2015 Goals Update: Where I am

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Back in January, I outlined six goals for 2015. Since Monday was the Rosh Hashannah (Jewish New Year) and I have a tradition of going back to my goals every year around this time, I thought today would be a good day to see where I am nine months into the year.

I will be among the first to acknowledge that I haven’t done everything on my list, but then I never seem too.

So, here we go:

Goal 1: More Historical Paper Dolls. I want to create ten historical paper doll sets in 2015.

I actually have already completed this goal which I am very proud of. Depending on whether or not you count the multipage sets as one set or not, I have either made this goal or am going to make it in the next few weeks as I have a Viking st for next week and a 1950s set for sometime after that. I want to post a historical paper doll round-up post at the end of the year with all the historical paper dolls on the blog organized by era, but in the mean time you can check them all out in the Historical tag.

Goal 2: Focus a little more on Poppets, Ms. Mannequinn and Buxom and Bodacious.

Basically, I wanted to draw ten pages for each of these sets. So, far I have posted 5 sets for B&B, 4 sets for Ms. Mannequinn and 5 sets for the Poppets this year. There are several sets for both Buxom & Bodacious and Ms Mannequinn in the wings, but not quite ten. Now, the Poppets will definitely need some attention in the coming months to get to my ten posts for each in 2015 goal, but I think I will get there.

Goal 3: Do more Featured Artists.

Okay, so chalk this one up as a failure. I mean, seriously… the problem is that this always takes way more work on my part than I think it should. Anyone who says curating guest posts is simple is lying to you. The truth is that these posts can easily take as much time, if not more, than doing my own work. I think they are important, but I might change up the format a bit or something. I dunno.

I need to think about the options available to me. I really like interviewing other artists in this community and it is a very small community, so I think we need to support each other. At the same time, it is far more time consuming than it appears and I don’t know if other people are as interested in these posts as I am.

Maybe there’s an easier or simpler format I could use? Thought from the audience?

Goal 4: Actually send something into OPDAG Newsletter.

Not only have I not done this, but I think my membership has lapsed. Opps. I need to renew that and, you know, get my act together. I think part of the problem is that I only want to show off my BEST work to OPDAG since it has members whose work I admire so much. Anyway, I need to get over that and just do something. A completed “okay” project is far better than an incomplete “perfect” project.

Goal 5: Have another Mini-Series set.

This year my 18th Century Pixies Series rather took the place of having a mini-series since it has run for six weeks and wraps on Friday. I have some ideas for doing some special in December or transforming this goal into something else entirely. I have been doing a lot of non-series related drawing, but none of it is ready for prime-time yet. A lot of it is part of a project I’ve been working on for the last few months that, hopefully, will debut in December. More on that later. While I guess I haven’t really done this in a traditional sense, I do think I have been good about giving myself permission to draw “outside” the Series this year- even if some of that material hasn’t made its way onto the blog.

Goal 6: Upgrade the images on the blog to larger format images.

This is an ongoing mess of a project. You see, I don’t use WordPresses image management system because when I first started this blog, I didn’t understand how it worked and I could write raw code, so I did. Now that I am five years in, I have found that I just don’t like the image management system, so I continue to manually code most of these posts. As a result, changing something like image size means actually going into each post and manually re-coding the image width tags. Of course, if I had been smarter at the beginning I would have written that into the CSS, but well… I wasn’t that smart at the time, so I have to manually fix it all. Anyway, the result is a lot of mind-numbing copy and paste work. Never the less, I have gotten through May of 2013 so far and am chugging along. This is the problem when you know just enough code to get yourself into trouble.

Though I haven’t met all of my goals this year so far, I am actually really pleased with where the blog is. I think it is going to grow in fun and interesting ways this year and I have some cool stuff planned already for next year.

Most of all I am proud that I have been far more consistent in posting this year than I have ever been before. That is something to be very proud of, I think.

Space Princess: An Intergalactic Princess Paper Doll

logo-space-princess-bwMany eons ago (okay so, like three months ago in June), I did a little poll about what paper doll I should draw next for Marisole Monday & Friends. The winner was ballerinas, but the second place winner was space princess.

To be honest, I was much more excited about the idea of a space princess than I was about ballerinas. Having fulfilled my ballerina paper doll promises, I can now move on to space princess paper dolls.

Our Space Princess is neither a Marisole, a Monica, a Mia, a Maeghan or a Margot paper dolls, rather she is a unique face, because I drew her hair and her features as one. She’s living over in the other friends category with my other alien paper doll (who you can see in black and white or in color).

I don’t always spend a lot of time thinking about aliens or what makes a species, but I imagine that this alien species is a highly advanced race with a strict social structure. Our princesss wears a crown, but also has ray guns for defending herself. Along with her gowns, she has jumpsuits that she wears when leading her people in times of war. She is not a shrinking violet who just stands around, rather she is someone who is willing to fight to defend her people and their way of life.

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I used to fight the whole “princess” thing. These days, I am trying to embrace the fun of the whole concept. I remember the my grandmother used to give us paper doll cards for our birthdays. I know I’ve mentioned this before and while I can’t recall everything from my childhood, I can recall those cards with fairly vivid recollection. I seem to recall this Space Princess card being among them and you have to love a paper doll with a “moon moo moo” (yes, they spell muumuu like that…I don’t know why).

Lastly, I’d like to wish a L’Shanah Tovah or a Happy New Year to all my readers who are celebrating Rosh Hashanah like I am. I made my annual loaf of challah and ate it with apples and honey last night after sundown. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year and this year is 5776.

Hope: A Late 18th Century Paper Doll Set

logo-hope-1700sHope is based on the styles at the end of the 18th century. So, something major happened around the 1789 in France. It was, for those who weren’t asleep in high school history class, the French Revolution. To say that “everthing changed” wouldn’t be an understatement and the ripples of the events in France spread across Europe in dramatic ways. It is tempting when looking at the end of the 18th century to simply assume that after 1789 everyone just jumped into Empire styles and that was the end of it, but the reality is that there was a very slow evolution to the high waisted gowns we think of as “empire” or “Regency” dress.

So, I was less interested in worrying about the Empire look and much more interested in the every transitional styles that are easily forgotten and often ignored.

This all brings us rather neatly to Hope. Hope is our paper doll model for the later part of the 1700s. Her dresses will never get up the high waisted styles that characterized the transition into Empire. Rather, I think of her as being a woman of means right before everything gets radicalized. And, for her sake, let us assume she lives in England which was always behind on the fashions a bit anyway and a much safer place to be than France at the end of the 18th century. They don’t call it the Reign of Terror for nothing, after all.

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Hope’s hair is done up in a style known as coiffure à l’enfant. This was a style popularized by Marie-Antoinette in the early 1780s. The style is a frizzy halo of hair with several longer strands curled, braided or left straight. Here is a portrait that shows off the hair style from the Met and here is a fashion plate featuring it from the V&A. I have to confess that I am not totally pleased with her hair. I fear that it looks a little bit too “mad scientist” for my comfort.

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Moving away from her hair for a moment, Hope has undergarments, of course, and then a gown known as a Redingote. Redingote’s started their lives as actual riding coats, but eventually transformed into women’s gowns which were coat like and then cut away to reveal the petticoat underneath. The word “redingote” is believed to be a French transliteration of the English term “riding coat”. Hope’s redingote was based on this gown from LACMA circa 1790. The term “redingote” sticks around into the early 20th century as a term of long coats.

Her hat is from this hat from the MINT circa 1770. Her shoes are based on this pair from the Met from 1780. Her muff and her mitts are both from Colonial Williamsburg.

I think that’s all the sources I need to list for Hope. I might have forgotten something, but I think that’s everything. Next Friday, there will be the last set of outfits for the 18th Century Pixie Series all from the later part of the 18th century.

En Pointe: A Printable Ballerina Paper Doll in Color

logo-mia-ballerina-colorMore ballerina paper dolls!

Okay, so this is the last one, but I did have fun with this little foray into dance clothes for the moment. Now that I have done these, I feel like I should do some tap dance clothes or something.

Anyhow, today’s Mia ballet set is in color. While Monica is the white swan from Swan Lake, Mia is the Black Swan for Swan Lake. Of course, traditionally, these parts are danced by the same dancer, but I thought it would be more fun to break up the two tutus across the sets.

Her Giselle costume is from the second act and therefore had to be white. After the character Giselle dies, the whole second act of the ballet is done in white costumes. It is sometimes called the “White Act” for this reason. I couldn’t exactly make it purple.

Don Quixote costumes are often based on Spanish flamingo dresses and this one is sort of in that vein. I settled on a golden bodice, black tutu and red roses. I’m not entirely pleased with how it came out, actually. I do think this tutu could also be for the Nutcracker’s Spanish Chocolate dance.  I chose teal for both Romeo and Juliet and Scheherazade (which I think I finally have memorized how to spell).

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For those of you who have been paying close attention, you have likely noticed that the en pointe shoes were copied for both sets. I thought about drawing two of basically then same thing and then came to my senses. The dolls leg positioning doesn’t really allow for “other” en pointe poses then this one. The leg warmers are also duplicated across both sets. Once again, I didn’t really want to draw the exact same thing twice.

Generally, I try to avoid copying from pervious sets- which is how I have draw way more pairs of skinny jeans than any person should- but sometimes I give myself a break and do it.

Lastly for those of my readers in the United States, Happy Labor Day! Let us all take a moment and be grateful for the people who fought hard to provide their fellow workers with a better way of life. Also, eat barbecue.

Round Gown, Court Gowns and a Caraco Jacket: 18th Century Paper Doll Dresses

logo-18th-cent-3Four more 18th century dresses for the Pixie paper dolls today. So, by now I think I’ve already covered the various sorts of gowns women wore in the 18th century with a fair bit of detail.

On the left, we have a caraco jacket and a square hooped court gown. The caraco jacket was inspired by this gown from LACMA. The court gown was based on this gown in style and this gown in color scheme. Square hooped court gowns like this one were the most formal of a ladies wardrobe and, like court gowns generally seem too, stayed in style even after square hoops were disappearing else where.

Moving to the right, we have a dress based on this gown from the MFA in Boston and a round gown from the Met. Round gowns were the least formal of all these gowns.

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Most of my color choices here came from the source gowns above. My favorite of the gowns, the caraco jacket with petticoat on the upper-left was the most painful to color. Those detailed floral patterns get my every time, but I just love the way they look. There is something about 18th century sprawling viney florals that I can’t get enough of. Even in my own house, I have an apron in that style of pattern that I wear while baking and simply adore.

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I should say, I think, word about her hat. There are small dotted lines along the outside edges of the ribbon and you will need to clip those if she is going to wear her hat, as well as cut out the white area. That is best done with a sharp blade, like an exacto knife. I don’t usually use an exacto knife in my paper doll cutting (I am clumsy with those things), but for some things it really is the most effective option.

If you’ve missed any parts of the 18th Century Pixie Series, they all can be found here.

And Today in my Sketchbook…

So, one of the perks of where I work is that I can borrow an SLR camera sometimes. Not that I have any idea how to use an SLR camera, but I am trying to experiment with decent blog photos, so I borrowed one last weekend and decided to photograph my sketchbook.

All things considered, I think the photos came out fairly well. So, here’s a little peek at what is currently in the sketchbook. I would say these were “coming up soon”, but let us all be realistic. I take forever to get things from “idea” to actually paper doll. It is probably best that I promise nothing.

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The Poppets are getting some historical outfits here with a dress and coat from the 1940s and a swimming outfit and sailor suit from the 1890s. I really like historical children’s clothing.

sketchbook-aug-2So, this started as a faun set and then I was like… I need more then just faun legs, so I added some mermaid tails, because that made sense. Okay, maybe not, but I am excited at the outcome. Of course, who knows when this one will be ready either.

sketchbook-aug-3Marcus as a knight has been at the top of my “To Do” list for a while. I also feel like Marcus maybe needs some male friends to hang out with, so I am thinking about that too lately.

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En Pointe: A Black and White Ballerina Paper Doll

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Today, my Monica paper doll ballerina is being joined by Mia, also getting to be a ballerina. Mia’s costumes are from (left to right) Swan Lake, Giselle, Don Quixote, Scheherazade and Romeo and Juliet. I do feel rather that Monica got the better known ballets since most people have heard of Swan Lake and the Nutcracker, but haven’t heard of Scheherazade, despite being an amazing piece of music.

When I was first compiling my list of ballets to draw for these paper doll sets, I wanted to show the range of ballet costumes beyond the tutu. Romeo and Juliet is usually costumed in a renaissance inspired style and Scheherazade is usually done as an orientalist fantasy set in the Middle-East. So, those are my two nods to the “non-tutu” look for these paper dolls. After all, not every dance costume is a tutu.

Mia has practice clothing as well- a simple wrap skirt, leg warmers, a long sleeved leotard, tunic top and flat soled dancing shoes. Of course, she can share her warm up clothes with Monica and between the two of them, I think there is a nice variety of options. I didn’t, to be frank, want to spend a lot of time on practice clothing. It is not nearly as fun to draw as fancy tutus.

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There are some mix and match options as well from Monica’s set. Monica’s Copellia tutu, for example, would also work for the first act of Giselle, before Giselle dies. I am particularly pleased with how the transparent overlay on Mia’s Giselle tutu came out, actually.

I have been spending a lot of time looking at the work of Charles Ventura and Pat Stall, both of whom had a mastery of black and white line-work that I can only dream of one day achieving. I have been collecting their work, along with other black and white paper doll artists, on my black and white paper dolls Pinterest board for a while.

Studying the techniques of artists you admire is a great way to learn how to try new things.

Does anyone know if Charles Ventura or Pat Stall are still alive? I really feel like I should write them and tell them how much I love their paper dolls.

Polinanise and Stomachers: 18th Century Gowns for Paper Dolls

logo-18th-cent-2In my first page of gowns for my 18th century paper doll series, I talked a lot about different styles of gowns. I did not, however, talk about stomachers. So, a stomacher was a triangular shaped piece of cloth that was pinned or sewn in place to fill in the bodice of gowns. Most gowns had either an actual separate stomacher or something that looked like a stomacher. In today’s collection of gowns, they all have stomachers, except the polianse gown which is front fastening.

On the left side, the first gown is a polinase style based on this gown at the V&A. The lower gown was my rather poor attempt at capturing looped silk fringe which was very much in style in the 18th century. I believe this was the gown I started from, but I’m not totally pleased with the resulting outcome.

The first gown on the right was my attempt at the caraco jacket sort of garment with a stomacher. This example from the Met is a similar style. The gown on the bottom-right is based on this gown where the stomacher extends below the closure of the coat like bodice.

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When it came time to color these gowns, I knew I was going to color the polinase gown the same way as the source gown which made things quite simple. The gown below it was inspired by the green in the stripes of the original. I chose brown for the top right gown to match the more casual nature of the caraco jacket style. While the bottom right gown is based a vibrantly colored gown, I chose a white and pastel gown from the 1770s as my color inspiration.

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The two different sized caps on the page are needed to accommodate the difference in hairstyles between Joy and Faith. There will be a third Pixie doll for this series, but she won’t be up for a while. After this there is another page of gowns, I think. I have four pages of gowns and three pages of dolls, so you can see there’s a little bit of a challenge as far as going doll, gowns, doll…

If you’ve missed any of this collection, here’s the 18th century Pixie series thus far.

Prima Ballerina: A Ballerina Paper Doll in Color

logo-aa-ballerina-colorSo, one of my first jobs while working in library school was to assist with the digitization of a massive collection of costume design drawings from a group known as the Motley Group (not to be confused with Motley Crue). This let to me eventually finishing my library degree and going onto a degree in Theater History with an emphasis on the history of technical design work.

All branches of theatrical design are about communicating information to the audience seamlessly. In Romeo and Juliet, for example, it is traditional to costume the warring families in different colors. Romeos family might be all in reds, oranges and yellows while Juliet’s family might be in greens, blues and purples. This is useful, because it communicates with the audience immediately which character is associated with which group- important in a play with about 20 characters. Opera and ballet also have costuming traditions. In a medium where people don’t speak and the plots are often rather odd, identifying characters by their colors and style is even more important.

So, when I was selecting colors and costume designs for my ballerina paper dolls, I was well aware that there were traditions that I needed to take notice of. I did my best to keep these costumes fairly “traditional” with the exception of the Firebird. I didn’t like either tutus or the unitards that seemed to be common, so I went with something a little more contemporary.

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Working left to right, the first costume was from the ballet Coppélia- usually costumed in a “folk” style which is also often used for the first act of the ballet Gisselle or any ballet where there seems to be milkmaids and/or county fairs. Next is a costume for the Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker. This is a costume I entirely invented when I didn’t like any of the versions I was seeing online. For my firebird, I chose to do a more modern costume, rather than a traditional tutu. If I was going to costume something no in a tutu, the firebird seemed like the logical choice. Monica is dancing the part of Odette in Swan Lake- next week’s paper doll, Mia, will have a costume for Odile. It is traditional that the part is danced by the same ballerina, but I wanted to split up the costumes across two sets. For Swan Lake, I settled on a traditional sort of costume with some feather detailing and a headdress. From Sleeping Beauty, Monica is dancing the part of the Lilac Fairy. Obviously, her costume was going to be lilac.

Joy: An 18th Century Historical Paper Doll Set

logo-joy-1700sToday’s 18th century paper dolls is my second of three. Joy, all of these paper dolls will have virtue names, is from between the 1760s though 1780s. She has underwear and a gown in the polonaise style. Poloniase gowns had a skirt that is raised up and bunched over the petticoat. Usually a gown could be worn either with the skirt looped up in the polonaise or with the skirt down- offering some versatility to the 18th century silhouette. The polonaise gown sticks around into the 19th century and is sometimes mistaken for a bustle.

Joy’s gown was based on this pink silk gown circa 1770-1780 housed at the LACMA. Her shoes are based on this fashion plate from 1778. Her undergarments are based off a set held by the V&A museum dated to 1778.

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As with the rest of this series, I based her color scheme off my 18th century color pallet which I introduced in the first part of this series. After seeing this gown from MFA in Boston I knew I wanted to do something in a rich red color. Despite myself, I tend to think of the 18th century as being muted in colors, but nothing could be further from the truth.

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It has been so much fun to share this paper doll series over the last few weeks. We have four more pages with one more doll and three more sets of gowns. The whole collection, so far, can be seen here.

Since we’re talking the 18th century, I thought I would call attention to a cool project I discovered this week. The University of Michigan has begun to translate and make available online the Encyclopédie edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert in the 18th century. The section of primary interest to those of us obsessed with dress is the plates on the Tailor of Suits and Bodices, but I’ve used the Encyclopédie to show students furniture manufacture and paper making circa 1790. I love this book and can get lost in it for hours.

Prima Ballerina: A Ballerina Paper Doll

logo-aa-ballerina-bwFor years I avoided drawing a ballerina paper doll. I was asked a lot, but I always shied away.

Mostly, because the idea of drawing tutus frightened me. I work in ink. Ink is great for a lot of things, but I have always struggled with transparency and tulle (that stuff they make tutus out of) is known for both its transparency and its texture. That alone was enough to scare me.

Then, on a fateful day last year, I had no choice. I had to draw a tutu for a contest winner. I hated the outcome of my first tutu attempt, but I swore I would tackle tutus again.

I learn to draw tutus (and I still am learning), I have had to learn to let go a little of my natural instinct for controlled linework. I’ve had to embrace the risk of messy linework. That’s been a struggle and while my tutus still aren’t perfect, they are getting better.

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So, for my ballet costumes, I chose to do some classic ballets that I love. The characters are Swanhilda from Coppelia (or Gisselle before she dies, either way), The Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker, Odette from Swan Lake (though if you color it black, it could be Odile), the Firbird from The Firebird, and the Lilac Fairy from Sleeping Beauty. I chose Monica for this set, because I was thinking about Misty Copeland and also that I’ve only seen one African-American ballerina paper doll before. That would be one doll in Dover’s book- Ballet Dancers. So, here is a second African-American ballerina paper doll. She’ll be in color next week.

Enjoy!

18th Century Gowns: Round-Gown, Brunswick, and Sack-Back Gown

logo-18th-centToday, we have out first set of 18th century gowns for the paper dolls, including a round gown, a brunswick and a robe à la française.

Until the introduction of high-waisted dresses at the very end of the 18th century, most women’s garments consisted of a skirt or petticoat and a bodice. In garments like round gowns, less formal and/or worn by the middle classes, the bodice would fasten in the front and there would be a separate skirt. The far left paper doll costume is a round-gown, based on this round gown from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Sometimes, the bodice would come down partly over the skirt creating a jacket like affect. These mid-thigh length bodices were called caraco jackets. Here, for example, is an extant caraco jacket from the LACMA. Later in this series, there will be caraco jackets, but our middle gown is not a caraco jacket, but rather a brunswick. Brunswicks were traveling garments, often hooded, that had long sleeves. Though relatively practical, they were made of fine fabrics like silk- which makes one wonder about the whole “traveling” thing. Anyway, you often see Brunswick’s in art, but the V&A has a rare extant version which would have had removable sleeves. I based my Brunswick’s on two portraits- Lady Mary Fox and Alexander Roslin’s Portrait of the Girl Holding a Spaniel.

If the bodice and skirt were attached to each other in the 18th century, the skirt would be open in the front to reveal the petticoat underneath. This style of gown was called a robe à l’anglaise, closed bodied gown or an English gown if the pleats in the back of the bodice were stitched down. However, if the pleats were allowed to fall open and loose than the gown became sack-back gown or robe à la française. In modern times, this gown has been called a Watteau back or Watteau gown, after a painter who painted a lot of this style. The dress to the far right of today’s paper doll set is a sack-back gown, but I think the style is easier to see through extant examples like this robe à l’anglaise and robe à la française, both from the Met’s collection.

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Along with the gowns, today’s set includes a pair of slippers with overshoes based on this set from the Powerhouse Museum Collection. Over shoes were worn to protect the shoe from mud and muck, though I wonder how much protection a brocade and leather pair could have granted. I’ve also included several different styles of hats. My goal with the hats in this paper doll series is less to match specific dresses, but rather to provide enough variety for there to be plenty of choices. Women did not always wear their hair covered, but usually did.

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My color choices for these gowns were taken from my 18th century color pallet which I showed off in last week’s paper doll post. I chose pale blue for the round gown, since the source gown is blue striped, bright yellow for the brunswick, and a rich teal-blue color for my first robe à la française. That is certainly the most formal of the gowns from today’s set. The shoes were done in a neutral light brown color to go with any of the dresses.

In case you missed part one of this series, here is the entire collection so far. Next week, we will have our second paper doll- Joy.