The Nature of the Work ✨
From jewelry-making skills to the art of makeup artistry.
The craft of dollmaking requires an impressive range of skills. When creating dolls, I have to be a multiprofessional. To describe all the intricacies of the work would require an entire book! I will simply list the skills I apply in my work:
· Creating drawings and schematics (for new sculptural models)
· Hand sculpting hollow parts (working with Ladoll and Cernit clays, as well as plasticine)
· Molding the finished model with plaster (creating plaster molds)
· Casting ceramic slip or porcelain into plaster molds
· Processing greenware doll parts
· Three-stage firing of parts in a muffle kiln
· Painting with overglaze colors (a complex process of mixing pigments and firing the painted pieces)
· Stringing the finished doll on springs or special elastic bands
· Creating wigs and applying eyelashes
· Sewing clothing and crafting accessories (jewelry work)
I do all of this by hand. Only the costume sewing I may partially outsource, following my own original patterns.
Making dolls is a very long and labor-intensive process. Unfortunately, everyday life and modern realities make it very difficult for me to create new dolls. That's why there are so few of them.
Dolls
Lady Of Lake🧚🏻♀️
Porcelain doll, Parian (Valentine`s Clay)
Her name is Nimue, as her design was inspired by the Lady of the Lake from Arthurian legend. She stands 28 cm tall and has 27 articulated joints.
Rusalka on Rusalia Festival 🧜🏻♀️
Porcelain doll, Nephrite (elite сhinese porcelain)
Her name is Alyona and she is a girl, who participating in at the Slavic festival of Rusalia. She is 26 cm tall, and her body has 27 joints. Her detalis are stretched with elastic bands.
Goddes of Earth
Porcelain Parian (Valentine's Clay)
This is the third porcelain doll, Goddess of the Earth. Her prototype is Žemyna, the Lithuanian goddess of the Earth, but I emphasized her image with Indo-European painting and infused her with all the images of the goddesses of Indo-European peoples... She is 28 cm tall, and her body has 27 joints. Her detalis are stretched with elastic bands.
The doll is in process.
Master model
32 cm, Ladoll, resine laces
I used Japanese Ladoll clay to sculpt my main master model. It was created entirely by hand. Then I removed the plaster molds and am now casting porcelain. However, this is also a difficult and creative process.