Allen Cunningham creates darling miniature doll vignettes, inspired by vintage children's books and illustrations from the early 1900s. His goal has always been to capture that expression that makes an old dolls face come to life--that sparkle in the eyes. At a very early age, he started making toys to entertain himself. Now he entertains his viewers with nostalgic vignettes that seem to have jumped off the pages of an antique nursery book. These incredible dolls are created from paper clay, which is not common in dollmaking or Folk Art, and they stand no more than 5 inches tall!
Allen starts with something called a candy box, a decorated box used to put candies in. Allen constructs and paints his own candy box to serve as a pedestal for his dolls, using acrylic paint. Then he mounts a pipe cleaner to the candy box as armature and wraps it with yarn until he has created a full torso. He sculpts the head, arms and legs using paper clay. (Paper clay is a form of clay that mimics papier-mache.) He rolls an oval shape for the head, brushes it with water to keep it smooth, and sculpts the facial features with small sculpting tools. Then he mounts it on the armature and forms the neck and shoulders. The hands and feet are created by rolling coils of clay and scoring it to form fingers. Little thumbs are added by rolling tiny little coils and attaching them to the hands. Allen paints the rest of the fine details using acrylic paint and creates miniature clothing and accessories out of crepe paper, lace, Dresden foil paper and muslin. He antiques most of the doll clothing by brushing on and wiping off watered-down brown paint. The crepe paper is brushed with brown chalk to create an antique effect. Then accessories, such as silk flowers, are added and aged by dipping them in hot coffee. All of the pieces are glued down to keep them in place.
Allen's endearing dolls will move you to smile and transport you to a time and place long ago.
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