Victorian Art Doll Witch

This Year's Witch

Every year I create another art doll witch to add to my growing collection. Here is this year's version - she's a little Victorian-style, not a traditional witch.

 

Nina Owens Victorian-style Art Doll Witch



Close up - Victorian Art Doll Witch by Nina Owens

 I'm still exploring dolls using birdcages. This is an antique cage a friend gave me. True to Victorian-nature, her cage is filled with bottles of potions and elixirs. I played around with pan pastels for coloring her face. It was a new medium for me and I really enjoyed using it for her face.

From Quincenera to Ghost Doll

Remember last year's Quincenera Doll makeover? I had a couple more on hand and decided to turn one into a ghost doll. Unfortunately Michaels, where I got the original doll no longer carries them. You could turn any porcelain doll into your own ghost using the same steps.

Close up of face

I carefully removed the wig and spray painted it with white spray paint until I got the desired look. I also removed the eyelashes and removed the original paint using nail polish remover. Once I'd removed the paint, I sanded lightly and applied white gesso. I used gray and black acrylic paint to repaint the face. The clothes are hand-sewn on the body, with vintage trims added. For the interior of the ghost cage, I repainted an English cottage house to make it look more like a haunted mansion. I got the moss and Spooky Town tombstones from Michaels.

Halloween Décor



The materials

Adding glass beads for eyes
and forming nose

 I spotted these cool foam skulls in Michaels from their Celebrate It! Halloween collection. I thought they would be the perfect base for sculpting - after all they are already the proper foundation for a head.

Starting sculpting by adding
clay around form

Finished with sculpting




Sealed with gesso, then antiqued
with wash of brown acrylic paint





Glass jar that I've had for years

from Michaels. I used a rust

patina on it to age. Added dried

lichen moss.

 

 

                  2-step crackle medium added &

                    antiqued with black. Eyes painted.

                         Glaze added to lips and eyes

 

    

Finished Head-in-Jar

 

 

Here there be Witches

Every year I make a witch. I started a birdcage witch this year, but she turned into the Goth Ghost doll shown on a previous blog entry, so I had to start another one. I'm really into making the birdcage dolls right now, even though this time of year it's hard to find the cages. I wound up going nontraditional for her hat, recovering a premade bought top hat with velvet. The bats in her cage are actually Halloween Recollections embelllishments from Michaels. The bat in her hand (which is hard to see in the photos due to the black on black) is made from wire covered with velvet since I couldn't find one ready-made that worked.

In progress

Adding hair



Hat



In grouping

More witches

More Halloween Fun

Last year Michaels had these really neat paper mache coffins that came in a set of 3 different sizes. Luckily I bought several since they didn't carry them this year (boo). I had fun decorating & altering them.

Latest Necklaces

While shopping at Michaels during the Friends & Family sale, I found these cool rhinestone sliders. I made a couple of necklaces, one with the sliders and other embellishments and the other with sliders and spiders for a subtle "Halloween-style" necklace.

Sliders & spacers on neck wire

Finished necklace with additional embellishments

Spider necklace

Halloween!

Anyone who really knows me, knows I love Halloween. It is such a fun holiday. One of those pop-up Halloween stores opened in a shopping center I visited a couple of weeks ago and I of course had to check it out. The displays they have now are just amazing! You could stage your own professional-style haunted house!

Entryway

Zombie Lady & creepy babies

Zombie babies

Animated electric chair

Still Loving Halloween
I was gone the week before Halloween on the Michaels Crafting Cruise, but I still had a chance to create Halloween-inspired art this year. We did have a Halloween Glitter Ball one night on the cruise, so I had to create a piece of jewelry to wear. The spider is a great Bead Landing pin that I found at Michaels this year. I picked up several of them. I found some great spider web "coasters" when I was in St. Paul this summer, and appliqued them to a plain shirt. I added one of those spider pins to the shirt as well - perfect! I decorated a witch's hat with flowers, ribbon and tulle but didn't have a chance to wear it this year - maybe next....

The necklace is bead embroidery with dagger bead flowers that I made. The "web" is made from piece from the Bead Landing Metal Mania collection that I patinaed so they wouldn't be so shiny.

It's no secret that I love Halloween. Every year I create Halloween-inspired dolls and crafts. Last year I did the Haunted Tree doll and the Book of Spells with the witch I took in an online class. This year I created a stump doll witch inspired from some Alexander Henry fabric, The Ghastlies. Rather than leaving all these scattered around my home, I thought I would decorate my cube at work. I used The Ghastlies fabric as a backdrop behind the bookcase in my cube and draped the bookcase with some sheer spiderweb fabric.

I created a vignette with the art dolls and coffins I'd decorated last year and even did a skull rose bouquet. I used another Halloween fabric to cover the rest of that side of my cube. I hung ornaments, ATCs and a 4x4 (both that I have made & received in swaps) on that section. This year my cube is fun and perfect for the season.

I also receive lots of Altoid tins from coworkers - they know I use them in my art, so this Halloween I decided to decorate them for Halloween and gave them to my coworkers.

I hope every one has a safe & Happy Halloween...bwaaaaaaaaaaahhhahahhahaha

Okay, so I love Halloween - it is such a fun & frivolous holiday. I love the icons & being able to look a little on the dark side. Even though I no longer decorate for the holiday (my son is grown) and there is the time factor, I still enjoy doing art around it. Last year I created little tins with Halloween icons in them and gave them to my friends and coworkers. This year I decorated some wooden coffins that I found at Michaels. I had originally planned on doing an art doll to go in the coffin, however they were smaller than I thought they would be and the doll would have been really tiny to fit into them. Instead I decorated them with papers and embellishments that I found when I bought the coffins.

I also had to make one of the flower dancers with a more ghoulish slant. Lucky for me, Michaels had black roses and other embellishments I was able to use - including the ribbon with "Happy Haunting" that worked perfectly as a sash for her. She reminds me of a homecoming queen.
Her "crown" is a thick pipe cleaner with a craft button (it was a tree, I cut off the trunk and the shank and added rhinestones).