Art Dolls by Du Buh Du Designs

Tita

Hello! I have another doll to share~ Tita, (named after the main character in the book Like Water for Chocolate.) This is the second doll  I've made using fiber for dolls hair. This particular material is viscose which is a wonderful to work with . It's quite soft and while it's not as shiny as silk it does have a slight sheen to it. When I tugged on the viscose, some of the hair did come loose but nothing like what happened while working with the silks. So this may be a solution to the long hair dilemma. I have several more fibers to try out including mohair and bamboo. Tita looked quite exotic with long hair  but it wasn't quite the right look for her (my camera batteries were dead which is why there's no photo). Her hair is pulled up into two buns in the back and adorned with teal green flowers made of acid free mulberry paper. I also wanted to continue with the theme of fruit that I started with Bellanca and so I made Tita a branch of lemons as they reminded me of Mexico and they symbolize love and friendship.

  I have several projects that I need to begin so the dolls may be a little slow in coming. (I'll try and post images as I finish them).Thanks again for all of the kind feedback and suggestions!






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Tita is approx. 12 inches from head to toe (30 cm). She is wearing a flowing, pleated cotton skirt in a teal blue with a mustard colored apron-like covering over it. Her top is white cotton and smocked.that ties in the front and is accented with a bee pin. Around her neck she wears a necklace made of tiny green glass beads with a decorative rhinestone piece in the center (glued). Her shoes are painted black and her eyes are brown. Tita is also part of the new series of Du Buh Du Dolls that are made with "hair". Tita's black hair (made of viscose) is pulled up into two buns in the back and glued into place. Teal blue silk flowers adorn the back of her hair.

She is carrying a branch of lemons, each fruit is hand sculpted by me from polymer clay (just as my dolls are) and painted with acrylics and a protective varnish.
Please note that my dolls always vary in size and while these are approx. the same size as my previous doll they have slightly larger heads as I find this size even more agreeable to work with:)

(For more info visit this link for FAQ's , info. about doll construction , my shop policies and pricing.)

Bellanca and Back to the Drawing Board

click images to enlarge

(6/3: I changed out images with pink background so as to more accurately show coloring of doll..previous images can still be viewed at my Flickr site)

Well here is one of my first dolls using fiber for hair instead of sculpting and painting it. This vegetable based fiber is gorgeous and soft however it does pose some problems. After sewing in the part on the wig, and gluing it in place, pieces were flying off even after gentle touching. I realized that I was not going to be able to use this for long hair. The only solution was to give her an updo so I gave her a modified chignon ~ I like the result but am just a tad disappointed I can't use it for a longer hairstyle (I think she would have looked a bit like Alice in Wonderland with that outfit and hair). Anyhow I have sent off for a variety of fiber samples and hopefully those will be easier to handle.

Bellanca with longer hair..the fiber was just too loose to leave long

I gave her a branch of peaches to hold  after seeing a  photo of a branch of apricots hanging from a house shutter on a home on the island of Majorca (off the Southern coast of Spain). The image (below) was so beautiful in it's lush simplicity that I knew I wanted her holding the same thing. I originally set out to make apricots (also made with polymer clay and acrylics) but when I finished they looked more like peaches..so peaches it is..

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Bellanca is approx. 11.75 inches from head to toe (29.85 cm). She is wearing a cotton dress made up of tiny blue-gray pin stripes and her capelet is in a soft black acrylic that ties in the front and is accented with a bee pin. Around her waist she wears a black velvet ribbon that ties in the back. Her shoes are painted black and her eyes are green.
Bellanca is the first Du Buh Du Doll to have '"hair" instead of a sculpted/painted coiffure. Her hair is made of soy silk (in a buttery blonde color) and is pulled up into a modified chignon in the back. I added three tiny pale pink roses made of acid free mulberry paper in her hair as extra adornment.
She is carrying a branch of peaches, each fruit is hand sculpted by me from polymer clay (just as my dolls are) and painted with acrylics and a protective varnish.
Please note that my dolls always vary in size and while these are approx. the same size as my previous doll they have slightly larger heads as I find this size even more agreeable to work with:)

(For more info visit this link for FAQ's , info. about doll construction ,for my shop policies and pricing.)





above photo by S. Santos from "Majorca:the Art of Living"

Weekend "Work"

Andres in his new garden (wearing my gardening hat)

Hope you had a beautiful weekend! We spent a good part of ours working in the new garden. The weather was perfect (upper eighties) and we most everything we picked out on Mother's Day got planted (we had to wait for the cold nights to pass). I couldn't resist getting more though ~ strawberries, blueberries, gardenia, bee balm, cinnamon basil, hollyhock and other plants and vegetables for our front yard too. I wish I could just snap my fingers and have the plants/vegetables five feet taller and the fence engulfed with vines and roses. That's the fun and frustration with gardens..they take so much work, patience ..the analogy between gardens and raising a child are not lost on me:)

smelling dirt and plants

The new garden is on the side of our house and has pretty much been ignored as we have been focusing on our front yard for the past four years.. I think our next task will be to add grass and a swing for Andres to play on.

Anyhow I just wanted to share a few photos of what we've been up to ~ I probably won't show much more until the garden is blooming later this summer.

We added a new coat of candy apple red paint on the childs bench..this too will go in the garden

 

I found some time to dye a few samples of the tussah silk / doll hair along with some vegetable based material that someone recommended (thanks Natasha!). It's super soft (feels like the mohair on my Friedericy doll) but I can tell it'll be tricky to work with as fibers fly off fairly easy. The dyed hair dried into a wavy texture, which I like, but the color isn't very natural~I may have to experiment a little more with that. I have also sent away for more hair samples (brunette) as I would like to eliminate this extra step and spend my time on other parts of dollmaking. Hopefully I'll have a doll with hair to show in the next week or so:) Thanks to all who have given me tips (keep them coming)!

vegetable based material (left: natural , right:dyed (needs more brushing)