Maria Manning - Hung For Murder 1849/50

I've had a bit of a problem with my back for years now. And last week it decided without my say so to have a bit of an "Episode". So I had to stay home from work at the day job.

To keep myself occupied I sat in my comphy upright chair, stayed warm, took my tablets, watched hours of period dramas, and sewed until my fingers hurt. Not only did I manage to finish my Maria Manning doll, but also managed to get my mothers Christmas present, a Spanish Flamenco Dancer doll, dressed and wigged. So here they both are.

Maria Manning was born in Switzerland and emigrated to Britain to work as a lady’s maid to the wealthy Lady Blantyre, who was the daughter of the Duchess of Sutherland. She developed a taste for a luxurious lifestyle amid the elegance of her employer’s homes and general finery. She dreaded the idea of poverty, and resolved she would never live like that. She met Patrick O’Connor while travelling with her mistress. And as a custom-house officer at London’s docks he was independently wealthy, as well as his being a well-known money lender. Maria was also involved with Frederick Manning, who did not have a very well paid job. Both men proposed to her at around the same time, and Maria had to decide which one of them would make the better husband and provide for her better. After promising Maria that he was soon to come into a large inheritance, the younger Frederick ‘won the day’, and he and Maria were married. At first the couple afforded a fairly stylish house, but she soon realised that the inheritance was not to come. She continued to see O’Connor, and renewed her affair with him; apparently with the acquiescence of Manning.

On 17th Aug 1849 two policemen discovered a body under the flagstones in the kitchen of Mr & Mrs Manning’s home in Bermondsey. The skull was fractured in two places, and a bullet protruded under the skin of the right eye. The deceased was Patrick O’Connor who had been a frequent visitor to the house, and had often joined the couple for dinner at their home. Maria had hatched a plan to kill her rich lover and take his money. It’s known that she purchased a sack of quicklime and a shovel before inviting him to dinner on the 9^th Aug 1849. When he arrived she suggested that he might like to wash his hands before dinner. And as he did so standing at the kitchen sink, she shot him in the head with a pistol. The bullet did not kill him, and Frederick finished him off by battering his head with a crowbar. The couple then buried the body in a pre-dug grave below the kitchen flagstones, covering it with plenty of quicklime to try and speed the body’s decay. The following day Maria went to O’Connor’s lodgings and managed to con her way into his rooms where she systematically went through his belongings and stole railway shares and other valuables, returning the next day to take anything more she had missed. She was the power behind the murder, although her husband had helped.

Two days later two men claiming to be O’Connor’s colleagues came to the Manning home looking for him, giving them a nasty fright. They suspected that they were detectives, and so decided to leave London immediately. After sending her husband to try and sell their furniture Maria packed everything of value she could find and that she could carry and left for Edinburgh. Maria’s motive was pure greed, and while she was willing to grant O’Connor sexual favours it’s clear all she really wanted was his money. Mrs Manning was eventually found and arrested in Edinburgh, where she was trying to sell the railway shares she had stolen from the murdered man. Her husband was found in Jersey. The contrast between Maria and her husband was great, her with a proud, cold demeanour and he unimpressive and weak, which left him widely despised for hiding behind his wife.

At their trial each tried to blame the other, and as the verdict was passed Maria showed the only emotion that she had shown throughout the whole of her arrest, trial and finally her execution – She lost her composure and screamed and raved at the judge, shouting “Damnation Seize Ye All” as he tried to pass the death sentence. Although she apparently asked the wardens escorting her back to gaol how they had liked her performance in court. She was considered a suicide risk, and had 3 wardenesses that slept in the cell with her, very much to her disgust. She lulled them into a false sense of security, and after letting her nails grow long tried to strangle herself and puncture her own windpipe. To prepare her for the gallows her arms where bound behind her with cords, and her stiff starched and corded petticoats would have been taken away so that her gown and legs could be bound on the platform to prevent the wind causing her skirts to blow up. She asked to be blindfolded by a black silk handkerchief, and had her face covered with a black lace veil to conceal her features from public gaze. Walking to their death at a public hanging she walked to her doom with a firm, unfaltering step, while his step was ‘feeble and tottering, and he had to be supported by two turnkeys’. On their way a singular coincidence occurred. The Manning’s walked over their own graves, just as they had made their victim do in the kitchen.

Maria Manning made it into Madame Tussaud’s famous waxworks. And it’s likely that they were sold the actual dress that Maria had died in. She was an attractive woman. Her gown as she walked to her death was of black satin, and it was widely believed that it was because of this that black satin became unfashionable immediately after her execution and stayed so for nearly 30 years.

Charles Dickens described the sight of the hangings – “The man’s a limp loose suit of clothes, as if the man had gone out of them; the woman’s a fine shape, so elaborately corseted and artfully dressed, that it was quite unchanged in its trim appearance as it swayed slowly from side to side”.

My Maria wears white cotton bloomers and shift under a corset and lots of petticoats. Over her sage green under petticoat she has one with lots of cording sewn tightly tucked inside by hand to help hold out her huge skirts. This was before the introduction of the cage crinoline, and skirts were held out with as many petticoats as a woman could bear to wear or carry, sometimes as many as 20 plus layers of petticoats, all sewn to one or two waistbands, using different techniques to stiffen them and lots and lots of starch. After this corded petticoat (which actually lets this doll stand unaided if you get the balance right), Maria has a heavily flounced dark red petticoat before her black satin under- and over-skirts. She has a black lace shoulder covering small shawl and false sleeves, and a black satin bodice with fashionable almost off the shoulder low arm seemed shoulders. The sash she wears around her waist is purple satin, and her hair had a touch of navy blue to add some colour. A lady at this time would not have gone out in public without a bonnet or hat. And there are illustrations that picture Maria in a white cap trimmed with black lace. So I made my doll a similar cap of ivory silk cotton and trimmed it with black satin ribbon and lace. And I've made her her own rope noose to carry to the gallows.

After all that darkness it was a real change to sew the bright red spotted cotton into loads of ruffles for my Mother's Rosy, a traditional Flanenco Dancer with a fitted long bodice, ruffles at her neck, sleeves, wrists and all over her trailing skirt, with a white lace shawl for good measure. She was fun to make, even though not really my style. And I really hope my Mam likes her :)

Maria Manning - The Killer of Black Satin

After having a total panic when I realised I have 3 commission dolls to finish by the end of October, and then another pair before Christmas, going on a shopping mission to gather all the fabric I need together, and planning out my activities so strictly I could tell you what I'm doing on the Monday in three weeks time, part of my brain decided that I had time to fit in one more doll before I had to start them.
I must be nuts!

To make things just a little more difficult for myself, the only doll I wanted to make right now was the scandalous Victorian Murderer Maria Manning.

Maria and her husband were convicted and hung in  1849 for the murder of Patrick O'Connor - Maria's Lover!

Maria was a Lady's Maid working for a great English lady. And she'd acquired a taste for the richer things in life during her career.
She had been in a relationship with both O'Connor and Manning when both proposed to her. She had to choose between the already rich customs officer and loan shark O'Connor, and the poor Manning who had told her he would soon be coming into a large inheritance. She chose the later, and soon found that the inheritance would never come, and she was stuck living a poor life without any of the extravagances she wanted.

She began her affair with O'Connor shortly after; some say with her husbands knowledge. He was a frequent visitor to their home, and one night when invited to dinner, Maria shot him in the back of the head, Manning battered him around the skull to make sure he was dead, and the couple buried him in a pre-prepared grave beneath the kitchen flagstones, covering the body with quicklime.

 After twice talking her way into O'Connor's rooms and stealing everything of value, Maria then tricked her husband and left for Scotland with all the valuables they possessed and her stolen loot.

She was a heartless, cold , and calculating woman who dammed the court as her sentence was read after trying to blame the whole murder on her weak, pathetic husband. As she walked to the gallows, ironically passing over her own grave site as she did so just as O'Connor must have walked over his in the kitchen, she held her head high and walked with a firm step. She chose to wear a fashionable black satin gown with black lace veil to her hanging. And as there was so much publicity and scandal surrounding the case, it being reported in every newspaper and journal throughout the country, the  popularity of wearing black satin suddenly declined, and it didn't come back into fashion for 30 years.

Maria isn't the easiest doll to have decided to make in a limited time because of the period of clothing that she'll need. 1849 was still 5 or 6 years before the invention of the cage crinoline, and the huge bell shaped skirts favoured by women of the time were created by multiple layers of petticoats alone.

Two of Maria's petticoats are just finished. So along with her baggy bloomers and long scoop necked chemise and corset Maria now wears an under-petticoat of green cotton to protect her legs from the stiff coarse calico fabric of her corded petticoat.

As the two women were living during the same period, Maria's corded petticoat is constructed in the same way as I made one for my Mary Shelley. Just on a smaller scale as Maria is quite a bit smaller than Mary is. Each cord has been individually tucked into the calico and hand sewn into place, with the next cord folded in very close to the first with some gaps left between groups of rows to give some flexibility. When all the cords were in I then sewed a panel of calico to the back of the cording panel to stop them curling up and to keep them in the right shape. A real full-sized corded petticoat would have hundreds of lines of cording sewn into it to create the support needed to keep the voluminous skirts held out in the fashionable bell shape. And I really can't imagine having to hand sew one of these garments for myself as women did then. It must have taken months to complete, and must have been very tough on the fingers. I have a hole in my finger after just sewing in 21 cords, and remember having many small injuries after finishing Mary Shelley's larger corded petticoat.

Now I'm on to the next layer to help create bulk and soften the shape of Maria's skirts - a dark red flounced petticoat. I know that women during the 1840's would have worn any number of petticoats, from six to thirty in varying layers of plain, flounced, corded and ones stuffed with horse hair. But Maria's size is limiting me to how many I can get away with in her costume. After this next flounced layer I think there will only be room for one more plain one, and then her underskirt and gown. I'm looking forward to sewing in the nice floaty black sating I have ready for her. But that low scooped neckline is going to be a real challenge :)

Terry's Grandmother

Terry’s family originates from Germany and Yugoslavia. They travelled as Gypsies throughout Europe, and through the stories told to him by his Grandmother it’s clear that the strongest sense of magic in his life came from her. In Terry’s Grandmother all of the knowledge and skills of generations came together, and sadly no name is given for her in the account I read in A Victorian Grimoire by Patricia Telesco.

She had many magical things around her home such as a Ouija board that was still used on occasion when Terry was a child. It was a unique object; round with protective symbols at the edge and a pentagram in the centre. The family believed that the best wood for such a board was oak or yew, and this one was oak. The most unique feature of this board was that instead of a planchette it employed a blue crystal hanging from a chain. In this way there was no real physical contact with it other than when setting it up. There were traditional alphabet letters imprinted on it, but it lacked the “yes”, “No”, and “End” seen on more modern boards, and it was stored away in a special velvet cloth and left undisturbed when not in use. The crystal itself was left sitting out as decoration. Another tool, a two-hundred-year-old Tarot deck was sadly destroyed when one family member converted to Catholicism. It was reportedly made of cloth and slightly larger than the decks we use today.

Terry’s Grandmother was known as a wise woman and a psychic reader, often employing flower petals for divination in a perfectly Victorian manner. She had a talent for communicating with spirits, seeing into the future, interpreting dreams, and of course, healing love-sick hearts. For pregnant women she often advised different types of teas for each month, and her commanding demeanour usually kept them listening. In matters of love she had a very special, distinctive recipe, passed down to Terry himself, for spaghetti sauce. Made as if one were arranging a blind date, and then given to those who needed it. Most of the herbs involved were for love, sex and longevity. And Terry remembers times when the sauce was specially prepared and given to people they knew – they being none the wiser of its attributes.

She had a way with animals, and like a majority of superstitions from the Victorian era, a particular way with birds. She could still feed the birds in the city environment she lived in when an old woman, by Hand! She had unusual pets, like a pet bull that only she could lead, cats with seven toes, porcupines and skunks. And she had kept a kitchen garden at her home when she was younger, stocked full of herbs and useful plants. She had shelves filled with jars of all types of spices, and did her own herb gathering and drying. Usually, the herbs were dried by hanging, but certain herbs had to be dried in the oven at very low temperatures. Unfortunately as she aged memory failed Terry’s Grandmother, and she was unable to recall which herbs these were when Terry had asked her.

Terry’s Grandmother’s home showed a rich magical tradition. There were candles of every shape and colour wherever you went. Tables throughout the house where adorned with hand crocheted doilies, which, if examined closely, contained tiny magical symbols. There is still a brass vase in the family that no one is allowed to touch, but it draws children and adults alike to stare at it; energy radiates from the metal like a beacon. Visitors to her home still remember Terry’s Grandmother warning them of fairies in nearby fields.

I was so inspired by this account of a strong, caring, true Victorian Witch that I couldn’t resist making her as one of my dolls. I pictured her as a smart, intelligent lady. As mentioned in the full account I dressed her as she would have been at the turn of the century. And my Terry’s Grandmother wears sweet lace frilled long knickers and a mid-length white cotton chemise that has a lace frilled front to help emphasise the fashionable shape desired at the time. After a tightly laced corset to show off her still tiny waist Terry’s Grandmother wears a plum coloured petticoat that has a slight train and is gathered in back. Her crisp, high-necked, cream cotton lawn blouse is trimmed with lace to match the lace frills on the three-quarter sleeves of her dress. Which is made of a soft sage green checked fabric, and has a pleated cross front, tailored skirts with an elegant train, and a contrasting purple satin sash.

For this special lady I’ve made her own little scene to sit in, surrounded by some of the things she would have used in her daily life. Tiny jars of spice sit next to jugs of mysterious liquid, with her cauldron nearby ready to cook up the pumpkins picked fresh from her garden. Tucked away behind her handmade stool are two jars of her special spaghetti sauce, and her distinctive Ouija board can be set up for use by setting the curved twisted metal arm holding the blue crystal into the hole right next to the A.

Terry's Grandmother Sneeky Peek

I've been busy all day today getting all the little bits and pieces put together for Terry's Grandmother.

She's now all dressed in a smart gray / green check gown with a cream blouse and rich paisley shawl. And she looks really sweet sat on her little stool with all her magical bit's and bobs spread around her.

After getting Terry's Grandmother dressed I sculpted three tiny pumpkins to go along with the other little things I had ready for her. And this morning I sat down at my table, woke up while I looked through some e-mails, and got to work getting everything together so she can be finished this weekend.

I've stained a plinth base a dark brown and added a delicate patterned rug from a dolls house to make my little scene seem a little more homely. Then  painted the pumpkins and the little stool that I made for her last week. Adding faux liquid and sealing spices and seeds from my kitchen cupboard to the tiny jars and bottles.

Woodwork is really not my thing. And it took me a while to figure out how to make just a simple four-legged stool.
My handy Husband helped me figure out how to fix everything together, and I started with a few lengths of thin hardwood dowel, a wooden disc, and a real of vintage carpet thread.

Cris helped me to drill four angled holes through the wooden disc, then helped me again to hold the dowels still while I cut them into the four legs and four cross pieces. After gluing in the legs I shaped the ends of the cross bars with a small round file so that they fitted against the legs, and then glued them into place too. When everything had dried I cross wrapped each joint with the vintage thread to make them stronger.

Now that it's painted and ages this little stool looks quite sweet. And underneath I've hidden two jars of Terry's Grandmother's Love Potion Spaghetti Sauce.

Scattered around my smart Victorian Witch are three pumpkins grown in her abundant kitchen garden, a small black cauldron, a jug and bottle filled with mysterious liquids and a few tiny jars of spice and dried herbs.
Leaning against the leg of her stool is her unusual round Ouija board with the beautiful blue crystal hanging from a twisted metal hook, just as Terry described it himself in his account of her in the Victorian Grimoire.

Tomorrow just to finish everything off I'm going to add some tiny labels to the bottles and jars, find something to put in her cauldron, and cut some tiny herb bunches from my garden to add in among the pumpkins (you can still see the varnish drying on this one).

I've really enjoyed creating a tiny piece of Terry's Grandmother's world. and I'd love to make more little scenes for my dolls in the future. My only problem will be trying not to get too carried away with making more and more tiny little things to add in to tell their stories :)

A Very Busy Month & Terry's Grandmother

I really couldn't tell you where my time has gone this month. It's been too long since I blogged, and so many things have happened.
After getting all of my new dolls strung together I've been caught up with getting some of my research written up, had a week with a stinking cold so could get hardly anything done at all, changed my hours at my day job, had a request from my mother in Spain to make her a Flamenco Dancer doll (no I don't really know why, but if that's what she wants), and best of all had my little vampire Billy, better known as Mommy I'm Hungry, featured in Art Dolls Quarterly :)

Billy was the first full hard sculpt doll that I ever made, and he's still with me. He's the kind of doll I fell in love with as soon as I turned him to face me once he was finished. The type that you just know that you'll never be able to part with. And I was so pleased with him I sent his photo off to ADQ and then promptly forgot all about it. I was so surprised to get an e-mail from the lovely Jana Holstein saying that they would like to add him to the Autumn issue of Art Dolls Quarterly as it's always my favorite issue of the year. All that's best and brightest in the world of creepy Halloween dolls, and I'm really honored that one of my little dolls has been included with such a fantastic collection this year. Best of all, there were loads of other Art Dolls Only team doll artists in this issue, with a big feature on our Captain Nicole of Mealy Monster Dolls - http://www.etsy.com/shop/mealymonster
My dolls have changed so much over the years that seeing this first little doll of mine on the glossy pages of ADQ has really made me feel all over again that what I'm doing is worth it somehow; that I may actually be reaching others with what I do. And I really hope that I can reach my dreams and continue to improve.

After spending so long sculpting, painting and getting ready I found myself at a complete loss when I started thinking of what doll I wanted to make next.

I knew that I wanted her to be a smaller doll this time. The sewing involved in the big dolls I've just finished has left me with holes in my fingers from all the stab wounds, so a nice small Victorian Lady so I could practice my small detail work sounded nice - but which one?

I've been planning out a load of dolls while I sculpted: Victorian London Prostitutes tricked into service by ruthless Procuresses, some of the highly publicised Victorian scandals reported in the press of women accused of murder and adultery, an Asylum inmate committed for understandably loosing her wits under the pressure of caring for her ungrateful family, or the Asylum nurse finally charged and convicted to an Asylum herself for mistreating her patients... Hundreds of women that truly show the side of Victorian society that we never hear about; the side of that society that has done so much to shape our own.
But with Halloween only just around the corner now, what could be better than a Victorian Witch.

A witch from the times that I like to create my dolls in is not an easy thing to find, as Witchcraft is said to have died out years before. But if you think about it, that really just can't be the case. What would have been called Witchcraft 200 years ago we'd all recognise now as Herbalism, Alternative Religion, Clairvoyance and skills in reading other peoples behaviour and attitudes through reading tea leaves or palms. With the death of Witchcraft the Georgian and Victorian people turned to table-tipping, Spiritualism, seances, and Mediums. But in my imagination I wanted something more of the traditional witch bending over her cauldron cooking up some kind of smelly remedy for one of the neighborhood that was brave enough to knock on her door. I wanted a black cauldron and pointed hat, jars and bottles of herbs and things no-one wants to think about, a black cat and a pet toad, and a hunched old lady that scares all the local children. But I couldn't find her.

I knew it was a long shot, but surely there must be a proper witch out there without having to go back as far as the 17th or 18th century.

Could they all have really disappeared? And was I really just living in dream land again with my wild ideas? Sometimes I know I live in a fantasy world where everything seems possible, but it just didn't make sense that we all somehow still know that honey is a good antiseptic, and that mint will calm a bad stomach, but that the women that practiced this herbal remedy "witchcraft" had actually disappeared when modern history tells us that they did.

We all know a few herbal or natural remedies for everyday ailments passed down from out grandparents and great grandparents. And the women that where Swum by scared villagers and the authorities spent hundreds of years passing down their knowledge from generation to generation, I knew there had to be a real woman out there somewhere. And just as I was about to give up and go back in time to the Pendle and Salem Witches, or resort to traditional fantasy (which I really didn't want to do), I found her - Terry's Grandmother!

I looked everywhere for an account of a true Victorian or Georgian Witch; in every book I have, all over the internet and even my local library, and all the time the perfect lady was right under my nose in a beautiful book I've owned for years called A Victorian Grimoire by Patricia Telesco.

This book is a fantastic reference to Victorian life that covers everything from Healing Rituals, information on The Grand Tours, gathering and drying herds, Meditation, Celebrating the Seasons, Herbal and Flower Remedies, Ouija Boards, and even making Poppet dolls to use as luck charms and love tokens. And tucked away towards the back is an account of Terry's Grandmother - a true Victorian Lady, and a true Victorian Witch.

If you have any interest in gentle magic and enchantment, spiritualism, the supernatural and the occult I can really recommend this book as practical A-Z type book that gives you a great starting point to start looking into things further. It's full of really useful information on loads of things that can be used day to day, such as remedies for colds and how to make sleep pillows, and gives you just enough information to get you started on more detailed subjects.

No real name is given for Terry's Grandmother, but as soon as I read about her I knew that she had to be my next doll. The account given of her is a loving portrait of a gentle, kind woman that still practices the spells and makes the potions that have been in her family for years. And gives a lot of detail about the life she lead and some of the magical items she used as part of her every day life, like a distinctive round Ouija board and her kitchen garden jammed full of every kind of herb and useful plant. Even down to the hand crocheted doilies used on every table of her home that had tiny magical symbols worked into them, and her kitchen full of jars of spices and herbs with bunches hanging to dry slowly in the warm and comfortable room.

Terry's Grandmother is just the kind of woman I was looking for. No pointy black hat and wart on the nose, but a real woman. Even though I'm guessing she still had a broom in the corner for sweeping the floor, and a cauldron of some sort for making up her closely guarded special recipe for spaghetti sauce that used herbs for love, longevity and sex which she made and gave to new couples to help them along their way without them ever knowing she was casting her own spell on their happiness, and giving them her blessing for a happy life.

Terry's Grandmother now sits looking at me as I type in a state I have to call Undress. She has long knickers (closed crotch knickers for a change, not open crotch bloomers) with a lace trim to the gathered legs, and a short mid length shift that has a lace gathered bosom to help the fashionable S-bend shape that was just emerging at the end of the century. In my mind I have an image of a very smart older lady, so have given her grey hair streaked with silver, and have made sure she has her shape perfecting corset to show off her still trim figure. With a plum colored petticoat gathered in the back with a very slight train.

The clothes at the change of the century were somewhere in between the classic high bustle straight skirt look and the later S-bend shape with the tight skirts. And I've chosen to make this doll with a pretty dress that has with slightly flowing softer skirt with a gathered back and detailed cross-over bodice worn over a sheer blouses or chemissette.
Now all I have to do is find the perfect fabric in my stash, and she should be dressed by the end of the day.

I wanted to make Terry's grandmother with a few of the magical things that were mentioned in the book. And although I don't normally set my dolls onto bases, this time I thought I'd make a little scene for my doll to sit in. I came up with a loads of ideas, and ended up back at the first one I came up with. And have to say a big Thank You to my Twitter friends and fellow doll makers for helping me work out what I wanted to do.

Now my plans are to make Terry's Grandmother her Ouija board and hanging crystal, as well as a few of her jars and bottles, and a little stool for her to sit on - all on her own little base so that she can be sat in amongst all her possessions and removed if wanted.
I did think it would be nice to make a small box scene for her with wallpaper and shelves, a rug on the floor, and her things neatly tidied away. But for the size of doll I'm making the whole thing would have just drowned her completely, so I think I'll have to save that for another time, and another doll. I can't wait to see the tiny glass bottles I've bought for her so I can start making up tiny labels and filling them with ground dried herbs from my own garden. And, as suggested by @fairiesnest, I'll have a go at making her a few pumpkins as well :)

Naked, Bald, and Beautiful!

It's been a while since my last post. And I've been a busy girl getting a whole heap of new dolls painted, varnished and strung together.
Now all my new girls are sitting quite pretty, waiting for their turn to be dressed and finished.

24 lovely new dolls in four sizes are now waiting for me. And now is the time I like the best.
New faces and personalities just waiting to tell me who they are and what they want to wear. A new doll is very demanding. And only the exact right fabric and colour will do.
Some of them are cheeky, some happy, some sad, some quiet, and some loud.
Who will be the next to have a brand new handmade outfit to show off?

Among all the skinny arms and legs on my work table I can see now an Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy (a rare boy doll for me). The twins from the horror film The Shinning as a gift for a friend as I know he particularly wants them. A sunny, smiling suffragette, eager to join her sisters in the struggle with her purple satin sash worn with pride. A murderous early Victorian asylum nurse that was even more insane than her patients. A fantasy steampunk vixen, and a tiny delicate fairy. All waiting for me to go to work with needle and thread to create exactly the right clothing.

Possibilities are endless - and I can't wait to get started.
I've too many ideas already!

As always, each stage to get me to this point has taken me longer than I wanted it to. I love to sculpt faces in a big batch so I can explore lots of different things all in one go. But, of course, making dolls also means that the bodies, arms and legs also need to be sculpted to make these dolls complete. And that all takes time.

Each limb has to be cut from a hard wood dowel, sanded, drilled and the hand or foot sculpted (I like sculpting the tiny feet on the end of it's leg and shaping the pointing toes :). Each body has to be made from a dowel with a wooden ball mounted on top to give me something to build a face upon. Layered with foil to create bulk. wrapped in tape and then covered with rolled out sheets of paperclay. And only when this is dry do I get to start on the faces, sculpting the neck into the shoulders as I go.

I've overcome a few problems while making this new big batch of dolls. And have discovered some new tricks that have saved me a lot of time.

I like to create a very simple body shape, most of which is just a long thick rod shape, as I find the stiff Victorian styles that I love seem to suit this straight backed posture. Making creating the look that I want much easier. Ladies didn't slouch back then. They couldn't. I'm truly glad I don't have to wear the tight, restrictive, permanently damaging corsets that women then wore. But there is something about the posture, elegance, and detail of the clothing they wore that i never get tired of.

This simple shape with its thread strung limbs is something I've developed after being inspired by the beautiful carved, moulded or stuffed ancient dolls that can still be found in Britain's museums - A very basic construction with layer upon layer of rich detailed clothing. The simple doll itself transformed into something intricate and outstanding.

One of the new tricks I developed during this round of sculpting was how to get a hole through the shoulders of each doll without having to drill them. It's always been a pain to get a hole that goes straight through the shoulders so that the arms can be attached in my preferred way - with vintage linen thread. But I've never been able to get this straight or true without countless mistakes and repairs.
But now I've figured out how to get this and get a nice flat place where the arm joins all in one go.

I'd never thought of it before, but now I know it seem obvious. And all I had to do was use a long strong needle and some wire.

This time I drilled the hole in the armature before adding any layers. Through this I held a long strong soft sculpture doll needle and built the armature, and then sculpted the body, around the needle. Sliding it back and fore as needed so I could get the shoulder shape I wanted. When I was done with a body I replaced the needle carefully with a piece of strong wire so that the whole thing could dry. And I've had not one problem with mis-drilled holes, feeling through a shoulder with needle to try and find the way through when stringing a doll together, or the horrible wonky shoulder issue. Simple!

I've spent all this weekend getting all of the arms and legs sewn together and then attached to each doll body. It's something that I never think will take very long, but of course, it always takes longer than I could ever imagine.

A nasty surprise this morning left me with 8 of  my new dolls with arms that hung below their knees and looking very odd. I'd somehow managed to measure the arm dowels wrong for one of the sizes I was making, so got delayed cutting each painted piece, sanding, painting, drilling and re-varnishing the lot before I could be done. But seeing them all sitting so cozy on a big pile of my damaged vintage books was worth the effort it took me not to scream and give up this morning.
Just look how cute they all look :)

For a while now I've been being pretty tough on myself. Pushing myself to get more and more done in shorter and shorter spaces of time. And as you'd expect, I've been failing to get things done. I'm always so disappointed that I can't get this or that done, out of the way, so I can move on and get on with things I enjoy more. But I'm slowly starting to realise that yes, I am only one person.
As you'd probably expect of a creative person I'm not too keen on the daily admin type tasks that selling my dolls needs. You think I'd find this easy seeing as I spend each day during the week working at a day job in an office. And I really am quite organised and systematic. But when I'm doing my things and what I want all i want to do is create. Failing to get things done in the impossible time limits I set myself has left me feeling really down. So to try and show myself what I can achieve I spent one Friday night earlier this month tweeting everything I was doing. I really was surprised how much I got done in one night. And it's made me feel so much better about leaving a few things waiting. Take a look below how my typical Friday night turned out. I'm really not exaggerating. I got all this stuff and more done in one night, and now I can see what I really do.

My Twitter Feed - Fri 5th Aug - Starting at 6pm - @NatashaDolls

- @John_Helvin :-) Have a great weekend. Hope you have nice stuff planned.

- Thinking my next doll should be one of the Victorian asylum inmates I've been reading about. What do you think? #artdoll
- My to do list is getting scary. It's swollen off the paper and is now standing towering above me making horrid growls and gurgles :'(

- Wouldn't normally do this, but thought it might make me realise how much I get done tonight. Everything I do I'm going to tweet!

- First, to re-set-up the years challenge tally for the Art Dolls Only membership records as I accidentally lost it last night :-S

- Bless you Melinda and Shauna, this would be so hard without the work you put in collecting these figures for me. I'm almost done!

- And Jan, your my rock :-)

- Spreadsheet is done thanks to help I get from three lovely people. Now to upload pics for the Aug ADO Half and Half challenge

- Apparently, he don't want my help putting shopping away as I don't do it right! I'll take five and answer more email then.

- Time for dinner :-)

- @reddskingyal Thank you so much :-)

- Dinner over. Half an hour of Dr Who, then upload my last two dolls to Flickr, the ADO Website, ADO Ning, and Facebook. I've been very lax.

- New Photos Uploaded to Flickr - http://t.co/dB5eqiG

- All my photo uploaded now, and a few more e-mails answered. Now to go try and work out this Linked-in thing. Wish me luck!

- That's as much of the Linked-In thing as I can take for tonight as I don't really get it. More to do in future. Now to look up some things

- Things looked up. Somehow managed to half watch a film tonight as I work, and it's now 11.16pm. Time to start making some changes to my Blog

- I'm worn out. Time to log off and think about my blog design in a 2D world. I'll make the changes tomorrow.

- I've been a very busy bee, and it's time to relax a bit before bed. Nos Da everyone, Good Night :)

 

Not bad for one night :)

 

 

Sculpting in Layers - Work in Progress

I've been spending my days sculpting, relaxing, and listening to music. One of the nicest ways to spend some days off I can imagine.

I've had a lovely holiday off from work, and today is my last day. I've spent my time with my dear husband, getting all the little chores done that get missed during a normal week, having some lovely days out, and spending time making new dolls. We even got to go visit the National Botanical Gardens of Wales, and the National Museum and Art Gallery in Cardiff. It's been to long since I went to the art gallery and I really enjoyed getting to see wonderful works by the best artists in the world. Including a favorite Van Gogh of rain soaked fields, and beautiful soft Claude Monet visions of stunning gardens and classic architecture. But my favorites, as always, were the portraits from tiny miniatures to massive full length portraits. All those faces gazing out of the canvas of people long since gone. Each telling it's own tale of the times in which they lived, the Sunday best clothes of the poorer classes, and the lavish get-up's of the rich. All staged in a setting befitting the social standing of the person shown - some in a studio dressed with the highest care and depicting carefully chosen objects and refinements that can be viewed as a puzzle to the life lived, and others shown in their true settings of everyday life with the dirt and grime of their own society there for all to see. Like the poor hardworking miners of the Welsh valleys captured as they sit quietly alone in the crowd of their local pub, taking a hard won rest and well earned pint while still covered in the black ink dirt that sticks even to their eyelashes like make-up and will never wash off, so deeply it's ingrained. I really must find myself more time to enjoy all the wonderful things the galleries in this country hold. And some day soon maybe I'll get to re-visit some of the fantastic galleries of other countries that I've visited before, and find new treasures in new countries too.

My table has been covered with bit's of dolls all week. And after cutting and sanding what seemed like thousands of bits of dowelling things are starting to look a little bit more doll like now.

Above (first photo) is just some of my new girls (and two boys this time), some almost finished and some still waiting for further layers of paperclay to fill out areas that have shrunk during drying and to re-shape lips, noses, cheeks and eyes. This next week I'll be spending a lot of time finishing these off and getting them sanded ready to be painted next weekend.
I've managed to get all the hands and feet sculpted for all 26 dolls, all of the bodies, and all but 6 of the faces. I was a bit annoyed to find I didn't have the right colours or sizes of eyes I needed for the largest dolls so I'll need to take a trip out button shopping before I can finish those 4. And the two small ones at the front (left second photo) need a very specific eye colour as they're to be cake toppers I've been asked to make for my neighbors wedding. I'm a bit worried about making them look like actual people, so if you have any tips I'd be really grateful for your help.

All the arms and legs have been sanded, wet polished and finished. As well as this one little body that's one of my small 5in dolls. I've given up trying to sand paperclay with sandpaper. All it seems to do it tear up the clay and leave horrible scratches, even when I use the finest grade I can find (which clogs up and I end up using tons of it). So have gone back to my trusted Basic Grey file set, which never seems to wear and always does the job - no matter what I use them on. I really should get another set of them, and I really recommend them if you need to sand or file small bit's and bob's as they have very good points to them, and all the shapes have been really useful, especially the round file, the curved - flat file, and the slightly tapered flat file that's just a little thicker one one edge than the other. To get rid of the very faint lines left by sanding this way I then wipe over everything with a damp cloth. I've no idea where I found out how to do this, but through trial and error with different techniques I've found that if you "polish" and rub dry paperclay after sanding with a damp cloth you get a very nice smooth finish. I use a 100% cotton face cloth as it's just rough enough to take off those rough spots but doesn't leave any marks. While the clay is still damp I then rub it all over with a damp finger to make sure it's totally smooth. Which seems to give the clay a sort of seal so that the paint that comes next will sink in, but not so far that it'll take loads of layers to get them finished. Then they get pinned back up on these concertina fold corrugated card boards that I salvaged from packaging that was being thrown away. I've no idea how I'd dry anything without it loosing some of it's shape without them.

My husband pointed out to me that my dust jar is a bit odd. I suppose that to some it could seem a little bit strange, although I don't really see why myself. He's not the only one that's asked me why I have a jar of dust, so I thought I'd try and explain.

Anytime I make something from paperclay I always sand it over a sheet of newspaper to try and control some of the mess. I was getting a bit fed up of throwing away this Dust as I was sure I could find some use for it. And once I started looking I found loads of things I could use it for, so now I save it all in my dust jar.
This fluffy white dust is fantastic stuff, and as paperclay can be expensive in the UK as I have to get it shipped from the US I think it's only right that I don't waste it.

It's oddly heavier than you'd think it would be. It's not that it has a weight, as it doesn't. It's just that it doesn't move or puff up everywhere if you move slightly or a mouse breathes in the next room like the sandings that come from a lot of air dry clays and other things, so you can play about with it without holding your breath, and you don't have to worry and clean up every two seconds when your in the middle of sanding something in the first place. It is possible to turn it back into clay if your careful with how much water you add to it. But it doesn't have the same texture as a nice new block of paperclay does, so it doesn't really work for the same things. I have used it to make some lovely casts by mixing up the dust to a stiff consistency and pushing it onto rubber stamps then leaving it to dry before removing. They came out really nicely with a lovely aged look because of the slightly rougher texture it dries to. I've also used it as a filler for fine cracks in other clay projects by mixing it up to a sort of jam consistency and rubbing it on with my fingers in a few coats. This was fantastically messy in that lovely child-like mud-pie making sort of way, and gave a really nice finish. I really do use this dust on all sorts of things, and it's very versatile - You can add it to acrylic paint to get a thick gluey textured paint that holds brush marks and scratches like a think oil paint - Layer it onto paper or canvas with your fingers to get a smooth surface like plaster or lay it on thick and scratch into it - Mix it up thinly and wash it over projects to give them a ghostly milky matt wash (so long as you get out all of the lumps, or not if you prefer) - It can be used in any consistency to add a little fill to bed items onto things and stop them looking like their floating on the surface - Or brushed dry onto painted plastic as a blotter to get rid of that horrid sticky thing that happens sometimes. There are tons of things to do with this dust, so I'm going to carry on collecting it and find as many uses of it as possible.
Do you keep your sandings?
What do you use yours for?