Marguerite Plays at Being a Dancer, 16-1/2″ tall.
This was the first of my versions of impressionist works. The Girl with Watering Can was actually second. And yes, I do have a third in the planning stages.
The hair was the most fiddley and time consuming part of this particular piece. I had to figure out a way to make long straight hair that was still consistent with my visual style. The answer was one thin little strip of fabric at a time — which took forever but looks fantastic. The skirt is made from fabric cut into thin strips and tightly gathered onto a waistband then embellished with silk leaves. I made the slippers from suede.
She has a really sweet expression and I’m thinking of making a series of these dancer pieces; one for each season.
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I love these guys, especially her hair — do you have pictures of them together and have you gotten anywhere on the third one yet? Have you ever tried Robert McKinley’s method of cardboard 3d forms to build your cloth patterns on? (I know, he filled in with paperclay, but I always thought it should work well for pattern development too….)
Thanks, I’m really glad you like them. No, I don’t have a picture of them together but they are the same scale, watering can girl is shorter (younger) and they look well together. The third is a Van Gogh interpretation and I haven’t gotten much further than conceptualization on her. I want to keep the same scale and that is causing some technical issues as the smaller they get the more fiddley they are. Plus I’d have to do a new body pattern and that’s a big time investment for what could be a one-off body.
I do use Robert McKinley’s cardboard 3d method* for initial pattern development; it saves a lot of guesswork and lets me design basic parts which I then tweak using flat pattern design (which Donna May has demystified). I was fortunate to have met Robert back in ’93 and even got to take a clothing pattern draping class with him — that conference (my first) sold me on NIADA and I had many great learning experiences over the years.
*I fill in with balled up aluminum foil.