The Hopestill Clan is Established!

My husband encouraged me to buy an Izannah Walker doll when I turned 50. She is a worn example of Izannah's work. But I love her nevertheless.  I named her Hope. 

A few years ago, before the pandemic I had a mold made of my Izannah Walker doll's head. My plan is to make some poured composition and pressed cloth dolls from the face mold, to paint them differently to see what Hope might have looked like when new or with different hairstyles, etc. All the dolls made from this mold are part of the Hopestill Clan. Now that I've made two of this mold we can say the clan is established. ;-)  You can see Starr if you click here. This doll is the first of composition Hopestill dolls and will stay with me.  I've also been working on pressed cloth Izannah dolls to mark my 60th birthday. I'm working on the first pressed cloth doll from this face mold. Show below is the BACK of the doll I'm working on. She will be revealed next week. 

Making pressed cloth faces is a very different process from sculpting my own one of a kind dolls from paperclay. It's takes as much time, and is more finicky.  You don't have the option of adding clay or sanding off stuff you don't like.  It's interesting, though,  and I'm going to have fun with the process. 

Like all dolls, they will bear my own fingerprint in a number of different ways. After all, they are Dixie Redmond Izannah Walker dolls. Keep your eye out in the coming weeks to see more Hopestill dollies!