Frida Kahlo Santos Style Day of the Dead Paper Dolls

With Halloween and Day of the Dead around the corner, what could be more fun than a Frida Kahlo paper doll, especially with a Santos doll base?

For this fun project, I collected a bunch of vintage Halloween images and searched online for Day of the Dead images. I used a paper doll template (If you do an online search of paper dolls, there are hundreds of resouces.) I adapted a free vintage paper doll bodice, making it thicker in the waist, and using matte medium, covered it with Halloween paper. I cut the arms in half so they could be posed, and made one arm flowered to simulate tattoos.The pieces are joined with mini brads.

For the Santos skirt/bottom, I designed my own using a vintage dress form photo as my inspiration. I drew it on some printed teabags that had been stamped a little, and adhered with matte medium to heavy watercolor paper, then carefully cut it out with an exacto knife.

After some puttering with the elements I wanted to use, and rummaging through my many boxes of papers and pieces, I had the skirt/base, bodice and head ready to assemble.

Here is the almost finished Frida. She looked a little unadorned, especially on the bottom, so I added a bunch of crazy elements: a couple of sugar skulls, a vintage cat, butterflies from washi tape, a chrysanthemum, a matching witch hat and wings. I added dabs of dimensional gold paint to give it some extra pizzaz.

Santos Frida needed words, so on the base, I added some inspirational words that were printed on silk, and trimmed the to fit. Using a black ink pad, I stamped some more inspirational words on the wings.

If you want to get in touch with your inner-child, or want to have some art fun with your very own child or grandchild,  please take a look at the paper dolls on my blog. I have many, many that will surely amuse, and maybe inspire you to play with dolls again.

Santos Cage Paper Dolls

I had never heard of Santos Cage Dolls, so I had to do some research when JoAnn Robinson, who leads the Roses On My Table paper doll art group, posted the theme. Well, I was hooked. I liked the combination of religion and folk art, and the idea of having an openwork base--which serves like an altar--instead of legs was fascinating.

My obstacle was how to get that cool three-dimensional cage in a flat paper doll. After puttering around, I settled on using an antique dress form bottom as the inspiration, and created my own template.

I also wanted to get texture--I love the embossed look that some of my arty friends get with machines like a CuttleBug, but I don't have one. So, here's what I did: I applied modeling paste through a stencil onto heavy watercolor paper, then painted it (when dry) with Lumiere acrylic paint. I was happy with the effect, which I used for a couple of the cage bases.

I also love aged-looking images, so I painted the New York Times with a combination of Derwent watercolor blocks and Lumiere to get a rusted effect, which I used in another cage base.

I went a little crazy with this style, and made a bunch of dolls--some vintage looking and some more modern. I had a hard time deciding which ones to keep and which ones to trade with my art group.