Lately, I’ve been working a lot on Greta’s Trousseau… mostly trying to come up with more ideas and make a list of planned outfits.
As I mentioned the last time I posted doodles, I actually draw these in a lined notebook, but I use a Xerox machine to scan them and it doesn’t scan the blue colored lines on the paper. Odd, but true.
Faye has decided to do a little time traveling and visit the 1920’s. I love drawing 1920s paper dolls and this one was no exception. Inspired by Anna May Wong (the first Asian-American famous film actress), I knew I wanted to use Faye, my Asian Mini-Maiden in this set.
(I did not give Faye Anna May’s wonderful bangs because every time I tried to draw them they looked… off somehow. Bangs and I just don’t always get along.)
Faye has shoes, stockings, a girdle, a house dress, two day dresses and then a swimsuit. She should probably also have a swimming cap, but I didn’t really think about that until after I finished the set and then it was too late. But she’s got a pretty good set of 1920s clothing to print and color, I think.
Oh well…
I really had fun with this set since I just bought a few more books about 1920’s clothing and wanted an excuse to play with them.
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I’m trying to give more information on where I do my costume research when I say something is historically accurate, so I’m including a sources list, in case anyone else wants to dabble in the 1920s. It’s not exhaustive. There’s some other great books out there, just what I happened to use for this set and have on my own shelves at home.
1920s Fashions from B. Altman & Company. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1999.
Atelier Bachwitz. Classic French Fashions of the Twenties. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2012.
Blum, Stella. Everyday Fashions of the Twenties as Pictured in Sears and Other Catalogs. New York: Dover Publications, 1981.
Lussier, Suzanne. Art Deco Fashion. Boston: Bulfinch/AOL Time Warner Book Group, 2003.
Peacock, John. 20th-century Fashion: The Complete Sourcebook. London: Thames and Hudson, 1993.
Do people find this idea of sources lists useful? I don’t want to do them all the time, but for my historical stuff I thought it might be helpful for folks. Thoughts from my fabulous readers?
So, last week I was feel very meh about this paper doll set.
Now, I’m rather in love with it.
I have a very on again, off again relationship with my paper dolls sometimes. I mean, if I was dating this blog, I would definitely declare the relationship highly unhealthy. As it is, the Blog is a demanding associate.
Anyway, I have decided on a name for this new “face” of Marisole. I’m calling her Magnolia, after the magnolia trees that aren’t blooming at all in the dead of winter in Alabama, but which are beautiful anyway. She’s stuck in the Other Friends category though until I decide if I like her enough to draw more sets for her.
I went back and forth and back and forth about Magnolia’s skin tone. I wanted to something darker than my standard Marisole skintone. I’ve posted before about my Skintone Pallette which I use to select skin tones for the blog. Now I was going to go with my darkest color which is #3b2219 which, as you can see, is a very dark brown. The trouble with #3b2219 is that it makes seeing the black lines on the drawing nearly impossible, especially when you print out the paper doll.
So, I lightened the skin-tone to a new shade which is #502e22 which I like a lot better, though it lacks the richness of the darker brown. I want to use #3b2219 more, but I am having trouble with it allowing the line-work to show up. I need to think about how to fix that problem in the future.
One last thing, I finally got the PDF of Seagulls and Seaside In Color fixed. Never let it be said I don’t get things done… eventually. 🙂
Oh and before I forget, I want to wish a happy President’s Day to those celebrating here in the United States.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
This holiday totally snuck up on me. I kept thinking… I have time before I need to worry about a Valentine’s Day paper doll and then I turned around and it was here.
I’ve done other Valentine’s Day paper dolls over the years, and this year I wanted to do a Poppet Valentine’s Day paper doll (partly because I ran low on time and it was easy). I like only having to draw one paper doll outfit rather than several. It’s very liberating.
I have fond memories of Valentine’s Day in Elementary school when my mother would insist we hand make the Valentines and I’d get to play with glitter and dollies and red construction paper.
As I got older, Valentine’s Day became one of my least favorite holidays in the real world. I’ve had a series of rather horrible Valentine’s Days over the years, but I am looking forward to a quiet night this year. That seems like the ideal way to spend Valentine’s Day to me. Meanwhile, enjoy the paper doll.
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Plus, I ain’t gonna lie… I love the polka-dot tights. They’re some of my favorites.
Let us, for a moment, talk about supplies. One of the thing that keeps me drawing paper dolls is that I don’t need a lot of gear. I can get by on a pretty small set of art supplies.
Here’s what I use:
I keep trying out new sketchbooks. I’ll go to the store and I’ll stand looking at the sketchbooks and I’ll think… this time I’ll try this kind and then I try it and I don’t like it and I go back to my Carson Universal sketchbook. Seriously, I seem to always go back to this sketchbook. It takes both ink and pencil well. It’s a nice size. Also, it’s not too expensive.
By the way, I don’t date the pages of my sketchbook, but I do date the cover. That way I know when I drew the stuff inside.
I like cheap mechanical pencils with lead size .07. I buy them in bulk. I lose them all the time, but they’re cheap, so I don’t mind. I like Bic brand, because they have decent erasers. I tend to use the pencil eraser when I’m not thinking and if it’s a bad eraser than it ruins what I’m working on and I get mad.
3. uni-ball Vision Micro Point Rollerball Pens
These .5 mm black ball point pens are what I use for all my inking needs. I adore them. They are cheap, fairly smear proof (not entirely smear proof) and can make smooth lines. They work well on my sketchpads and they are much cheaper than actual art pens. Make sure you ge the .5mm size though, the larger sizes don’t work so well for delicate line-work.
4. Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser
Buy a few different erasers and decide what you like the best. I love these erasers, because they are soft enough not to damage my paper and I do a lot of erasing.
I bought this brush on a whim. I am totally addicted to it now and sometimes take it with me when I travel. Seriously, I am not kidding. It sweeps up all those little annoying left over eraser bits and brushes off you image. How is this not the best thing EVER?
I use these to draw circles (because seriously, who can draw a decent circle? Not me) and other geometric shapes. I like that they are small and thin. I have one for squares too.
So, that’s it. That’s my gear. What do you use to do your art?
Today’s Marisole Monday & Friends paper doll is a little futuristic and a little cyberpunk. She has a new face which I like I think, though I’m not sure about it. Drawing new faces for Marisole is a struggle for me. Drawing for Marisole at all right now is a struggle for me.
In fact, I kinda hate Marisole right now.
Don’t get me wrong…I’m proud of the 96 or so versions of Marisole I have drawn and I’m pleased she’s been a ninja, a fairy and an alien (not to mention plenty of other things), but lately I’ve been feeling uninspired when it comes to her. I think a big part of my frustration is that I drew this base doll over four years ago which is a long time to be drawing for the same doll. Working on her is like going back in time to a style I drew a long time ago and don’t anymore.
Some days, that feels very odd.
Before anyone freaks out, I’m not saying I’m not going to continue with Marisole style dolls, I just feel very much in a slump. The wheel in spinning, as they say, but the gerbil may be dead.
Advice for getting out of slumps, anyone?
I am totally excited about my new Featured Artist Page. One of my goals for the new year has been to feature other artists I think draw beautiful paper dolls and this my first-
Toria of A Paper Closet.
Toria, was kind enough to be interviewed as my inaugural artist of the month. I adore Toria’s work and
her blog is beautifully designed and consistently updated. Her paper dolls are fabulous.
Read Toria’s interview and download a free, unique, printable paper doll set featuring a man (I know… people who aren’t me draw them) and women with beautiful historical costumes over on my Featured Artist Page.
This is the paper doll set I abandoned last week and instead posted the doodles. I am so happy I gave it another week to be refined. Jo was one of the two winners of my drawing in January. She asked for a “groovy” late 60s early 1970s Marisole paper doll based on pattern covers from patterns she actually had sewn at the time. How cool is that?
You can see a PDF of the pattern covers Jo sent me here. I loved all of the pattern covers and I wish I had been able to draw them all, but, of course, that would be way more than a one page paper doll.
Normally, I do two pairs of shoes for each Marisole and friends set, but I wanted to focus on things the patterns had, so a simple pair of clogs did the trick. Tiny calico patterns were the “in” thing in the 70’s, so I created some to decorate these groovy outfits using a new method that I’m experimenting with involving Photoshops pattern making tools. I think they came out pretty well considering that I only sort of know what I am doing.
(Okay, I did try. I confess. It came out… weird looking.)
I have to confess that it is getting harder to name these paper dolls. I nearly called this doll Zoe, before I remembered I’ve already done a Zoe (and we won’t talk about the three different Flora paper dolls problem), so I have been trying to come up unique names that I’m certain I haven’t repeated. Hence the Delaney choice.
Delaney’s style is a little punk and a little sweet. I have been noticing more of this look around lately and I thought it was worth exploring. I didn’t draw her really any accessories and I’m kinda regretting that now. I think she needs some… oh well, sometimes that’s how it goes. I’m also thinking I really should have made her lips pink rather than that bright red… anyway, not every paper doll is perfect.
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Since I was feeling a little rockabilly with these pieces, I decided to go with a sort of sweet color scheme of pale blue, pink, light green and white. I wanted to contrast the content of the skull prints against the colors of the outfits. My favorite piece might be her punk combat boots. Everyone needs bright pink combat boots.
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Weather in Alabama has been crazy. It took me eight hours to get home from work on Tuesday afternoon. My work has been closed for two days. There’s snow on the ground and ice and things are insane. Stay warm, dry and safe everyone.
When I started the Ms Mannequin paper doll series, my goal was to draw primary contemporary clothing. I had high plans of doing stylish designers and other things. Maybe dabbling a little into vintage Dior, but mostly being contemporary. The dolls were designed to be models, not curvy at all, so they could wear the contemporary styles.
However, it wasn’t long before I was sketching and suddenly pirates reared their heads and demanded to be drawn. I ignored them for a while, but soon they were saying, “DRAW US.”
And I said, “Okay. No need to shout.”
And so this pirate set was born.
What can I say? I like pirates. I feel like there’s nothing “new” about this pirate set though, so I’m not sure it’s my best set. Still… sometimes you just have to draw pirates.
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By the way, I’m doing site clean up, sometime I do every Jan/Feb to tidy up categories, fix things that seem broken and a little spring cleaning is done. So, things might be morphing and changing around here in subtle ways. Nothing to worry about, just me tidying up my files. 🙂
I had to make a tough call today.
I was working on my Marisole Monday paper doll, coloring the set, and I just didn’t like it. It was 8pm on Sunday night when I decided this. Now sometimes when I decide I hate things, I finish them anyway, but this set is for the one of the winners of my drawing and I would feel horrible giving as a drawing prize, as set I didn’t like.
So, instead, here are some doodles for future Marisole Monday & Friends sets.
All right, I hope everything enjoys these doodles. There will be a real paper doll tomorrow (an Ms. Mannequin post, I think) and something on Thursday as well. 🙂
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When I first drew the Poppets paper dolls, I knew I wanted to do historical costumes. This isn’t historically accurate by the way, but it does have a 1300s flair, I think. One of the reasons I steer clear of certain periods of history is that I feel like I don’t know enough about them. I am familiar enough with Victorian and 18th century costume that I feel fairly comfortable simplifying it without losing it’s authenticity, but I know very little about clothing in Europe before 1400.
As a result, I tend to categorize my forays into the “medieval” look as fantasy, rather than history. It keeps me from feeling guilty about not really knowing what I’m doing. However, Gwendolyn asked for a paper doll of a 10th century Anglo-Saxon when she won my drawing last week, so I guess I better learn something about the 10th century.
In the meantime, here’s a Poppet Medieval outfit strictly in the realm of fantasy being modeled by Petunia. I like to think she might be a princess, but I haven’t given her a crown, so the jury is out.
I’m also really pleased to say I’ve recently stumbled across a new paper doll blog called Paper is Suffcient. It’d a new blog, so go over there, check it out and drop Natalie a comment. We need all the paper doll blogs we can get. 🙂