Cloth Doll Faces: A Practical Guide to Creating Character and Expression

Discover techniques and ideas to creating cloth faces filled with personality and fun in this book by leading international dollmaker and textile artist, Ray Slater.

Leading international dollmaker and textile artist, Ray Slater, reveals her secrets to creating faces in cloth filled with vibrancy and dynamism.

The face is the most important and challenging part of a cloth doll, bringing life
and personality to the character. Conceived as being the hardest part of the making process, creating the face is, in fact, easy to do and an enjoyable, creative part of the making a cloth figure. Just by following a few simple rules a whole world of wonderfully expressive, fun characters can be created.

This book will show every stage of how to create personality-packed faces, taking you from the initial inspiration sources, the design and drawing process, to the final colouring, sewing and embellishment of the head.

Using just three basic face designs - flat, three-dimensional and collaged - Ray will show you how to create a fantastic collection of characters, giving tips on how to adjusting their proportions, hues and positioning of the features to make a whole host of faces with different looks and expressions. Fully illustrated step-by-step instructions break down the process of making each kind of face, as well as tips on little adjustments you can make to create your own unique doll. In addition, discover helpful galleries of eyes, noses and mouths to inspire you and provide further ideas for how to bring more personality to your doll's face.

Finally, Ray has shared two body patterns in her book to suit all three head types, so that you have the opportunity to develop the character of your dolls completely. Each body is fully demonstrated with clear photographs and detailed stage-by-stage instructions, and body templates are included for you to easily recreate in the comfort of your home.

Brimming with ideas and practical advice on, this is an invaluable companion to cloth doll makers everywhere, whatever your skill.

Ray studied Embroidered Textiles at Goldsmiths College and Theatre Costume at Croydon College of Art before working in theatre, film and television. She curated an exhibition of cloth dolls from the US, Canada, Australia and the UK in 2003, and is now one of the UK's leading teachers of doll-making. She practices a wide range of textile-related subjects and her current work has evolved from her passion for costume and textiles. She is the author of Cloth Dolls for Textile Artists and teaches throughout the UK, Europe and America.

To see more of Ray's work visit www.rayslaterclothdolls.co.uk.