Becoming a doll faced girl

Here’s a doll face in stages of becoming a finished girl.  I begin with a doll head that I have sculpted from airdry clay.  Below you can see the silicon mould pulled from the original sculpture, a mask just out of the mold, and a stockinette covered mask ready to be gessoed and painted.  

I’ll write about my mould making process on another day.   These original moulds allow me to create multiple face masks from one sculpture.  I make a thin sheet of Creative Paperclay and press it into the mould, adding extra clay for reinforcing over the eyes, nose and mouth.  I allow the face mask to partially dry before I remove it from the mould.  At this point in the process I can make subtle changes to her features to distinguish one face mask from another.  I carefully set it aside to thoroughly dry after which I refine the mask, filling and sanding as needed.  The mask gets a liberal coating of PVA glue then I lay a square of white cotton stockinette on the bias over the nose. A stubby brush works well to tap the stockinette into the features working from the tip of the nose, inner corners of the eyes, nostrils and outward in a circular fashion, pulling the fabric edges to prevent wrinkles or unevenness.  Now she’s ready to be trimmed and attached to her rag doll body, then primed with gesso to prepare for final painting!