Working With Air-Dry Clay: Art Dolls

"Spring" by Tireless Artist

The Tireless Artist shares her tips for working with air-dry clay when creating art dolls plus some additional tips for saving and restoring "old" clay.

To quote the artist (Dorote): "I can’t describe happiness and excitement when I discovered art dolls. I think this is most complicated and interesting art ever. The doll artist has to be also a sculptor and a painter and hairdresser and couture and also needs knowledge of working with different materials and making different accessories. Doll making is my full time occupation now."

Air Dry Clay is Only for Kids - Not!

Kids project using Crayola Model Magic

On the topic of air-dry clay, I sometimes see comments that it's just a kids clay and quality of clay isn't good enough for 'real' artwork.  Sure, for many years about the only air-dry clay available was 'school grade' clay, intended for children in the classroom.  The only art quality clays had to be kiln-fired.   Then along came polymer clay, which, because it doesn't need a kiln, opened up the world of clay modeling to a lot more people.  With this increased interest in modeling and sculpting as a hobby, an assortment of new clays became available, including NEW air-dry clays.   Take a look of some of the ADC creations shown below...they range from simple kid crafts valued at pennies to complex ball-jointed dolls valued in the hundreds of dollars.

Meet a New Clay Artist: Nancy Wiley

Alice by Nancy Wiley

Nancy Wiley, is an award winning doll artist who often works with air-dry Paperclay. Since making her first doll in 1989, Nancy Wiley has earned recognition and accolades both within and outside of the doll field. Her stylized and imaginative figures have been featured in magazines such as Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion, In Style and George, as well as all the major doll-collecting publications.

Paperclay Dolls by Anna Zueva

Today I'd like to share with you the works of Anna Zueva . Anna is a professional doll artist from Russia. She has been a doll maker since 1990. Her sculpted paperclay art dolls are highly rated in the artistic world by doll art professionals and her customers.  I'm attracted to her unique simplicity in design combined with detailed decoration.

How to Make a Marionette Face

A short video from Emily DeCola  showing us her marionette faces, which she makes using a homemade air dry clay  (a mix of Celluclay, sawdust and other things).   Emily DeCola is a freelance designer, performer and director working all over the world with puppetry and masks on stage and in television and film. She has received a Jim Henson Foundation Grant.

Spotlight on clay artist Guilherme Pires

Guilherme Pires is a clay artist from Brazil who creates the cutest clown figures and other clever characters.   Using homemade cold porcelain, wire, foam, simple tools and a lot of imagination, he comes up with some very unique art dolls he calls 'guibonecos'.  Some have very sweet faces, some are funny and some are quite strange.  LOL  Visit his blog at http://guibonecos.blogspot.com/.

In the 3 videos below, he shares with us how it's done.  Quite the production line he has going in these videos!  *sigh*  He accomplishes so much in one day!!

In the first video, he makes the clay and takes it into his modeling room where he creates a series of heads and models the arms, hands and big feet for his clowns.
In the second video, he assembles all the pieces with wire and foam and paints the adorable faces.   The last video shows his creative costuming, wigging and finishing.

Sculptures by Allen & Patty Eckman

The stunningly detailed sculpture shown above and in the video below may only be made from paper - but they are being snapped up by art fans for equally stunning prices!


Husband and wife team Allen and Patty Eckman create clay molds and then put a specially formulated paper pulp into their molds and pressurize it to remove the water.   Allen explained their technique:  "It should not be confused with papier mache. The two mediums are completely different. I call what we do 'cast paper sculpture'."


The pieces depict traditional scenes from Native American history along with some wildlife vignettes and commissioned subjects.  The artists write:  ..."Some of them we create are lifesize and some we scale down to 1/6 lifesize" ...  sometimes taking up to 11 months to make each piece.  





In 1987 Allen Eckman stumbled onto cast paper as a fine art medium and instantly recognized the beauty and possibilities for creating high detail, strong, acid free, pure, fine art sculpture. It took the Eckmans many years to unlock the secrets to the medium. Discoveries included paper formulation, equipment and tool innovations and their unique paper processing methods.  You cannot get where Patty and Allen Eckman are by pulping cotton linters in your kitchen blender.

However!....if you're interested in trying this exciting new technique, you'll be glad to know you can purchase a booklet from Eckman Fine Art where you can see an overview of exactly how the artists create their work at a master level or buy one of their DIY kits "Patty's Flowers".  

Patty's Flowers are a series of beginning level products for creating beautiful life-size fine art cast paper sculpted flowers taught in the Eckman Method® program. They are the first level introduction to the Eckman Method.  Read more about these products at Eckman Fine Art.  

Also in development is the complete Eckman Method® Program in a dowloadable format.     The process taught through the Eckman Method® includes working with museum quality hand made Eckman paper and bonding agents, using casts from Eckman paper pulp, then altering and transforming them into finished works of art using Eckman techniques such as forms, templates, other casts and freehand sculpting with various hand made paper products and tools manufactured by Eckman Fine Art. 

Spotlight on ADC Artist - Pat Lillich

Pat Lillich describes her work as Figurative Art.   She creates a variety of fantasy figures...some that are part human, part animal.   Many of her figures are created with air-dry clay.   Pat is also known for her OOAK BJD dolls.

See the step-by-step photos for creating the kitten shown in above photo (a WIP)  on her blog:  "In the Shadows"  plus photos of other WIP sculpts.   (Some good armature examples to see!)

In the "other pages" category you'll find a BJD tutorial for creating hands with jointed fingers using Paperclay.    See more photos of her fantasy figures and  BJD dolls in her website gallery.

Spotlight on Misty's Creations

Happy New Year everyone!

Let's start the new year by looking at some wonderful, whimsical fantasy sculptures.   Misty of Art Gecko Studio creates these wild and colorful dragons that are much larger than you'd expect.  Misty creates with DAS air-dry clay, painting the finished dragons with acrylics.


Many are designed as wall art.   One of the images below shows Misty holding one of her dragons....this gives you an idea of the size.  
See more on her blogs at Art Gecko Studio and RealitySucksPeanutButter

Art Doll Artists

Art Dolls from some of the best Art Dollmakers on display at the 2007 Annual NIADA Conference.

Spotlight on Hannie Sarris, Fairy Fantasy Art

Hannie Sarris is a doll artist working primarily with air-dry clay (LaDoll) and specializing in fantasy figures. Hannie says: "I experimented with all kinds of figures, but slowly returned to my first childhood love: fairies and fantasy....I adore the timelessness and the lack of boundaries of the fairy fantasy world." The photos shown here are just a few of her lovely figures, see more on her website Fairy Fantasy Art.  These beautiful and delicate dolls are larger than many fairy figures you'll often see made of polymer clay.

Although Hannie will sometimes create with

Spotlight on Chicken Lips, David Everett

Chicken Lips is the whimsical and humorous folk art of  David Everett.  I could look at his clever creations all day long!   Lots of photos on his blog and on website.   David works primarily with Paperclay and says: "I have completely fallen in love with PaperClay and simply cannot stop using it! There are so many things that I can create...For years, I've wanted a Kiln and have belabored over which one to buy, should I buy gas or electric...But recently a ceramics artist told me to stick with PaperClay for what I'm doing. It's more durable than fired clay and easier to work with.  I do know that this stuff can take a real beating! I can't begin to tell you how many things I've dropped in the process of creation, and yet they are completely unharmed (and I've had a couple pieces take some really hard falls!). This is one tough egg to crack! "  

Speaking of eggs.....I love the look of this 'Chicken & Egg' figure...the art is in the simplicity of it all!   David describes his technique for working with Paperclay:   "Each piece is gesso'd, painted in acrylics, sealed, details are added in oil paints, more sealing, staining, and then sealed again. It's a lot of work, but each piece has it's own character - one that will hopefully bring a smile to your face for many years to come."  On his website, there's a short video demo showing his technique.

In his 'about me', David says:  "I'm constantly growing and expanding my abilities - always pushing myself to try something new. My "style" seems to have a life of its own – it’s kind of exciting to think where it will take me next. But regardless of the medium or style, if my art makes you smile, then I did my job right!"

It definitely makes ME smile!   How about you?

Spotlight on Alexander Mergold

Alexander Mergold is an air-dry-clay artist living in Toronto, Canada who creates puppets, marionettes, portrait dolls, caricature dolls and more.   He also works with polymer clay and papier mache.

Some of his humorous figures are shown here... you might recognize Woody Allen and the comedian known as "Bean" .   All are made from air-dry clay.   See more at his website AMCreatures.