Izannah Walker Style Doll Finished.

This is the second doll I have made that I modeled from a particular antique Izannah Doll. This particular doll is my model doll, but I have made a plaster mold from her and now she can travel to a new home. In all ways she is made like the antique Izannah dolls, having a pressed cloth head, attached, but stockinet covered ears, muslin body with a sateen aged body suit, stitched fingers with applied thumbs, bare feet with stitched toes, and the head, lower arms and lower legs are painted in oil paint. however this doll is just a touch heavier in the head than other dolls. Her dress is made of antique black calico fabric I took from a antique dress I bought on ebay. Happily I have been able to make three outfits from the dress. As you see she has a pretty bonnet of the same black calico fabric with a dyed quilted liner. The shoes I made her are my cloth shoes, which are doubled so as to have a liner and extra strength, painted, polished and given ankle straps with snaps for easy removal. They are plain polished black and do resemble soft leather. I worked on this doll a long time and she always rewards me when I pass by and look at how pretty she is. My blog is being used today, not only to just show everyone this doll, but to show her to a person who is interested in her. You can up load more photos quickly here and it is easier than sending pictures on a email. I have made a third doll like this one, but she of course, will not be exactly like this doll. The black is so pretty, but be warned, it will be really really hard on your eyes to sew. I suffered alot trying to see stitches here, but, it is truly a pretty old fabric. As I have said many times, the old fabric is nothing like what you get today. How many dolls like these have I made, I have lost count, but I never took good pictures of them and put them in a book, so we bought some very expensive high gloss photo paper and today we started making atleast one picture of each doll, so that I can look back on these dolls some day. I hope to see some work from other doll makers as I enjoy seeing what others are making.

Painting the Izannah Heads

Time is passing pretty fast, and we are busy with lots of projects from doll making to house renovating and up keep. In my last post I said I would show pictures to follow the development of the three Izannah like dolls I am making, and here they are. Why not just show the finished dolls?  Well, part of doll making is the process, not just ( BOOM ) here is a finished doll for sale. Alot of the enjoyment is actually working on the dolls, from the beginning until they are all dressed up and waiting for people to see them. I discovered along time ago, as much as I like to buy ready made things, including dolls and doll clothes, it is more fun and interesting to be able to work and create them. The techniques used to make these dolls also works for other type dolls too, such as, the Alabama Babies, Philadelphia Baby dolls, French Fashion, and even the Martha Chase dolls, I finally found pictures of the black Martha Chase dolls, which I am going to try my hand at this year. When these dolls are finished it will be time to do some black Izannah dolls and finish my two alabama baby dolls. It is funny that people seem to prefer the white Izannah dolls to the black ones, because the black ones are rare. The earlier black Alabama babies and the black Martha Chase dolls would be rare too and probably more valuable. I like making all the dolls, but the black ones hold a special interest for me. For a long time I couldn't find pictures of the black bisque Jumeau dolls, but I have found them now and since I have a Jumeau mold, I will be making ( or finishing ) two of the dolls I have already made with cloth heads. Putting glass eyes in my cloth heads will be a fun experiment. I wanted to make a real bisque head, but if you spread yourself out to thin, you can't really focus and make anything, you just drift from one thing to another, so best to finish out a few dolls at one time, before moving on. These Izannah dolls still have some finishing work, ageing and so forth to do, but I will post them when they are finished. Each session at the paint table makes a noticeable difference.