Deborah ~ An RSD Altered Art Doll

Hi everyone. Last summer, I took Mary Jane Chadbourne's Imaginarium class where we altered wooden dolls using collage image heads and ever since, I have been wanting to create one with one of Rick's fabulous faces. The head and body are 3/4" wood. The legs and neck are dowels, and the base is about 1x4x2".

I chose to use the gorgeous Deborah, one of Rick's beautiful hat ladies, for the head of this doll. I coloured Deborah with Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils, and fussy cut her leaving off her fur wrap and one layer of her hat in order to fit the pre-cut head. The edges of the image were inked with black Big Brush pen and Deborah's face was adhered to the wood. Flat pearls were added to the detail on her hat.

Designer paper was adhered to her body, trimmed with an exacto to fit and edged with Vintage Photo Distress ink to create a vintage feel. A second piece of designer paper was punched along the bottom edge, embossed with a paisley folder, and adhered over the green layer to make her dress more interesting and elegant. Again, Vintage Photo was applied to bring out the detail of the embossing and to age the paper. Her arms, pre-cut and purchased from Retro Cafe, were covered with scraps from the scallop punched green paper, and adhered as sleeves. Her hands and neck dowel were painted with Fleshtone acrylic. Cuff detail was added with Inktense pencil activated with water and green half pearls became buttons. The arms were adhered after the blingy clock was added so that her hands could be placed properly to hold it. A crocheted doily was added as Deborah's collar by fitting it over the neck dowel before the head was glued onto it. Half pearls were added to the collar as buttons.

The pearl detail was repeated again when two rows were used to decorate the bottom of her dress once the crocheted lace was adhered to the hem. Her legs which were painted Titan Buff like the sides and back of the wood pieces were given Sage dots because Deborah is a stylin' gal. No plain legs for her! The base was painted with black gesso, and a strip of fancy textured border was glued around it. The sentiment was computer generated, matted in black cardstock, and adhered to the base over the border. A row of pearls was added to each side of the sentiment and around the sides. This helps to create flow throughout the altered doll as the pearls repeat from top to bottom. Oh my word, I just love her!

Thanks for joining Deborah and me today. We are both delighted that you stopped by. I have about a zillion ideas for more of these altered dolls featuring Rick's beauties. Hope you got a little inspiration, too.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie