Russian art dolls swap

Yesterday I shared the “scraps” from this project… Today I share the actual project.

My friend Chris who runs the Mini Marvels group suggested something a bit different for a swap… we were to make Russian art dolls which was inspired by some thing she saw on Instagram.

I knew I wanted to join in immediately! I started by creating a batch of gelli prints at random … no rhyme nor reason to the colours or patterns I used. Just played!

Some of the papers I chose were plain paper, some were book print or patterned.

I then created a template for the base and cut them from mountboard.

My mountboard cutting skills are not good so each one ended up as an individual but hey ho! They were roughly the same size and shape so they would do! I decided to paint them with black gesso front and black.

Next I decided to add stamping and mark making to the gelli prints before I cut into them. A relaxing 30 mins went by in no time just doodling and adding random additional patterns with posca pens in pink, blue, white and black.

Next I decided to make one doll as a trial… and I needed to decide on a face. I tried a few different ones but settled on this one from my Badass artchick stamps. Love the funky look!

So first one made it was time to cover the other dolls in prints and start layering up.

I also added more stamping and doodling. The stamp set the face was taken from also included a stamp with the words

Empowered women

Empower women

I decided this would be added to each of the dolls as well as used on the back of each doll in some way. Wondering if you can spot it on all the dolls?

I then gave each doll a coat of glossy mod podge to seal and protect the papers and the doodles and added the pearl gem to the hair flower to finish off!

Once they were dry I added black gesso to the edge and covered any messes I created on the back with more gesso before I added stamping and details to the backs of the dolls.