My mother very rarely makes paper doll suggestions. So, I was super surprised when she brought up the coastal grandmother trend. And since she is my mom, I had to draw it. Being my mom gets you special paper doll privileges as it should.
Coastal grandmother is a trend that focuses on really nice basics in neutral colors that can be easily interchanged with each other. It’s linen pants and crisp white shirts. Think very neutral, classic staples in light shades and hats, though I didn’t include one. While the grandmother’s I know who live on the coast are more xtratuf boots than nice leather sandals, I think the basic idea holds- it’s a casual style that also emphasizes the value of really classic clothing.
In honor of the grandmother theme, I did a rare grey haired paper doll which I’ve had request for through Patreon. Being a Patron also gets you special request privileges.
Anyhow, here’s the paper doll! I hope you enjoy.
And, unless my math is wrong (and it 100% might be), I think this paper doll gets us to 99 Jewels and Gemstones 2.0 sets.
I know that blue mostly shows up in medieval manuscripts because lapis was a popular coloring agent for ink, but I still will always think of it as a medieval color. There’s something super magical about the color blue to me! It can be masculine or very feminine and thanks to indigo dye it has been around for a long long time. Woad, which is a yellow flowering plant, actually makes a bright blue die and it was used extensively before indigo came to Europe.
It also one of my favorite colors to make skin tones- I’ve done a fair number of blue skinned paper dolls over the years from fairies to aliens.
Anyway, I thought it would be fun to show off some blue paper dolls as we ease into September.
25 Paper Dolls In Blue
As I selected which blue paper dolls to feature here, I really wanted to show blue as a historical color- like this 1920s dress and this medieval one- and blue as a preppy color like this modern paper doll. In my wardrobe, mostly blue shows up in my jeans, but my paper dolls have more fun than that.
Paper dolls always get more fun with their clothing than I do.
Today, we have Tanya with some evening gowns. This set has actually been sitting on my computer for way longer than I like to admit. However, it’s done now, so that’s okay.
Tanya’s last collection was very fantasy themed, so I thought she should get some more modern things, but I confess now I feel like the poor girl needs some pants. I’m not 100% in love with how her afro-puff came out, but I can live with that. I think that angle is wrong…
I digress.
All right, so yeah, paper doll! I know for like Search Engine Optimization I should really try to write between 300 and 500 words per post, but I haven’t got that much to say here. It’s a cute printable black paper doll. That’s kinda all I got today.
So, I’ve been working on a big collection of 1950s dresses for the Jewels and Gemstones paper dolls. Right now, there’s 5 dolls and a lot of pages of clothing. I have no idea if I’ll put all of it on the blog, save some for Etsy, use some for Patreon. Who knows at this point!
My major resources for this project were the Catalogs & Wishbooks Site which appears to be someone’s passion project and contains over 200 fully digitized catalogs from the 1940s to the 2000s. It’s an amazing piece of work which, as someone who manages digitization projects for a living, I am in awe of. These digitized catalogs have made researching 20th century fashion so much easier.
I didn’t really have a clear plan how I was going to structure these sets when I drew them, so everything is a little scattershot in terms of year and style.
Early 1950s dresses and late 1950s purses
I didn’t do anything that was evening gown level in this set. I tend to find evening clothing less interesting to me then things people wore day to day. One of the reasons I love drawing from catalogs, is because it means that the item was actually available to people to purchase, unlike fashion illustrations which are often very high end designer fashion. Nothing wrong with that, but it interests me less then what most people had access too. Catalog aren’t aspirational, usually.
More Early 1950s stuff with hats! Hats!
One thing that struck me while working on this was how many pages in these catalogs were devoted to hats. Hats are something women do not normally wear anymore, but they were super popular in the 1950s and didn’t really fall out of fashion until the 1970s.
I digress.
The next step is to scan these and clean them up and then layout and color!
Sometimes, I just don’t have any finished paper dolls, my friends.
Creativity, for me, is something that comes in bursts. I truly believe that creation breeds creation. The more you work then the more you will keep working, but I also generally try to have more than one project in different stages at one time- that way if I am not feeling like penciling or inking, I can work on the computer.
Maybe it’s just that I’ve been busy, or maybe it’s that this last year has been A LOT, but I’ve gotten out of rhythm and I am struggling to keep the stages of the pipeline in-synch. Right now, I have a lot I want to draw, but very little have actually gotten into the sketchbook and less I’ve gotten inked or scanned.
But that’s okay. I’ll catch up.
In the meantime, I thought I’d give a little look into my little notebook, the one I carry with me 90% of the time. I have a bit sketchbook and this isn’t it.
Everything from to do lists to various doodles hang out in this little notebook. When it’s full, I replace it with another one, because I use a travelers notebook style cover. Easy, peasey, and low commitment.
Idea Roulette gives me ideas, but they aren’t always successful ideas.
My feelings about this round of this game were pretty mixed. I wasn’t super happy with anything I ended up with, except my regency fantasy armor looks. I do actually really want to draw, but I’m not sure for which paper doll. I’ve also got this cute gothic fairy idea which I might use for Halloween, except Julie of Paper Doll School and I have been talking about witches for Halloween.
So…. maybe need to wait on my cute little gothic fairy idea.
Past the idea roulette, we have four Vivian ideas. Vivian is my Patreon paper doll, named for a childhood paper doll with the same name. I am starting to think it’s time for a Vivian 2.0 reboot, since I’ve been drawing her since 2015, but in the meantime, there’s some steampunk dress designs I’ve doodled here.
Ideas for Vivian Gowns
And after Vivian, we have an assortment of other things.
On the left, there’s a redraw I’ve been wanting to do of an old Marisole Set and a Curves set, along with a “outdoorsy” set for Talia Tuesday and some fantasy Regency dresses to go along with the armor I came up with. And on the right, there’s an autumn addition to the Big Princess Dresses Jewels and Gemstones thing, but I’m not super happy with those designs, so they may not happen. We’ll see how I feel when I start penciling them.
More ideas for paper dolls.
The primary reason I don’t show these off very often is there’s a pretty high chance that some of these will never make it from “idea in my head” to actual paper doll content. These are about as raw as my ideas get. Some of this, if not most of it, will never be finished.
My other big project is a 1950s set for the Jewels and Gemstones. More on that later this week.
I get a fair number of questions about my process and one thing I really wanted to do is show people how I create what I create. I admit sometimes I feel like a slacker, because very little about this process has changed dramatically in the decide the blog has run. I’m sort of in awe of people who really dramatically switch up their methods on the regular.
I’m trying to learn to use Photoshop on ipad, so I can occasionally draw something directly on the screen and it’s already stressing me out. But I am getting better at it. Maybe sometime I’ll share a few of my attempts.
I pencil everything first. So, on the left is the “rough” sketch over which I will be inking. There’s usually few more tweaks that happen, like adding details to the “ray-gun” and fixing the shape of the skirt which I clearly wasn’t super happy with this stage, but that’s the basic idea. The themes are ballgowns and retro space alien, in case you’re wondering what ray-guns and ballgowns have in common.
I often draw patterns as single motifs and then use photoshop to make them into a more complicated pattern for the actual garment. Avoids me accidentally messing up somehow and also drawing 17 identical pumpkins is hard.
So, for October themes include – a witch (I’ve been practicing witch’s hats for a project that may or may not happen) and a October themed clothing set sort of like my March themed clothing set. I need to think about winter stuff and if I am going to try to do a paper doll for Thanksgiving. I never have before, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. How hard can it to be draw a Turkey?
The wrinkles in the paper (which do not look this bad in real life) are the result of erasing with more gusto than I should have. They won’t matter once I scan the pages.
None of this is specific for a month or anything, but the clothing on the left was a sort of regency-core inspired set of clothing and the gown on the right was me playing with fantasy dresses. I like having sets that aren’t based on a specific holiday, because it allows me to calculate where to put them in the order of the newsletters.
To give further context, there’s about 19 weeks left in 2022. Since the Newsletter comes out very two weeks, that means I need ten more paper dolls to get me through the end of the year. Friday’s paper doll was number 14, so in September there will be 15, 16, and 17. Then October will have 18 and 19 and then… well, you get the idea.
Anyway, the goal here was create enough content to get me through September, October and a little bit into November before I decide what to do next. Hence why I haven’t drawn a turkey… yet.
Want to see these paper dolls when they’re all finished? Be sure to sign up for the Newsletter here.
Sometimes, when I really like a paper doll book, I don’t have a lot to say about it. “This book is beautiful” is not really the most interesting review ever written about anything. I think part of the point of a review is to think about a piece of art (in this case a paper doll book) and really analyze it in a meaningful way with an opinion.
If you don’t feel like hearing what I think about each, just go buy them from Paper Doll Review. They are all lovely books.
Cutting Edge Couture by Norma Lu Meehan
Front CoverBack Cover
So, let’s start with Cutting Edge Couture Paper Dolls by Norma Lu Meehan. Basic stats: The book is 9 by 11.75 inches tall. The dolls measure just under 10 inches. There’s 20 different outfits. David Wolfe chose the designs and maybe wrote the essay in the book. He’s not credited for it in the book, but it feels like other writings of his I have read.
Total side note, but did you notice how the C of the word “Couture” goes through the paper doll’s hat? So cool. Great attention to detail there.
Let me start with stating the obvious. Norma Lu Meehan is one heck of an artist. I’ve been a fan for a long time. The fabrics are rendered beautifully, the dolls skin seems to glow, and the drape of the garments feels right. I love that the dolls are clearly from the same “world”, but each one is distinct. Not just skin color, but facial shape and structure. These are two beautiful models, but they are not the same at all. Love that.
All of the art here is amazing. I can not say that enough.
My only criticisms are with the intentionality. The best paper doll books, I think, are works of art the feel cohesive. The essay, while interesting, felt disconnected from the illustrations. The text on the pages didn’t add anything (though I did like the splatter looking backgrounds) and I couldn’t tell why the garments had been chosen (beyond all being beautiful.) There’s tantalizing hints at the end of the essay, but little more.
Why these designers? I wondered. Why these garments? Why this arrangement? They aren’t in chronological order.
If you want a lovely book of contemporary fashion design, I think this is absolutely successful. As a fully cohesive piece of art, I felt like it was missing something.
Big Fancy Dresses by Kwei-lin Lum
Front CoverBack Cover
Next up is Big Fancy Dresses by Kwei-lin Lum. Basic stats: The book is 8.5 by 11 inches, so letter sized. The dolls are 9 inches tall and there’s ten costumes. There is also an instruction page about the floating tabs, always helpful, included.
It’s not often that a see a paper doll book and think to myself, “This is just fun” and Big Fancy Dress is one such book.
It’s playful, whimsical, and a little surreal in all the best ways. Each costume feels like it belongs in a funhouse mirror version of our reality where these garments make sense and I am 100% here for it. There’s also something genuinely funny about a lot of these gowns. I didn’t want to give too many away by showing pictures. There’s a dress made of candy. There’s a dress with Romeo and Juliet being played out on the skirt with a puppet who looks like Shakespeare. (Not shown here, but you can see it on Paper Doll Review.) There’s a fairy princess dress and a Queen of Hearts.
All in all, I was very impressed with how each background was unique for each dress, but I found the “different” backgrounds side by side in the spreads a little jarring. On the flip side, I’m not convinced that wasn’t intentional to emphasize the topsy-turvy feeling.
The dolls are very similar. 99% of the time, I want more paper doll diversity. In this case I think it works, because the dolls don’t really feel human. There’s such a surrealist undercurrent to the whole book, so the dolls feel like they are part of something that’s defining it’s own parameters. This is not the real world. So, in the case of this specific book, I think the dolls similarity 100% works. There’s cohesion there.
The cover-stock and interior paper are nice. I didn’t mind the smaller size, but imagine some people might be surprised by it. I did wish there was some sort of artists statement to go with this book, because I would super love to know more about the inspirations for these fantastic dresses. However, I didn’t feel like its absence distracted too much, because the artistic vision (to be pretentious for a moment) was so strong.
My love of bustles is well documented on this site, but a lesser known fact is that I also love kimonos. So, Japonica by Andrea Helen Smith was right up my alley. Basic Stats: The book is sized at 11 by 9 inches. It’s sort of an unusual size. The doll measure 10 inches high and there’s 8 dresses. There’s some background info and an artists statement included.
The book is a collection of bustle gowns and kimonos based on the styles of the Meiji era (1868-1912) when Japan began adopting European dress. This is not, however, a book devoted to perfectly rendering historical clothing. It is more a historically inspired work with all the garments are inspired by the Japonica butterfly. If that feels a little complicated, never fear.
The book never feels like it is trying to do too much and the captioning is informative, but brief. I learned things I didn’t know reading the information given with each dress. I also didn’t find it distracting or feel like I need to know more. It was the perfect amount of informatio
A super great instruction page.
The art is beautiful. The soft colors feel dreamy. The borders on the pages add cohesion without distracting. When I was a kid, I loved paper doll books with one doll and a bunch of dresses. So, the format of this book resonates with me. Also, it’s not common to see a historical inspired paper doll book with a non-white model. Very nice to see.
Can I be a paper person for a moment? The paper here is amazing. I have handled a lot of paper stock in my time and this paper stock feels utterly luxurious.
One last note on Japonica, there is an amazing instructions page. I mean, it might seem like an odd thing to highlight, but it is so well done. I was super impressed by it, but didn’t want people to miss out on pictures of the pretty dresses.
If you want a historically inspired paper doll book with beautiful gowns and fun information about Japan, then I think Japonica by Andrea Helen Smith is a great choice.
And that’s it.
The truth is that Big Fancy Dresses, Japonica, and Cutting Edge Couture are all books I would recommend. Each one is really a nice book and a wonderful addition to a paper doll collection. Each book feels different from each other, but I don’t plan to get rid of any of them. That’s rare. I don’t keep all the paper doll books I review, but I will be keeping all of three these.
Do you have a favorite of these three? Or a book you’d like to hear me ramble about? Let me know in a comment.
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