Viking Popet
I was asked to make a doll for largess. I knew I could easily make a fabric doll. With my eyes closed & half asleep but having a slow week at work, I opted for something that would challenge my skills and hopefully teach me something since I wasnt getting paid for this one. I was also afraid a fabric doll would look perfectly modern.
I did a little research. Hand woven fabric was precious, and although there may have been fabic dolls, few to none survive. What does survive is some wooden popets. Since I know almost nothing about carving wood and was frequently frustrated with dolls that would not do the most natural of things and stand up, this seemed like the perfect choice.
I made a simple body of wood on top of which is a flatish carved face I styled after the Manmen men I also carved her arms and hands out of a dowl and gave her articulated shoulders so she could be dressed and undressed easily. I made her a wig of hand tied horse hair so that her hair could be fussed with (That part was a little crazy but yarn was out of the question.) and feet so that she could stand. I also made her a dress which I hand finished in the car after the picture was taken. I dug around in my jars of bobbles for some nice glass beads. Over all Im very happy with my creative choices and interpretations of historical source materials. Im not entirely happy with my carving. I think I learned that pine is not the best material. Im sure most of you already knew that, but we are on this earth to learn and so that is what I did.