Here is my first large root-haired doll; her "hair" is a wild blackberry's root which I wrenched from the earth only with great effort!! Every single blackberry root is like that--they do NOT come out easily, and there are always more to pull up, as one never "gets it all."
Of course, one is never enough, so now I have three of the larger root hair dolls in progress:
Here is the top one with her face partly painted. She has very large eyes, which makes her a child:
All of these root heads began with the root and on most, I used aluminum foil bunched around the "stem" of the root, although one has one of those paper-wrapped Styrofoam balls you can buy at craft stores. You could use just about anything for the basic head. Sometimes you need to use masking tap to hold all the "inner head" together. Then I use Das or Paper Clay to cover the head and make the features. Both these products air dry fairly quickly (it helps to keep them in a warm place).
Once the paper clay is dry, I cover the head with a "skin" of old tee shirt fabric. It can be any color--I just grab one from my rag bag. The smaller the head, the thinner fabric you will need, but it's always easy to find old shirts (or even underwear!) around the house to use. Some people prefer the cotton shirts with 5% lycra, but I'm not that picky.
With the smaller root-hairs, I don't give them tee shirt "skin" due to the smallness of their features. Here is my latest one, still in progress:
That's all for today. There will be more root-haired news to come.
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