
fairy pattern by
Nancy Porras that
appeared in the
April 1985
National Doll World
Magazine.
I used my own head
pattern and one of
my signature digitally
painted faces. Her skirt
is made from a
silk handkerchief
that I hand painted. 

This is a close-up
of the face I painted
on the computer. It
is lightly needle sculpted.
The doll didn't
tell me she wanted to be beaded
until after I had put on the hair, wires
and buttons. It was a constant process
of untangling thread from all those things
as I did the beading.
Her back hair and torso are
made from a batik fabric I
purchased.
Judi Ward suggested the
name Dotty for this doll so
Dotty she is.

This is an in-progress view of
Ms. Carlotta Cook, my final
"graduation" for Judi Ward's
Advanced Doll Design Class
She is my original design.

Here is Carlotta
in her fancy underwear
and her lace up boots.
Carlotta is made in honor of
all the wonderful cooks in
my life, especially one
named Ma Winkler, the
dietician who ran the dining hall
at my college and brought my roommate
and me breakfast to our room each
morning during my senior year.

Carlotta showing
her beautiful
head of hair.
She is made of craft
velour, her hair is of fancy
yarn.
Her arms are invisibly
button jointed and her
legs are stitched on
using the ladder stitch.

Carlotta ready to go to work.
She is weighted so she can sit.
Her face was painted
 on the computer
and printed to silk.
I then made it into a mask
and sewed it to a flat faced
tabbed head.
 I added padding
 between the mask
 and the flat face front
and lightly
needle sculpted the face.
Her simple dress is of cotton
and her lace up boots
are made of faux reptile
 fabric and leather.

Last revised: January 05, 2007