Alabama Baby-inspired Dolls

I'm revisiting my modern take ("Viola Ruth") on antique Alabama Baby dolls. I made one this past March for the ODACA Day Sales Room in New Orleans. She sold almost immediately. 

This is a cloth doll with a baked polymer clay face and occiput, air-dry clay that fills the gaps, covered with a knit fabric, then painted. The pattern is available on my website, but I'm running quite low on the pressmolds used to form the face.

I've started two more dolls as I want to write an article describing my process for "antiquing" painted dolls for the upcoming issue of Expressions, ODACA's quarterly newsletter issued to Artist and Patron members. You can become a Patron HERE. 

So let's begin:

The body is very simple. Darts front and back define the neck, and the bottom is boxed. Because the polymer clay can make the doll top-heavy, I add a basic wire armature while stuffing to strengthen the neck.

The baked polymer clay is glued to the cloth head and allowed to dry completely.

I apply white tacky glue to the exposed fabric head, then add air-dry clay to fill the gaps. This extends beyond the neck and upper chest/back, which strengthens the neck and creates a sort of shoulder plate. 

Knit fabric is adhered with white tacky glue and covers the entire head, neck and shoulder plate. After the glue has dried, I paint two layers of gesso to the knit.  

Gesso also covers the ears, then they are glued to the head.

Paint the head, shoulder plate, arms and legs with flesh-colored acrylic paint. I like this light neutral color (Jo Sonja's Artists' Colours in unbleached titanium). 

The shoes/stockings are painted with a color that complements the clothing.

The first step in antiquing the dolls to use a ONE-STEP crackle. I'm sure there are other brands out there, but I've only used DecoArt (note: product label may vary). Do NOT use a 2-step crackle. Apply the crackle to the painted areas quickly, and don't over-work it. A thin coat will produce small crackled effects. A thick coat will produce large crackled effects. Allow to dry thoroughly - roughly 2-4 hours depending on thickness of application.

Stay tuned...