Okay, so I somehow got it in my head that I really wanted to try to put Citrus Summer on a vintage background- something that would feel like newsprint- a nod to comic paper dolls. Again, I wouldn’t recommend home printing this one, because the amount of ink you’d need would be a lot.
I stopped doing backgrounds on my paper dolls years ago, because I was trying to respect people’s home printers. However, I still think backgrounds are pretty! And I think they make a more artistic and interesting paper doll.
Something about the limited color scheme, the tones I chose for her, just seemed to speak to me to try this out.
Had I been really wanting to mimic comics, I could have redone my shading with sort of Ben-Day Dot look, but honestly, I haven’t found a Ben Day Dot brush that I like yet. I’ve always been a little conflicted about Ben-Day dots… I think as a black and white effect I like it more than when it was used as a coloring medium, like you see on comics.
If I ever find one I like, maybe I’ll dive into some Ben-Day dots or lines… I’ve always liked the look of copper plate engravings. Another thing I’d need a brush for… thoughts.
Seriously, a paper doll project that I respect so much was done by Boots back in 2015 when she redrew some amazingly wacky illustrations from Judy, the London serio-comic journal as paper dolls. Her line-work is an utter delight and she super captures the feel of the original.
Anyway, back to this paper doll, the background was done using the Phantom Paper Pack from RetroSupply. I tried several free paper backgrouds before, but man, sometimes tools are worth the money. This one was so much easier to use. It really was delightful and the micro-adjustments you can make using it are really great. Well worth the cost.
Okay, I think this is my last version of Citrus Summer. I don’t know what else I would do with her at this point! Let me know in the comments if you had a favorite version.
I decided to try flatting the paper doll in Photoshop and then moving it back into Procreate for details and shading.
(Side note: For those of you who didn’t develop your art-practice based on advice of web cartoonists in the early 2000s, flatting is how comics were traditionally printed. The color was printed so that it completely filled the page and then the black lines were printed on top of the color. I use a plugin in Photoshop called BPelt that allows me to “flat” solid black line-work and THEN go in an color it.
That process is explained in way more detail on this blog post from 2013. My version of Photoshop has changed, by the basic system hadn’t until… well, now.)
Anyway, after I flatted it and then added shadow and some other details, I imported it back into Photoshop.
My thoughts-
I still don’t totally love the eyes. I think they’re too tall and I’m going to work on the face of the doll.
Compared to the Newsletter Doll which she’s based off of, this doll has a less short waist which really does make drawing specific sorts of things much easier. (Proportions… am I right? I really should try to get better at figure drawing one of these days… )
I don’t know if I love shadows… I don’t dislike them, but they feel a little… I dunno. It feels very very digital… that’s not a bad thing, but I’m not sure how I feel about it.
I am thinking I need to break apart two different things I’m working on. One is learning to use Procreate and that is a matter of exposure.
And then there’s trying to tackle my intense fear of figure drawing and moving out of my comfort zone. That’s a matter of maybe taking a class and getting away from sharing things. So, that’s a totally different challenge. Fortunately my mom got me a sketchbook for my birthday this year and maybe that’ll be how I put that one to use.
Thoughts… thoughts…
Anyway, let me know what you think of this new paper doll. The flower in the background is just a stock one from Photoshop-it felt a little like a cut citrus fruit to me.
So, I thought I would try a sketchier looser style for this paper doll, but I’m not convinced it works. Generally, my rule of thumb is to never apologize for my work.
However, I also think it’s okay to talk about things I don’t think were super effective.
I actually don’t think I took the “looseness” far enough. The result is something that just sort of feels like my usual stuff, just a little more loosely colored and I don’t love that. It feels like it’s neither fish nor fowl. The trick to trying out a different style is that you need to “commit” to it and I don’t think I did.
The experience was valuable. I might be a little “meh” about the outcomes, but I’d not unhappy I tried it.
As I told someone recently, I have less of a comfort-zone and more of a comfort puddle. So, getting out of my puddle is very frightening. It’s a big world out there.
I’m also realizing that there’s some core functionality to the program Procreate that I still don’t 100% understand. That’s a big learning curve too- figuring out how to make it do what I want it to do and deciding if it is best tool for certain parts of the process.
Slowly but surely, I am getting there though.
Right now, I am thinking Procreate may end up like my sketchbook used to be and Photoshop will remain my preferred tool for final finishing work. It’s selection tools and resizing abilities are so much better than Procreate and I like how it’s text tools work (I still haven’t figured those out in Procreate.)
Oh, I have a link to the printable pdf, but as with my other experiments lately, I’m not 100% sure I’d recommend home printing due to the massive ink usage the background is going to take. I mean- you do you! But that would be my concern if I was going to do it.
All right, friends. Let me start with saying that I appreciate all your support over the last few months
As I’ve been playing with Procreate, I’ve also been thinking a lot about the future of Patreon and I’ve realized I really need to ask all of you what you want.
Because I don’t think I can make informed choices without your input. I have lots of ideas in my head and I want you to be part of the decision making process of the future of Patreon.
So, here’s a poll!
This poll is no longer accepting votes
You support makes me so happy!
And I thank you, once again, for it. You are all amazing.
So, I decided to dip my toes into color in Procreate with this paper doll. I also did some experimentation with noise and backgrounds and other things.
While I wouldn’t recommend home printing for this one, because the ink usage will be through the roof, I have added a link to the PDF if you feel the urge to try to see what happens if you do.
East of the sun and West of the Moon illustrated by Kay Nielsen in 1913.
You do you!
And if you do print it, it is scaled to mix and match with the 365 paper dolls.
I’ve been trying to sort out how to get texture. Of course, I think the effect doesn’t work super well unless you zoom in at which point, like maybe it doesn’t work at all?
Hmm….
So, here’s what I was trying to mimic…
One of the things I love very much is the illustrations of the turn of the century. Generally done with a trichromatic printing process (sometimes black was added and sometimes green was added, which is fascinating in it’s own right), the screens used result in a very specific texture to the solid colors in the prints. You can see it in classic illustrators like Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielsen, or fashion illustrations from things like Bon Ton. You can see the texture I’m talking about here and here.
Anyway, trying to archive that effect digitally is not as simple as you might think. So I have been experimenting with noise and other texture effects in Photoshop and Procreate. The result, however, is probably not “strong” enough to be obvious. This is one of the problems of working digitally- you are zoomed in or zoomed out or… whatever. It’s actually super hard to tell what the finished product is going to look like at true scale.
The other factor is that digital printing introduces a bit of noise and I don’t like how it looks, but only because it feels unintentional and I really really value being intentional in my work. I want control, or an active lack of control (hello ceramics, I’m looking at you.)
As I keep saying on these posts, Julie has been a huge help in referring me to tools to try to get this effect.
There are many tools and brushes and things for Procreate that it is super overwhelming. There’s a million different tools and things you can do with those. But I suspect I’ll eventually find 3 or 4 I like and use them 90% of the time. That tends to be how I roll.
But you can’t find the three or four you like without trying out a few dozen, so that’s been the current challenge.
Next up, I’ll be sharing an experiment using a less smooth brush and seeing what happens when I have a “rough” line texture. More on that one next week.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about satisfaction and joy. Or, more precisely, the difference between satisfaction and joy.
Every few months, I clean out my fridge. I wait for a day when there’s not a lot of groceries in it and then I set to work- taking out everything, washing the veggie drawers in bleach and water, removing the shelves, scrubbing the bins inside the door. I toss anything expired or moldy. It feels good.
Practicing “pressure control” in Procreate by trying to draw thin and thick lines with the same digital brush.
This is satisfaction. The sense of accomplishment that comes from completing a task.
But it is not the same as joy. It is not as though I love the process of cleaning out the fridge. Instead, I love the outcome. Joy is not something I seek from cleaning a fridge. Joy is, however, what I want to feel when I do creative work.
Satisfaction feels good. It’s a good feeling and I get it all the time on the blog. Every time I post something new, I feel a little jolt of satisfaction. I think it’s really easy to mistake satisfaction for joy.
I’d been feeling very stagnant about the blog. Stagnant about my art. And generally frustrated. I liked how I felt when I finished something (satisfaction!), but I hadn’t lately been wanting to start anything new or finish much of anything I’ve started. The number of semi-penciled things in my sketchbooks is a testament to that. I kept telling myself I would feel joy if I just “did the work”, but somehow doing the work wasn’t fun and certainly not joyful.
But because satisfaction feels close enough to joy to pass for it in sufficiently dim-light, I sort of fed on that and kept telling myself that it was enough.
But, after the paper doll party, a few long talks with other artists, and a bit of self reflection (and some whiny draft posts that would make an angst-filled 13 year-old Rachel wince), I’ve decided I need to see how I would feel if there was no pressure on me to create anything. Like what if I was back where I was when this whole blog started (metaphorically speaking, I have no desire to be 23 again) and just did art because I felt like doing it.
And gave myself space to play. That was what Procreate has given me this last six weeks I’ve been learning the program- space to play.
It had been so long that I’d forgotten how it felt to just enjoy making things. Joy instead of satisfaction.
So, that’s my new goal. Just make stuff I feel like making for a little while. Experience some creative joy.
I’m sure in a few a weeks, months, something I’ll need to move again towards satisfaction. I need both, but right now, I’m going to be hanging out in playful land.
And that means, things might be a little erratic and strange around here while I sort out how/what I feel like exploring next.
As always, I’m happy for anyone who wants to hang out along the way. Leave a comment if you see something you like. And later this week, I’ll be sharing a new paper doll that was another experiment- this one with color and texture.
So, like what does it say when you share a piece with another artist and they immediately send you a tutorial and are like… you might want to watch this?
Personally, I think it says you have great friends who want you to improve and know you want to improve.
This is what happened when I emailed Julie Matthews all excited by my second finished digitally drawn paper doll where I proudly said I’d “varied my line-weight”. Julie nicely called my line weight variations “subtle” which I think is polite for “you can’t tell you did that, friend” and sent me this lesson from Proko on Line Weight which was really helpful.
Moral of this story, which I sort of told in this week’s email newsletter: If you want to get better at something, you need to have honest people who can give you informed feedback. So, become friends with people who are better than you at something and are kind enough to be willing to be honest with their observations. Be open to those things and improving your craft (whatever that is), becomes so much easier.
I am incredibly lucky to have Julie to help and her feedback consistently makes my work better.
I often think of this Neil Gaiman quote, “Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” He was talking about writing, but the same thing applies to any creative piece of work. In art, there are “correct” things- like ‘hey, that foot is backwards,’ but once you get into choices that are purely aesthetic, then you need to listen to your own voice and your own taste. Make the art you want to see in the world. Not the art someone else wants to see in the world.
But as long as I am quoting Gaiman, I also think of this one a lot- “Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.” He’s talking about writing, clearly, but it is true of anything creative. You can endless edit. You can endlessly tweak.
I look at this paper doll and I see a dozen things I might “fix.”
That’s okay. Because there’s going to be a next time. So, the best thing I do can is share it here. Declare it done and make the next one.
There’s always a next one. Especially when you are, like me right now, learning new tools. You have to leave space for letting go and moving forward.
I am posting this announcement here and on Patreon to try to get as many eyes on it as I can. All charges are paused until June 28th or I decide the future of Patreon.Â
So, I thought it might be fun to type up my notes from the Philadelphia Paper Doll Party and add a few photos. I’ve never been to a paper doll event before, so I was more than a little excited, but also nervous to go. I also failed to take photos of a lot of things in the rush of it all, so forgive me. Still if anyone is thinking of attending one of these events, maybe this will be a little inspiration.
The Philadelphia Paper Doll party was organized by Valerie Keller and Linda Ocasio. Having been on academic conference planning committees, I can imagine the complexity of organizing such an event. So much more work than it looks. They did a stellar job. Joining the Facebook group for the event was super helpful, as it helped me plan and gave me a sense of what might happen.
Since I missed the 2022 annual convention, I told myself I would go to the Philadelphia Party even though it meant flying from Alaska. Because of other obligations, I couldn’t take much time off, but I managed to carve a few days to head across country.
Tuesday & Wednesday – Packing & Travel!
Waiting to get on a plane.
Because I live in, well, Alaska, it takes all day to fly to Philadelphia (you lose 4 hours crossing the continent). I left at 1am Wednesday morning (most annoying thing about where I live is the airlines seem to love a red-eye). On the upside, the sun doesn’t set until nearly midnight. On the downside, in summer there is no fun surprise aurora viewing.
I was selling prints for the first time ever, so I packed up my prints, some business cards, some black and white giveaway prints from the blog, a few display items I scrounged from friends who do craft shows and myself. Plus, a few changes of clothing. Costumes for the evening reception were optional, but I couldn’t imagine dressing up and meeting people I barely knew.
Travel was uneventful until the very end, when I found out the hotel shuttle wasn’t running until 5am. Since I had no desire to wait at the airport until 5am, I called Julie who kindly came and rescued me. We stayed up way too late catching up. It felt a little like a childhood slumber party.
I slept like a rock when I finally did. Staying up too late would be the theme of the event.
Thursday- Hanging out in Philly
The Philadelphia Museum of Art.
We walked around, grabbed a quick sandwich in the cafe and then returned to the hotel for an impromptu Procreate lesson. She showed me how to do a few things I didn’t know how to do and we talked shop. I loved getting to see her procreate files in the flesh. We discussed how to make taps more effectively (vector shapes!) and talked about working from physical to digital and back again (photos).
We both agreed that digital tools could be helpful, but that you still have to learn to draw and practice drawing. She encouraged me to be more willing to use some of the Procreate tools to help make my work easier like texture brushes for drawing lace.
I was swept up by the very friendly paper doll early arrivals that afternoon and we all went to dinner. I promptly forgot everyone’s name and was too embarrassed to ask over and over again.
Friday & Saturday- The Paper Doll Party
Vivian on display at the Show & Share.My sales table with all my prints on display.
The next morning at breakfast Julie introduced me to many very nice people. It was so nice to put real people to various email addresses like Jenny Taliadoros, Melissa Pepe, and Valerie Keller. I’m sure I’m forgetting a bunch of names.
In the afternoon, I got my badge (with a very cute alien) and brought out Vivian for the Show and Share. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get up and talk about Vivian, but I got called out for keeping my mouth-shut. So, I stood up and explained how she was my childhood paper doll with the most clothing, I had made an index of her outfits, etc. One of the really amazing pieces on display was from Bruce Patrick Jones, a family history work all done in blue tones. It was beautiful. I didn’t remember to take a photo (opps) and so I can’t share. But if you’ve never seen Bruce Patrick Jones‘ paper dolls, go look at this Josephine Baker one. His work is great.
After that, there was a presentation about collage paper dolls and a really moving story about David Wolfe from Sharry O’Hare, along with an amazing custom made coat. I never knew David, but it was clear, he will be very missed. After that, I grabbed some dinner and went to the opening reception where, fortunately, I was not the only person not in costume.
The next day, there was a sales room from 9am until 4pm, with a lunch break. I set up at 8am, settled in with my change and my paper doll prints, plus my book. People were so kind. Several told me about how they already had my book (yay!). I wasn’t sure what would sell, so this was mostly an experiment in seeing what interested people. In person sales are very different from online sales, I rapidly learned. Emi Lotto kindly gave me one of her original paper dolls. I also ended up with a lovely set by Peggy Jo Rosamond (one of my favorite artists) and two Alaska themed things to add to my growing Alaskan themed paper doll collection.
There was a Dress-A-Doll with voting for the best dress (Julie Matthews’ dress won) and raffles. I won the souvenirs from the 2016 convention in the raffle. There was also a silent auction, but I didn’t really know what I would have done with any of the beautiful original art. I didn’t send anything in for the Dress-a-Doll, since I wasn’t 100% sure how the process even worked. However, seeing it in the flesh, I think I understand it better now. Maybe next time!
Even though the day “ended” at 4pm, I stayed up way too late chatting with folks. I got a few drawing book recommendations, rambled about my love of fashion plates, and learned about different artist’s processes. It was really fun. Everyone was just amazingly friendly and welcoming. I feel like I keep saying that, but it was true.
Sunday May 25, 2023- Homeward Bound
All packed up to head home.
On my last day, I had a leisurely breakfast and headed to the airport.
I rode the shuttle with Renaldo Barnette. We chatted about drawing with ballpoint pens, working with University students, a shared apathy towards Marcel Proust, and stories about gouache paint.
It was a long flight home and I drafted most of this post while sitting in the Seattle Airport, so at least I got something done.
Landed in Alaska at nearly midnight, a friend picked me up and took me home, then I fell asleep almost instantly.
The best parts of the event were meeting people whose art and work I’ve admired for a long time and getting to spend time with people who share my love of paper dolls. Brenda Sneathen Mattox’s paper dolls were super influential on me as a child. Bruce Patrick Jones, Eileen Rudisill Miller, Kwei-Lin Lum, and Renaldo Barnette are all so talented. Living in Alaska meant I never thought I would get to be in the same room as these amazing artists or be able to ask them questions. So, needless to say, it was well worth the long trip.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten or left out people, because it really was a blur. I am so happy I went and I would happily go again.
