Monday, July 14, 2008

The Fairy and her Diary


Back in 2005 I entered a challenge where the doll had to have a story to go with it. I came up with this little brown fairy for that challenge. She was actually the prototype, but since she turned out reasonably well, I entered her instead of the next generation fairy because she fit into a story my spouse Chris came up with.

After drawing up the pattern and trying out various incarnations of bodies, legs and such, this doll was my first result of all the parts going together in a satisfactory way. Usually, at this point, I don't go any further with the prototype and just go on to the final doll but I had put enough time into her I thought I'd try and get a doll out of her. Since she was done in white muslin, I decided to try dying her with procion dyes after I put her together, which is not the way I would recommend dyeing a doll if you want a consistent color throughout. So, there are some interesting markings on her legs and arms, but it seems to go with her overall earthy look.

Next, I worked on her clothes. Her bodice is made of some kind of fake-a-suede and took several iterations to get it to fit just the way I wanted. It has tiny eyelets all up the front which I found in the scrap booking section of the hobby store. Putting those on the bodice was a bit of a challenge.


Her boots are also made of imitation suede with some painted embellishments and the same tiny eyelets. I looked at a pair of ice skates to get the general idea of how to do them.


The hair is made of mohair locks, carefully dyed using jacquard acid dyes and then needle felted on.


The wings are also hand dyed.


I couldn't come up with panties that suited her, so she's pantyless under her skirt. This inspired the story, a diary entry, on how she lost her painties.

"June 22
Dear Diary,
Oh baby, what a party that was last night. Everyone, who’s anyone, was there including Oberon and what’s her name, Titania. Sure hope none of her fairy spies go around reading diaries of young fairies. And then there was that satyr that came in about half way through the evening. Oh my! What a buck! And what a sweetheart, we talked and drank and danced into the morning. And then we went back to his place. He, he, he."...

For the rest of the entry, see this pdf:
Brown Fairy's Diary

4 comments:

La, Storyteller/Storysinger said...

Love the doll and the Blog!!

Zo-Be Designs said...

Ha! Love all the hearts in her diary. It perfectly fits her. She's beautiful!

Shashi Nayagam said...

Thank you so much for visiting my blog and your lovely comments.
I have been having a great time browsing your blog. I love your dolls and all the art work. You an awesome artist!

Nancy Perennec Maker said...

Love the doll! The boots are killer!! Way to go! I'd love to see a pattern for those! I'm new to shoes... lol making them anyways... Your story was fun, I love doing them up for my puppets.