According to one of the fashion magazines I bought in September, Southwestern is the new Boho.
Personally, I sill like Boho better and a lot of Southerwestern inspired fashion gets dangerously close to worrying cultural appropriation of the area’s Native peoples and that kinda bothers to me.
Never the less, I wanted to get to play around with some of the geometric patterns that are common in the style while steering clear of directly borrowing anything, because there’s a lot of Pendelton blanket patterning in this trend and that gets complicated.
Pendelton woolen mills, their blankets, and their relationship to Native peoples is written about eloquently by Beyond Buckskin, Slate (posted on Beyond Buckskin, I couldn’t find the article on Slate) and Native Appropriations. I am not even going to get into that conversation, but I think consideration should be made when dealing with anything “tribal” and fashion related.
Anyway, these were all things on my mind as I stepped lightly into the Southwest Boho trend of fall 2014.
Mia’s modeling these costumes, because I drew three sets of contemporary fashion at once. There’s going to eventually be a brights set for Margot, a girly set for Monica and then this set which got assigned to Mia. Had someone asked me which of these I was going to finish first, this would not have been the winner, and yet here we are.
Sometimes my paper dolling works in mysterious ways.
First things first: L’Shanah Tovah everyone. It’s going to be a great 5775, I’m sure. I made challah from scratch last night and I can’t wait to share it with my co-workers today. Rosh Hashanah competes with Purim as my favorite Jewish holiday.
Anyway…One of the big struggles I have is finding blogs that I really want to read and I want to come back to. Sure, I can find blogs at a moment, but rarely do I return over and over again. It’s too easy to get bored by either the content or the lack of good images. I have yet to find a really good compelling library blog, though I keep looking for one.
Clearly, I love paper dolls. (And you’re all thinking… Duh!) However, some of my favorite blogs are not actually paper doll blogs. Rather, I like these blogs because they are well written, have great photos and update fairly regularly.
My sister introduced me to this blog (Thanks, sis) and I love the recipes. Last night, I made this challah for Rosh Hashanah and my whole apartment smelled like fresh bread. Wonderful. Also, I desperately want to try out this pretzel recipe. Plus, even when I don’t want to make the recipe, I find the writing is completely charming.
I’ve been reading While She Naps for a lot longer than I have even owned a sewing machine. All the posts are well written and I particularly love how transparent Abby is about her business and her patterns are totally cute. I can’t wait to make one of these guys for a coworkers grandchild.
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned AICL before, but if I haven’t, I totally should. It’s a great blog about issues of depictions of Native American’s in children’s books from pictures books all the way up to chapter books. I don’t always agree with Debbie’s assessments, but I really value her thoughts on the subject. Though, if you have a favorite book with Native characters, than you can expect that it might get slammed here. (I will NEVER look at the Education of Little Tree the same way again.) 4. Wren*Feathers
I love dolls of all kinds and I really like the idea of sewing, even if I don’t always get to sewing. This fantastic blog offers dozens of free patterns for dolls of all different shapes and sizes. The photos are beautiful and the patterns are wonderful. I’ve made several of them myself and I can’t wait to make more.
Another doll blog (not shocking) comes from Emily at Toy Box Philosopher. I have never read such detailed and thoughtful reviews of toys in my life. Her critical assessments of new products, wonderful photography and open writing style means that I enjoy reading about things I could and would never buy (like this weird surprise birth cat toy that freaks me out a little).
So, those are a few of my regular blog reads. What do you guys read? Any suggestions for great blogs that I might have missed? What attracts you to a blog?
Last week, the circus came to town in black and white for coloring, but here the paper doll set is in full color. I am really very pleased with how she came out. Sometimes, I know what I am doing with a paper doll set before I start coloring. Other times, I have no idea what I am going do with colors. In this paper doll’s case, I had a pretty clear idea of where I was going to go before I got there.
One thing I noticed as I was collecting images on my Dark Circus Pinterest board was that there was a bunch of red and black. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the red and black, but I knew there was going to be a lot of it.
Creating a red and black paper doll set was kind a boring, so I did not go with a strictly red and black color scheme (though there is a lot of black and white here).
With straight red, black and white, I got bored very quickly and worried about the scheme clashing with the paper dolls pink hair. Instead, I decided to try basically creating two sets in one. There is a black and red set and also a pink and black set. Both sets had a pair of shoes and there are some pieces which can be worn with either color scheme.
I think this effect of “two sets” in one works, because circuses are all about costumes and costumes tend to match more than normal clothing.
Today’s paper doll is named for a very close friend of mine in childhood named Akemi. Akemi was a very talented singer and dancer. Also, her family kept ducks.
The ducks got carried off by bald eagles on a rather regular basis.
And Akemi had all of the She-ra action figures including the horse and the cloud palace. I can not express how jealous I was of this She-ra collection. Hours were spent in her backyard feeding ducks, chasing off eagles who wanted to eat the ducks, and having epic She-ra battles.
So, when I was looking for a good name for my fantasy warrior paper doll, I immediately thought of Akemi and She-ra.
I’ve no idea what happened to Akemi. (Also, I’m not positive she didn’t spell her name Akimi, but I think it was Akemi. Now, this is going to bug me… Short of getting my mother to pull my old middle school year book from storage, there is no way to easily answer that question.)
Moving away from my childhood for a moment, today’s paper doll is a fantasy warrior with five mix and match clothing pieces, two pairs of shoes and some serious weapons. I’ve done a lot of swords, axes and spears, so I wanted to some crazy scythe like thing. I don’t think it would be a very practical weapon in the real world, but it does look cool.
And fantasy warriors should get cool looking weapons.
All in all, I am pleased with the color scheme I ended up with.I knew I wanted to use red and gold, cliche though they are, for her armor. I added black and cream for contrast after trying out brown and disliking how it looked with the red. Her hair changed color several times over the course of deciding on the black and blond dip dye look (for a while it was red and blond, also blue briefly).
That is all I have to say about that. Enjoy the paper doll.
Marisole’s gone to the circus this monday, complete with makeup.
I have mixed feelings about circuses truth be told. Sometimes I like them and sometimes I find them deeply creepy. I’m not afraid of clowns or anything, but there is something slightly off dark and strange that runs through the whole idea of circuses and carnivals.
So, I’ve been drawing paper dolls for a long time and I always expect to run out of the ideas, but then I run into new things on a fairly regular basis that I want to do or try out. I don’t know that I’ve ever really done anything like this set. I started collecting circus images that I liked on Dark Circus Pinterest board and then eventually those images evolved into this set of doodles which evolved into this paper doll set.
I was going for fashion as much as reality with these outfits. I can’t imagine a clown wearing such insane high heels, for example. My Dark Circus board where I was collecting images evolved into being as much about fashion as it was about circuses.
I’m nervous about coloring this set. I was going to go strictly black and red, but then I really want her to have pink hair.
Problem, will the pink hair clash with the red and black? I just don’t know. Guess the only way to find out is to start coloring.
So, today the Poppets paper doll series is traveling to the 18th century and rocking some beautiful clothes. One of the great myths of historical costume is that children in the 18th century were dressed “just like adults” and while there is some truth to the fact that children wore very similar clothing to adults, it was rarely identical. Skirt length is a common way to tell that a dress was intended for a child, rather than an adult, along with simpler lines and decorations.
I must have colored and re-colored today’s Marisole Monday & Friends paper doll set, a dozen times before I settled on this sort of dusty teal, cream and rose color scheme. Seriously, sometimes paper doll coloring is really quite frustrating.
I do love the way the paper dolls look when they are colored and I like choosing colors and playing with color schemes. I don’t think I could ever switch to just black and white.
I really wanted to do a sort of classic princess/fantasy look with this set. I don’t generally draw thinking about children, but sometimes after I’ve done some of my stranger paper dolls (like the dark circus paper doll I’m working on), I find I want to also do things that are strictly for kids.
Of course, I also stand by my rule that if you don’t think one of my paper dolls should be given to a child, than don’t give it to a child.
The next things down the pike are going to be a historical poppet set later this week and then a Marisole circus set and then I’m honestly not sure… Flock need some love and so that might be the next thing to work.
Over the years, I have done a fair number of steampunk or neo-victorian inspired sets of paper doll clothing. I’d name them all, but I really don’t feel like digging through the blog’s massive archives to track them all down.
Generally, I see the whole steampunk thing as an version of the Arts and Crafts movement of the 19th century. A sort of call back to a fantasy of an analog time while ignoring major issues of the actual 19th century like lack of labor protection, colonization, and treatment of the mentally ill (to name a few), just as the Arts and Craft movement exalted the medieval and gothic periods while ignoring the plague. Within reason, I don’t find this troubling though sometimes I do worry that when we exalt certain periods of history, than it is far to easy to ignore their horrors.
And every period of history, including our own, has a few horrors.
Still, I have always found alternative fashion movement fascinating, be it goth, punk, steampunk or the dress reform movement and therefore have every intention of continuing to draw neo-victorian clothing for the blog.
Somehow today’s set got awfully Christmas looking with the red and the green color scheme. I was thinking more burgundy and olive while I started, but it came out a bit brighter than I’d intended it to be. Despite the small number of pieces in this set, there’s actually 18 outfit options and more if you include the shoes each of the Ms. mannequin paper dolls come with.
Okay, quick question to my readers. I’m debating working on Flock stuff this coming weekend or working on Pixies. Anyone want to express a preference?
So, I actually filled out up my latest little steno book. I’ve drawn almost everything in it that I had planned, so it will soon get tossed into the recycle. I’ve never been very much of a packrat. I think it’s a side effect of working with manuscripts and archives. After going through other people’s old papers, I really want to keep as few of my own as possible.
This is one of two Marisole Elven set designs. I think this set is going to go to Monica of the Marisole Monday family. I’ve sketched and scanned the set, but I think it’ll be a while before I get it cleaned up and colored. I was very productive scanning last night while watching season 3 of Grimm.
Another “elven” set- I am thinking Margot or an Other Friend will model this one. It’s been scanned as well, but it will be a while before it is ready to be colored. I have other things ahead of it in the queue.
Poppets are getting some love here. I’ve just finished up a historical set for the Poppets which will be up next week. I have a bunch of contemporary stuff those paper dolls in progress, so I feel like some fantasy things will be next in line.
So, these are things that maybe coming down the pike soon enough. Plus I’m trying to do some fun Halloween planning. Usually, I don’t think far enough ahead to really get into the holiday, but this time I really want to.
First things first- Happy Labor Day to those in the United States who, like me, get it off from work.
Yay for holidays!!
Marisole is getting all fantasy today in some elegant dresses. I had originally planned on doing some patterns on her dresses, but in the end I just decided to leave them plain. After working on my new Lady of the Manor set, I’ve had these pseudo-renaissance styles of dresses on my mind as of late. Though, I confess, there is not much very renaissance about the dresses, unless you look really hard.
Still, I suppose a somewhat classic set of fantasy dresses and some shoes are nothing to be ashamed of.
I do really like all her accessories. Over the years, I’ve drawn a lot of books for paper dolls (and I don’t plan on stopping… I love books and I wish they still had clasps on them…), but I did want to give her some unique accessories. I am particularly pleased with how the fan came out.
I guess in the end I’d say that she’s not the best Marisole fantasy paper doll I have ever drawn, but she is pretty good and I am still trying to get back into my patterns after taking a bit of break to deal with less fun, back-end blog issues.
Speaking of backend blog issues, I am going to be changing up the way things look around here soon, so just be aware. 🙂
The best thing about the photocopier at my job is that it can scan and email me things. I don’t use it for paper doll scanning (the resolution isn’t high enough), but it makes these sketchbook and doodle posts really easy.
Some contemporary clothes for a Mini-Maiden. Don’t ask me which Mini-Maiden. I haven’t a clue, yet. I really am pleased with the set through. I really like the curly hair, especially.
Here’s the doodles I did for a dark circus inspired Marisole Monday & Friends paper doll set. As it turned out, I didn’t use all of these designs, as you can see below.
A page of the dark circus Marisole Monday & Friends set that I inked last weekend. I really love her shoes and her wig. We’ll see how all the whole thing comes together. I am thinking a black, white and red color scheme with some gold to accent it. I also might do some clown makeup on the paper doll’s face for this set.
This is the second Isadora paper doll and a member of the Mini-Maiden paper doll family. I haven’t done a fantasy Mini-Maiden before, so I thought I should and I have been in a psuedo-medieval mood as of late. Perhaps simply because I am wishing I was living somewhere cooler than Alabama which is having a humid hot August.
I can not wait for fall. Fall is full of wonderful things and I can start wearing tights and boots again.
I love both tights and boots.
Plus September brings the big fall fashion magazines and that will mean a spasm of paper doll drawing and a spate of contemporary styled paper dolls, as it always does.
Until then, of course, we have Isadora as a fantasy Mini-Maiden. I am hesitant to call her a princess, as she doesn’t have a crown, but she can still live in a castle, I think. Personally, I think it would have been dreadfully drafty and cold in castles, but I suppose at least it was better than living in a hovel.
Anyway, now Isadora can either be living in a castle or fighting radioactive zombies in the wastes of a destroyed civilization. Basically, she’s ready for whatever life might throw at her, though I think she also might want to raid another Mini-Maiden’s closet for some more… shall we say… normal clothing. I think she’d look awfully cute in Faye’s girly get up or Hazel’s vintage vibe or Greta’s I-couldn’t-come-up-with-anything-alliterative outfits.
There will be one more update this week (nothing major, just some sketchbook stuff) and then hopefully a new Marisole on Monday as I get myself back into the rhythm of things. For updates, you’re welcome to follow me on twitter @paperpersona, though you will also have to put up with other inane, unpaper-doll-related rambling about my life.
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