Zetti Turn of the Century Bathers Paper Dolls

For the Roses On My Table Paper Doll art group’s July challenge, the theme was Zetti, which was right up my alley. But wait—the twist was that it had to be a couple in turn-of-the-20^th century bathing costumes. That threw me a bit of a curve ball. So, I researched turn of the century fashions and old postcards from the seashore to get an idea of the clothing style, and then started rummaging through scrap boxes madly for the right elements.

Usually I gravitate to female dolls, but this time I started with the man. I used a face from a Graphics Fairy http://thegraphicsfairy.com/   image called PartyPeople, altered the top of his head in Photoshop, and added color. A moustache seemed very 1900s, and I couldn’t resist some faux tattoos (from one of my fabric designs) on his skin. The female doll also uses a Graphics Fairy face, this one called the ArtNouveauLady; I added color with watercolor pencils and markers. The end result for the male bather is rather Freddie Mercury meets James from the 1970s version of Upstairs Downstairs.

Both dolls use paper printed with my original textile designs, “skin” made of teabags stamped with assorted commercial and hand-carved stamps using white printmaking paint, wild-west style words stamped on with Distress Ink, and some harlequin b/w patterns from Adobe Illustrator. The butterfly accents are also from Graphics Fairy images.