In February I wrote a post on my Linda's Blog entitled "Why Not Be Adventuresome!" which was about my buying a batch of 10 small goddess art forms from Monica Magness of "Girl Gone Thread Wild" blog that she had for sale on her GirlGoneThreadWild Etsy shop.
I wanted to try something different this year and have been wanting to make some mixed media "goddess dolls" as I haven't made any as of yet. The doll body forms that I bought ranged between 4"-6" tall in size and are of of various colors.
Some of the "goddess dolls" that I have seen are either faceless (which is fine with me) or have cloth faces, clay faces, have sun or moon faces, even beaded faces. Some of the face shapes are round or oval, some are square, and some are triangles. I haven't quite decided what kind of face I want to try as of yet, but I always like to be prepared.
They probably will be clay so I decided to buy some polymer clay to sculpt my own and also buy some polymer clay masks to use in the event my clay ones don't look exactly as I had envisioned them. If these don't work then they may have cloth faces or be faceless. I might even try beaded faces although I think they were be difficult to do. Or, I may just decide to do several of each. I just won't know until I start creating them.
Next I need to decide whether they should have hair or no hair. Headdress or no headdress? Since I was running out of doll hair (well, not really, but you never know what you want to use until you start creating) I also decided to replenish my supply of doll hair. I made a note to look at the yarn sections of my local craft stores and also look on line at some of my favorite doll hair websites to see if there was anything that caught my eye and would help me to decide which way to go with the hair.
I decided to buy some hair from one of my favorite websites for doll hair, Cloth Doll Hair Supplies at http://www.clothdollhair.com as Suzy was offering a discount to all her Twitter followers (which I am one of).
Also, I wanted my "goddess dolls" to have beaded decorations along their bodies or in their clothes (should I decide to add something along these lines) so I decided to visit my local craft stores to see what they had. I was expecting a little section of beads. Au Contraire! Make that ROWS and ROWS of beads. Aisles and aisles of beads. So many so that it was almost impossible to decide.
Should they be round? Should they be flat? Should there be a combination of the two? Should they be large, small, or medium in size? What color? Solid or multi-colored? Shiny or not? And on and on it went!
Obviously, this was not going to be as easy as I had thought. I really hadn't thought this through and should have tried to design what I wanted my goddess dolls to look like before I attempted to by the beads. Should they be traditional mixed media art dolls or should I make them a little different? Maybe they shouldn't even have beads? But, I really want to try beading as the dolls I've seen are just so beautiful. Time consuming to make, but beautiful.
In any event, I bought several different colors and sizes of beads and because I like to be organized I also bought some containers to house my beads. Can't have them falling all over the floor. That would not be good!
So, now I have my doll forms, various ways to make the faces, and lots and lots of beads. Since I just love history next on my agenda is to do a little research on the Internet on "goddess dolls" also known as healing dolls and spirit dolls. I'm not sure what this will tell me - other than I just love research, especially on different doll legends.
What I'm hoping is that it might just help me decide what type of "goddess dolls, healing dolls, or spirit dolls" I want to create. It might even inspire me to create a goddess doll, healing doll, or spirit doll design of my own - which, of course, I'd create an e-pattern for. Oh, what a delightful adventure this is going to be. Wish me luck.
I'll let you know what I find out.
