Today marks the start of the new season's story - Summer Solstice.
All my work leading up to the next cross quarter day of the year (1st August) will be focused on this theme- dolls, paintings and anything else I conjure up between now and then.
There's a few things that are special about this collection, the first is that it's officially my first collection that I hope to sell! I've sold a few dolls and artworks individually but going forward I'm planning to gather all the different mediums I'm working on together and present them as a collection at the end of every season.
Secondly, its special because I haven't made any dolls for nearly a year. There's a big reason which I'll talk about in another post but mostly it just hasn't felt right and now it does, so I'm very excited!
The last reason is that this is to date, the most colourful I've been since working in this particular style.
When I created the first mood boards for all four seasons as a template for working through the year, two of the four are mostly monochrome and I knew I had to have a burst of colour for at least one of them. My current relationship with colour is to lean towards more muted, softer palettes (which I'll talk about more on another post). But. And the but is, I am still intoxicated with deep jewel tones. I'm scared of them alright. They're not my natural comfort zone, but I can't scroll past a photo of a moroccan hotel soaked in rich deep hues and not want to inhale the colours deeply.
I can't promise that's what I'm going to end up offering in my work this season but I'm at the very least dipping my toes in, if not quite ready to dive right in.
And so without further preamble, please let me introduce my mix as it stands to start with. This palette will not be weighted equally as I currently have no purples or greens in my stash of fabrics, only a precious few trims and beads, but that may change if I can get to Paris before the summer ends....
This sumptuous stack was the result of several different sections of fabric, some set aside for future home projects, some for clothing. There are at least two curtains in there....
And finally my first full three dimensional mood board of how I want this collection to feel. I may do another but for now this is plenty to be going on!
I hope you'll join me on this journey and hold me to account to finish it on time!