Quilled 3D Figures by Susan Haywood

Susan is a talented writer and artisan I met several years ago via a Yahoo paper filigree group, and later in person at the annual convention of the North American Quilling Guild. I was enamoured of the three dimensional quilled figures she displayed because they were so full of life, unusually detailed, and larger than typical 3D paper miniatures.


I asked Susan to tell us how she came to design these paper ladies and also how creativity has helped her to regain health after a very serious illness. These are her words...

I focused on 3D quilling because I always tended to express my artistic side by modeling or sculpting. Even while learning about quilling, I was spending a significant amount of time creating pieces with polymer clay and paper mache.


Most of the quilled dimensional pieces I saw were very simple, almost cartoonish. I wanted to create something elegant, and also wanted to convey movement. I don't put faces on the dolls, because it's nearly impossible to sculpt a properly shaped head, which means that drawing facial features would again look like a caricature. Instead, I try to convey emotion with posture and small props.


Because of illness and some mild eye damage, writing has recently been the best way for me to creatively express myself. The nice thing about writing is, even when at my sickest, I could think about the stories and work out scenes, and when I felt better I could type them out. My doctors appreciated that writing was helping me cope with illness.


Each of my dolls has a personality and a history, so even they are telling stories. I believe that I developed many unusual techniques while designing them, and one day would love to combine my love for writing and quilling and share those ideas in a book.