I thought you might like a preview glimpse of my very latest dolls who will be at Miniatura. They are portrait dolls which I would not normally offer for sale until one had been presented to the person they portray, however the challenging times in which I seem to find myself recently, including the horrible circumstance that both kilns are wheel deep in sawdust, force me to break my own rule, to honour my other rule, that I always have something new for the Min.
They’ve been a year in the making, mainly for technical reasons. These are the slimmest twelfth scale dolls I’ve ever made and a bit of a technical tour de force. They are under 5 inches tall; their wrists are 15mm in circumference, 5mm in diameter, yet through them pass the two elastic stringing cords that enable the hands to move.
I have been aiming for finer dolls for some time for several reasons. Builders do tend to make model houses undersized because they have to live in real houses. There is nothing to stop a person who lives in a city centre one bedroom flat from wanting a dolls’ house palace. Indeed the person who lives in this way is the miniaturist most likely to desire the des res in miniature that they will never afford in reality. A moment’s thought would be enough to persuade you that a true twelfth scale replica of, say, Buckingham Palace would require the interior of a quite substantial four bedroom house with all the interior walls and floors removed to accommodate it. So often even the most realistically sized models are a bit on the small size; therefore the contents should be undersized also.
Naturally all miniaturists are working to their own agenda, because this is art. Some measure slavishly, others point out that there are big ones and little ones in reality, so why not in miniature. I actually like houses with the contents slightly wrongly sized, visually it emphasises the smallness, ups the cute factor and reminds me of the antique dolls’ houses I first fell in love with. Nevertheless, despite my earlier dolls being scaled down from life measurements, undersized dolls were overdue and finally here they are.
They are internally strung, glass eyed and have brushable hair. As you can see they are also well balanced, quite a feat in creatures with so much internal engineering. They sit well
and will lean to quite a degree in their doll stands
stand with their arms raised and so on. I have given them the extended shoulders that doll dressers like, which enable you to do off the shoulder costumes without showing the shoulder joint, yet still with full range of movement. One of the other reasons for them being so delicate is the possibility of dressing them in the layers of clothing that people wore in the past without producing a completely spherical doll. And, of course, they still look at you with fantastic hollow blown glass eyes, which don’t photograph well when they’re just done by me in a rush using daylight. Altogether something you’d expect someone to produce if they worked at it for 17 years, which I did.
I have also now made pile carpets for them, yet the pile is short enough for them to stand up upon. Previously any experienced miniaturist would have told you to steer clear of pile carpets because they made they made light furniture and dolls fall over. But these carpets are really furry and free with the doll.
I shall now get on with dressing a few, presently they are standing around like a convention of supermodels.
Incidentally, I’d like to remind you that items will disappear from the shop very shortly; some pictures have already gone. Where these are my own original landscapes they will be returning at a higher price but only by three pounds as they now have gone up to £18, still very reasonable for original oil paintings that take several days each to paint.
Dolls will be disappearing in the next couple of days, if there’s someone you love, bag them quickly or, I’ll see you there!
JaneLaverick.com – dolled up!