Time to Show Your Face!

Hello and welcome to Magpieheaven. You probably know by now that I've been linking up each week with the wonderful Kim Dellow's 'Show Your Face' blog on Fridays. Kim would like us to feel free to experiment with creating faces and then share what we come up with here. Please do hop across to see the inspiring work Kim has been creating and take a peek at the amazing work of the other participants. 
Last week I created a male face, that of the Elizabethan dramatist, Christopher or 'Kit' Marlowe. This week I challenged myself to turn him into a peg doll. But first, because I like to make these dolls double-sided, I decided to reference Marlowe's most famous lines on the reverse side to the poet...
Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

The sketch was to have been Helen of Troy, but the doll had a will of her own! She turned into something much more pastoral for some reason and the whole project changed direction. Perhaps it was because I was drawing in a page from a recipe book about the simple delights of home-made bread? My husband was tutoring in the room where my art materials are, and, because I didn't like to interrupt the lesson and I happened to be in the kitchen, I ripped the first page out of a cookery book! When he had finished the tutorial, I coloured her using Portfolio Pastels. Above is a scan of what I later reduced digitally to use on my peg doll.

I used some napkin tissue as a background for her head and painted the peg with PaperArtsy Frescos in Antarctic, Blue Oyster and Smurf, but she was destined to be a country lass - far too fresh-faced and contented for Helen of Troy.

Now Marlowe in pastoral mood seemed more appropriate...

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields...

And I will make thee beds of Roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

I had to create an Elizabethan body for the reverse side too! Here is Kit in doublet and hose declaiming his verses!

And a close-up of the face with what my son describes as 'Kit hair'!

The lacy trim on both dolls is stamped on with a Crafty Individuals stamp and some Southern Seas Fresco paint. I am undecided at the moment whether to include any text on the dolls - what do you think? Thank you so much for stopping by Magpieheaven. Please check out Kim's blog to see what she and the other artists have been creating and do, if you can, link up a face of your own too. Meanwhile I will leave it to Helen who became Phyllis ...

And Kit who became Corydon to wish you a sunny day full of roses, birdsong and pastoral delights!