Another Hanging Doll

This is the second doll I have made in my quest for simple hanging doll. I wanted her to be a bit abstract and she is! Her flat pillow body/dress is sewn from hand painted fabric. The arms and legs are sewn from a knit fabric. I eventually figured out that I could use the cut off legs of some clothes pegs to fill the legs, making a pointed toe, and to make the hands. I'm surprised that the grubby marks on her face show up so much more in the photo than they do in person. Note the eyebrows! I've avoided making eyebrows in the past, but now that eyebrows are "the thing", I'd better practice making them.

I'm happy to report that the doll I wrote about a few weeks ago is finished! For some reason the process was more difficult than expected. I kept making body elements that were too small for the size of the face. (The total figure is 23", with a 3" face.) I sewed several bodies and made 3 different sets of legs before I gave up and used the second pair. These are sewn from light weight canvas, stuffed and covered with many coats of gesso, tissue paper collage and paint. The simple arms are paper mache over wire. The wire loop that connects each leg to the torso was more awkward looking than I had hoped, so I added the tutu skirt to cover it up a bit.

​In the end I have a hanging figure that can twirl around with dangling legs.  And, on the plus side, I have 2 extra pairs of legs that I can use for something.

I feel like I have this idea under better control now and I look forward to working out some other variations and embellishments. Before I do that I plan to return to the idea of a very primitive hanging figure that I started exploring in the most recent post..