Did You Know...

In 1965, the first original dolls of famous doll artist Sasha Morgenthaler were reproduced and distributed by Götz. This is considered by many to be the first manufactured "Artist Doll."

Treasury Alert! What's this I hear? Abi's Dish'n Dolls?

Oh, Dolls and Dishes! Okay Abi you're off the hook! Come check out anangelonmytable's latest treasury!

Happy to see you picked up a lovely new habit Abi... a weekly treasury! Good for you!

It's Wordless Wednesday.......almost!

This cute little number was created by Saskia Hoeboer.

Looks like she's in an opulent bath, so thought it was an apt image for the current mini ADO challenge 'Bathing Beauties'! Check out Saskias website - it's charming to say the least!

Native American Spirit Dolls ~ A History

Authentic Kuna Indian Nuchu, Panama, mid 20th century.
This spirit doll was collected on the island of Soledad Mandinga. It stands 8 inches tall and is mounted.


As with most cultures, dolls played an important role in the culture of the Native American people, but they were not just made as playthings for little girls.

Native American dolls were used to teach children important lessons about life and coping. These dolls would often be created with wooden heads and lots of detail and in most cases represented people. Others were made with no face and usually represented a spirit in human form. I've also read these dolls were created for and embodied animal spirits.

These dolls were often symbolic and embodied a very important spiritual significance. Native American dolls were created using various materials, all having their own special meanings. Depending on the tribe, the dolls might be made from fur or palm leaves, indicating the climates in which the tribe resided.

Many Navajo dolls have been found with very intricate and small jewelry made of turquoise around their necks and as earrings symbolizing wealth within the tribe.

Native American dolls teach us about the culture of a particular tribe. For example, the Seneca tribes made dolls with babies attached to boards on their backs as the women actually did carry their babies in this way.

These dolls were created using all natural items and materials indigenous to the area. Corn husks, pine needles, large leaves, wood, rock, and fur were very common materials. Many Native American dolls were made with animal’s blood, plant dyes and charcoal from the earth to add color.

Today, many artists sell millions of Native American dolls each year, paying special attention to detail and authenticity. You'll also find folk art versions inspired by these ancient Native American traditions.

If you'd like to create your own version of a spirit doll, Click HERE for instructions and a free pattern to create a Creative Spirit Doll!

ADO elements Challenge dolls

the elements challenge slideshow

Saturday's Vintage Photographs

Hello everyone...We hope you have a wonderful and creative weekend. Enjoy the beautiful weather. Here on the East Coast, we are having one beautiful day. The sun is out, the birds are singing and I'm in need of some Java...LOL Enjoy the photographs!

CHEERS!

Polymer Clay Tip "Bench Scraper Tool"

I'm so excited to share this little tip. I was at a going out of business sale at a little local food store, and I found the most amazing tool. It is called a bench scraper or pastry scraper and is normally used for cutting pastry dough and cleaning work surfaces. It was marked "50 cents" so I picked it up and put it in my cart, not knowing what a treasure I had just acquired.

Later the same day I had some clay to roll out in my pasta machine. I looked at my new tool and realized it would be perfect for first chopping my clay into nice manageable slivers before rolling it out. This worked like a charm! Then I used it to cut long slices of rolled clay, to clean my pasta roller, and to scrape clay off my work surface.

I have used my bench scraper daily since I got it, and now I think I need two, one for cleaning surfaces, and one for cutting clay. If you work with polymer clay, you must get one, or two. They cost under $10.00 new, and in my book, they are priceless!

Please excuse the interruption.... Treasury ALERT

I hate to interrupt the beautiful display of Elements dolls but there has been another ADO treasury siting. Once again by Abi, thanks Abi for riding herd on the team! Wonderful collection!


PLEASE continue on with your regular Elements program, but make sure to stop by and comment on the treasury!

It's Wordless Wednesday.......almost!

An early posting as I won't be able to post on Wednesday!

I think everyone agrees the ADO Four Elements Challenge was fun and successful. Thank you to everyone for organizing and participating - spending time creating fabulous art and a particular thank you to those who spent the time blog hopping and commenting!

Here is a collection of some of those wonderful creations:

Further posts will be added by the PR ADO group, incorporating participants links to their pages etc, so keep watching!!!!!

participants

Elements blog event participants

• Alena Eliseeva
• Allegro Melody
• An Angel at my Table
• Archetypal Theatre
• art doll dreams
• Beads of Spirit
• Bella Trelle
• Blue Dragon Arts
• Blue Heron Dolls
• Bone Head Studio
• Bonnie Jones
• Brigids Whispers Mystic Designs
• Caroline's Crafts
• Catherine Coyle
• Christina Christidou
• Circles of Rain
• Cody Goodin
• DellaRae DeZines
• Dessa Rae Original Art Dolls
• DLynne Art Dolls
• Drycha-scrap-rysunek-fotografia-
• Du Buh Du Designs
• Essie's Dollsr
• Every Day Art-Art Every Day
• Fantasy Whispers- The Art of Vania Cruz -Perez
• Flower Dreams Vikadolls
• Freaky Little Dolls
• Goblinfruit studio
• Ineke Marinussen
• Inessa Morelock
• Jasmoon Butterfly
• Jessica Loughrey
• Judy's Creations
• Juliya Orlova
• Kaerie Faerie
• Katura Greetings
• Kitschwitchery
• Knot by Granma
• Las Noches
• Lilies & Dolls
• little arty crafty crow
• Little Bit Wired
• Marij van der Ham
• mealy monster land
• Meandering Pearl
• Minha Mami
• My Dreadful darling Dear...
• my own little world
• Namie
• Northbrook Designs
• Novasblossoms
• Odd Imagination
• Pie Cake Primitives
• Pixies in the house
• S'Mockery Sm'Art dolls
• Sleepy Hollow Folk Art Originals
• sleetwealth
• Spirit dolls by Paula
• SpiritMama Art
• Sprite
• Stasiya Alexandrova
• Susan Shaw Gallery
• Suzie McMahon Dolls
• The Briar Rose Gate
• The Candy Corn Chronicles
• the Fairies nest
• The Studio at Crow Haven farm
• the Wonderful Place
• theresa Lautenslager
• Tiny Matryoshka's blog
• VERSANA!
• vilonessa-dolls
• Wyrdlands Studios
• Zenobias Haven
• Zephyr Dreams

time to check out all the dolls!!!

Last minute add!!
Daydream retreat

post those dolls!

today is the day to post your dolls to your blogs!
don't forget to link back to the ado blog to make visiting easier.
By tomorrow, Saturday the 18th, they should all be posted and ready to be seen.
don't forget to leave a comment and let the participant know you stopped by!
I wonder if you all are as excited as I am to see what has been created?!

Did You Know...

The Doll's House Museum (Das Puppenhausmuseum) in Germany has 6’000 artistically-arranged dolls, bears, and miniatures displayed on four floors of the museum, totaling 11’000 sq.ft. The exhibits date back to the beginning of the nineteenth century and reflect the styles of the day.The Doll's House Museum is the largest of its kind in Europe. It houses the worlds largest collection of over 2’500 old teddy bears, many of which are already of a ripe old age, the oldest ones dating back to 1904.


Visit the website here... and keep those speakers on!

Another Etsy Treasury!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=70673

Check out the above link, I grabbed another Etsy Treasury, and will try and do so every week, until we get to the front page!!! You are all such fabulous Artists. It's a pleasure being part of the Team.

It's Wordless Wednesday.......almost!

It's nearly time for
Blog event to commence on Friday, so get on your bike, and get into gear....

Feel the air rushing through your hair, whilst you coast the earth, with a burn on those tyres, as you head toward the traquil waters of completing and posing your Four Elements Challenge Doll!

Good luck all!

(Images courtesy of Artists Fiorella Pierobon , and Lisa Litchenfels)

elements event starts Friday!

almost time!

*Friday everyone post your dolls to your blogs. The links of participants has been posted in alphabetical order to make it easy to keep track of your last visit and can be found on the top right hand side of the blog.

*Saturday and Sunday time for visiting, Let's see what you all have made! Be sure to leave a comment on the blogs you visit.

*have fun!

if you have signed up and don't see your blog listed, email me at
artdollsonly@hotmail.com
and I will be sure to add you.
if you signed up but can no longer participate please email me so I can remove you from the list.
thanks!

More ADO Elements Challenge Profiles!

Greetings and happy Monday! After a short break, we now continue with our profiles of the ADO Elements Challenge. Here, our members (and non-members!) are challenged to create one or more dolls representing the Elements of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water.

This week, we're "keeping up with the Joneses" as we profile members Bonnie Jones and Caroline Jones (no, the lovely ladies are not related, but you'll love their work!). I am also happy to say that fellow doll artists and ADO member Flora, of Bone Head Studios, assisted me with interviewing this week!

Enjoy!


Bonnie Jones of Studio of Bonnie Jones

1. What inspired you to join the Elements challenge?
Mermaids are one of my favorite figures to sculpt and this challenge gave me the incentive to create one that was different from any I had done in the past.

2. What is your art piece and what is it about? What does it represent, literally or figuratively?

Mermaids, as water spirits have always fascinated people. To me this piece represents a free spirit who is serene and comfortable within herself.

3. How did you create your piece and what materials did you use? How long did it take to create?

This piece took several weeks to create. I have always wanted to create a mermaid with a mosaic tail or gold leaf. For this sculpt, I decided to use translucent clay and gold leaf to create her tail which gave a look of scales. She was sculpted from Rose Puppen Fimo, one of my favorite clays.

4. What were the easier aspects of creating your art? What were the harder aspects?

Actually this piece was not hard to create, it just fell together for me. While I was sculpting her, Jean Bernard gave a free tutorial on how to create wings with tissue paper and lots of glitter and baubles and beads.

I took her idea and created the mermaid's tail fin and side fins; that was the easy aspect of this piece because it was so much fun to pull out all of my beads and glitter and I was able to use some beautiful baroque pearls I had been saving.

5. Are you satisfied with your piece? Did you learn anything in the process of creating this work?

I always have a love/hate relationship with my work. I loved this piece right after I finished it; but, after taking pictures, I saw where I could have done a better job of sculpting her. I always learn something about sculpting every time I do a piece; it is a forever learning process. Maybe that

is why it has held my interest for so long. Every time I pick up the clay there is that doubt if I can actually sculpt a face or a figure

Caroline Jones of Carolines Crafts

1. What inspired you to join the Elements challenge?
I just started learning about needle felting after receiving some free wool. I thought doing this challenge would be a good opportunity to see what I could make using this technique.

2. What is your art piece and what is it about? What does it represent, literally or figuratively
My piece is a little gnome doll and she will have a mushroom house to live in. It represents the element earth which includes symbols of plants, gnomes and color is brown.

While doing some research on needle felting, I came across a simple little gnome doll that I had wanted to make. I like gnomes and mushrooms and it just happened to work out that the elements challenge came up at the same time.

3. How did you create your piece and what materials did you use? How long did it take to create?
I am using felting needles and wool for both pieces. The mushroom will include some styrofoam and interfacing to keep it strong and stable. The gnome was done within a week's time, working on and off with it a few hours a night. The mushroom is still being worked on and in the same manner.

4. What were the easier aspects of creating your art? What were the harder aspects?
The gnome was generally easy for me to make as it is just punching a needle up and down and forming the doll as you go. Working on the mushroom has been the hardest because it is somewhat big and is three dimensional. Making sure that it stands up and is able to hold the cap will be a little tricky.

5. Are you satisfied with your piece? Did you learn anything in the process of creating this work?
I like what I have made so far. I have learned that I enjoy working with needle felting and plan on improving with time. I will also try not to stab myself with the needles as it can be very painful when that happens.

Saturday's Vintage Photographs

Good Morning all you Creative People out there in Blog Land. We hope you are enjoying our Saturday Vintage Photographs here. Sit back with our Morning Tea or Java and enjoy your Saturday Morning with ADO. Have a Wonderful Weekend!

Until Next Time...

CHEERS!

How to photograph and edit your doll for the web

Kim Feint from PaintNCloth is an ADO member and she has created a tutorial on photoshop pictures of art dolls. Thank you for sharing this with us, Kim!

Hi you all, I have designed this little tutorial to help my fellow doll makers show their dolls off in the best possible way, so here we go...

What you will need:

Computer

photoshop

digital camera

doll

props such as flowers, pretty scrap book papers and what ever suits you or takes your fancy.




First... Set up your doll and pretty things, I put some pretty paper for the back ground,white computer paper for the bottom, flowers for under the Tadmer, string to hang her from so she seems to be floating,then I start to take photos from different angles.

I only used a couple of the pictures, but its best to take lots, you can always delete what you don't need.

Second... Once you are happy with the shots,take them to your computer and download them to the pc, pick the one you want to work with and head over to the photoshop to play!

Third... Open photoshop, open your photo file and pick the image that you want to tweek. When you have your image, crop it to get rid of parts that dont need to be there.

Fourth... I used some vine brushes to add a nice whimsical feel to the pic, I also blured the edges of the photo by using two layers. I went to Layers...duplicate layer..named it tadmer...and then disabled the original layer so I could work on the duplicate.

I then went to the eraser tool and picked some long edgey brushes and softened the outer edges of the photo, then I went to Layers and chose "flatten image".

Next I went to Filters..Distort..disfuse.. glow and tweeked it until I was happy with the softness of the image. I then added some text to give a brief hint as to who and what Tadmer was, you will see some photos under this post showing the stages of the doll photo set up and edit. If you need brushes to download onto you pc in photoshop just browse the net for free brushes or pop in and join Deviant Art and you will find many there (but ask the makers if you can use them), there are heaps to use for free any way in the resources section at DA, in fact you will find a great many resourses for your on line art over at DA and lots of tutorials to use!

Well I hope this has helped or at least inspired you to make pretty pics of your dolls! I will be starting tutorial blog in the next week or so so pop in for the link.

Hugs to you all!

You can see more of Kim's work here: inkcat.etsy.com

Did You Know...

In the 1940's the USA outlawed the use of celluloid for dolls, as the material can be flammable if exposed to high heat or open flame. This really isn't surprising considered the celluloid consisted of cellulose nitrate, alcohol, fillers & camphor pigments. So you do have any celluloid dolls, to be safe, don't play with them outside in the summer heat, or in front of a roaring fire.

New Treasures from ADO picked by Abi

Abi just caught a treasury of some more of our Art Doll Favorites,
please come check it out and add some lovely comments here.

Oooo New treasury by DebiDesigns

Please come and check out Debi's wonderful favorites! Her new ADO treasury!

It's Wordless Wednesday.......almost!

As time is getting closer to posting your ADO Four Elements Challenge Art Doll, here are two Water Element inspirational images.....












(Click on images to enlarge)




Isn't it wonderful to see a fuller figured woman? I think apart from Art Dolls By Nat (her dolls have a good sized butt!) this beautiful Cloth Art Doll by Lisa Lichtenfels is probably the second curvaceous Art Doll I've come across!





















This image is another one of Bergdorf Goodman's holiday window displays - the Water Element (Photo: by courtesy of Thoughtful Day)

Looking forward to seeing all those wonderful Art Dolls!

10 days left!!

Only 10 days left to finish your doll!
how are you all doing?

On Friday July 17th participants post your art doll to your blog.
Saturday July 18th and Sunday July 19th begins the fun of seeing all the art dolls that have been created! All participants are listed in the ADO sidebar for easy visiting. if you don't see your blog there and you have signed up just email me at artdollsonly@hotmail.com
please include your name and a link to your blog.


here is a little teaser of some of the ADO member's finished pieces!

*if for you have signed up and can no longer participate, no biggy just be sure to let us know so we can remove you from the blog roll.

**don't have a blog but still want to participate**
Deanna over at Blue Heron Dolls has graciously offered to host your finished dolls pictures.
simple visit her blog and let her know!

Saturday's Vintage Photographs

Art Dolls Only Wishes you and your family a very Happy and Safe Fourth of July!

Cheers!

Did You Know...

The popular Cabbage Patch Kids® dolls originally started out as soft sculpture dolls. Their inventor, Xavier Roberts, wins a first place ribbon for sculpture with "Dexter" at the 1978 Osceola Art Show in Kissimmee, Florida.

"It is amazing to me. It really started off as a piece of art. I would travel to art shows and he actually won some prizes at different art shows, competing with sculpture and other things." - Xavier Roberts, 2002

It's Wordless Wednesday.......almost!

Click on image to enlarge

Lisa Lichtenfels, probably the greatest Cloth Doll Artist (or to put it in her words, figurative sculpture - realism in fabric) I have ever come across, created this amazing figure. To me, he represents the 'Earth' Element. If you haven't visited her website, you must!

How is everyone progressing with their ADO Four Elements Challenge? It's fabulous to see how many people are participating! Lets hear from you...........