A Generous Soul and Gifted Artist

Sometimes you run across people who you instantly take a liking too and who you seem to easily connect with. And, sometimes these individuals share your interests or are around your age and, therefore, share the same generational experiences as you.

Sometimes you meet such individuals in person and sometimes you meet them over the Internet.

Well, I have to consider myself truly blessed in this regard as I have met many, many such individuals over the Internet during the last four years. One such individual is Sue McFadden who is an ASTONISHING doll maker and who I had the wonderful opportunity to interview on my "I Love Crafts and Crafts Blogs" blog.

You need look no further than Sue's bio to see what an accomplished artist she is:

Sue is a published doll artist, doll maker, doll instructor, doll illustrator, fine arts artist, painter, sculptor, and art teacher. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art Education, has studied under portrait artist Chuck Hall, and has taught elementary art for five years while pursuing portrait and fine art classes at Penn State University. In 1981 she started making cloth dolls and in 1986 began to work independently creating felt dolls. She has taught at various doll conferences and doll clubs around the country. Her dolls have been published in "Cloth Dolls from Ancient to Modern, A Collector’s Guide - c. 1997 Linda Edwards" and "Crafting Cloth Dolls - c. 2002 Miriam Gourley." She has also been published in many national doll magazines including: Dolls, Contemporary Doll Collector, Fiber Arts, Dulce. In 1993 her doll from Spectrum series (Africaner) was purchased for the Musee de Decoratif, Louvre, Paris through the Toy Shoppe in Richmond, VA and in 1998 she was one of fifty doll artists selected to exhibit at Masterpieces at Spiegelhof, Brussels, Belgium.

Even if you didn't read Sue's bio all you would have to do is look at some of her amazing felt art doll creations to know how talented she is. Her creations just take my breath away and I would LOVE to be able to make sure beautiful felt art dolls.

If you've been following my Linda's Blog you know that one of my many objectives this year is to try and learn how to make clay dolls. It started with wanting to make " Goddess Dolls."

Well, two weeks ago I got an unbelievable surprise in the mail from Sue that may help with that objective and may just postpone that objective as well.

For several months Sue and I had been communicating back and forth about her "I Love Crafts and Craft Blogs" blog interview, her free 2 Piece Plaster Mold Tutorial/Pictorial" that I had posted on my "The Best Free Crafts Articles" blog, and posted about in the Cloth Doll Artistry group we both belong to, and communicating about some things she wanted to do with her patterns, website, and blog.

So, back to the surprise. I opened the package and inside was Sue's complete Vasilissa's Doll kit which is the picture to the right. It included her pattern, felt, paper clay mask, and paper clay. Also included were her Peace Fawn kit, Two Peas In A Pod kit, and Petite Sonja kit.

I was totally speechless - which I'm sure you find hard to believe. And, unbelievably grateful for her thoughtful and generous package. I immediately wanted to drop everything I was doing and make all of the kits right then and there.

Of course, I have to learn how to create paper clay dolls first and in doing so this will help with my goddess dolls adventure as some of them will have clay faces.

But, first I have to learn and experiment a little. And, Sue's paper clay masks and kits were just what I needed to get me started. I can't thank Sue enough for her very thoughtful and generous gift and hope that, maybe, in some way I can repay her somehow.

I hope you get a chance to visit Sue's "Sue McFadden - Original Felt Dolls" website at www.suemcfadden.com and her Sues Daily Blog at http://suesdailyblog.blogspot.com/ . If you'd like to see more of her astonishing creations she has a PictureTrail website at http://www.picturetrail.com/suemcfadden . I hope her doll creations take your breath away as much as they did mine.

Thanks, again, Sue for your very generous gifts. I hope I have the time this year to learn how to create with paper clay and to make all of the kits you sent me.

I want to do it right this very minute. The ideas are just swirling in my head.

Just think of the Victorian doll creations I could make if I knew how to create paper clay masks.

Oh, the possibilities.

I could .......

Okay muse - calm down!