Second Santos Cage Doll Attempt

I got the wooden strips in to make the skirt for the first doll (see previous posts), but haven't come up with a way to attach them to her yet, one that will be sturdy enough, so in the meantime I've started working on a second doll, also inspired by Jennifer Rizzo's class (see sidebar for link), also in air dry doll clay. 

This time I'm using papier mache ready made forms (egg and torso) as a core. After deciding how I wanted the head to be positioned, I punched holes in the neck of the torso and the bottom of the egg and glued a flat wooden stick into each and let dry 

The following doll and the following pictures were made over several days.

The torso was too long for what I wanted, so I cut the bottom off, stuffed some paper into the torso, and filled the bottom with a layer of air dry doll clay, making the bottom flat and giving it a bit of weight. I then covered the rest of the outside with clay and let it dry.

I also didn't want her breasts to be so obvious, so I filled in a little extra between them and punched holes in the shoulders for the wire that will hold her arms on to go through.

It's better to work with all damp clay, because it's hard to get damp clay blended over dry clay, even if you work with damp fingers and dampened clay, but I can only work so long at a time, and I forget to cover what I've done with a damp cloth and put it in a zip lock bag between sessions, so on these two dolls, I've worked damp over dry. If I ever make one for someone besides myself, I will do better. I'm not use to working with clay, but I'm learning! Next, the face, hair, and arms!

Working on the face, and I inserted wire to attach arms. I had made two holes (one on the shoulders and one in the upper arm) to loop the wire through, but never could get it through both holes, so wound up just inserting it straight through. Then this wire turned out to be too stiff, so I had to switch to a thinner wire, but it's all good...hopefully! Still have the eyes and hair to do, which I did the next day, but didn't get a photo of.

I didn't paint a layer of white gesso over the clay on this one before I painted her, and I had to re-adjust her face some before painting too. Unfortunately, I got twisted around and somehow got her face turned different than I had intended, and I got her forehead too narrow, the nose too big, and her chin too long (faces are HARD), so she isn't pretty, but she does have character, I think. She reminds me of one of my great-aunts! :)

Ready to assemble! 

I don't really like the head made from the papier mache egg with the torso I got. It's a little too big for the body, but, hey, I'm learning! And I'm still afraid to attempt fingers!

I didn't like the pink dress and lips, so I re-painted them and painted the hair a bit redder. Not sure I improved her any! Now to get her arms attached with wire and add the skirt, if I can find my hot glue gun...

I found my big hot glue gun, after wiring her arms on, and glued the flat sticks for her skirt on her body and I thought they were holding (she looked sooo good!), but the next day I picked her up to glue them to the base, almost dropped her, and accidentally hit two of the sticks trying to catch her, causing them to pop right off. I'm going to go ahead and publish this post, and when I get the skirts to stay on, I'll post a picture of both dolls completed. OK?

    

UPDATE! After much trying, I finally got her skirt on! Now, just praying the glue holds! 

Working on the first doll's skirt now, and will post a picture of both dolls, with a better background, when I have their accessories found and on!

Stay safe, well, and creative out there! Thanks for visiting my blog!