Adorable Folding ATC Dolls

This summer, I joined Stencil Girl's monthly Stencil Club, and have been receiving a monthly shipment of three exclusive designs (small, medium and large) from some of their top designers. They have a Facebook page for club members where we can post our ideas and share photos and tips.

Each month they have a "party call" for members. The September Party Call was to create and exchange ATCs to celebrate the release of StencilGirl's new line designed just for 2.5" x 3.5" ATCs. We could use any StencilGirl designs for our ATCs. That theme was right up my alley, so, I got to work making my favorite kind of ATC--folding ATC paper dolls.

The bodies were made from some stenciled watercolor paper scraps that were leftover from a mermaid paper doll project I did earlier in the summer.

Scraps leftover from the mermaid tails were used for the folding ATC dolls.

I cut the scraps to 2.5" x 3.5"  and added some extra stenciling with a VersaMark stamp pad and Emerald Creek embossing powder.

Next, I used a paper doll template from Retro Cafe Arts and cut scraps of stenciled paper to create the arms and legs.

The outlines and features for the faces are also from a Stencil Club stencil. I added color and detail with water-soluble colored pencil, Derwent Blocks, and Tombow brush tipped markers.

Hair, necks and face color were added to the stenciled face outlines, which were then trimmed to become the doll faces.

Finally, I assembled the dolls by poking a hole through the ATC base and the limbs, then attaching them with a mini brad. The brads allow them to swivel and fold up to fit the required ATC size of 2.5" x 3.5". When the pieces are rotated into position, the ATC dolls are about 4" x 9".

Here's some worktable progress shots of the dolls:

Heads were stenciled and details added with watercolor pencils. The butterfly (for wings) was created by stamping VersaMark through a Gwen Lafluer butterfly stencil onto black paper, then sprinkling on gold embossing powder and heating to melt the powder.

A gold paper Dresden crown was aged with paint and Radiant Rust embossing powder for this doll.

Doll parts were placed in position before attaching with mini brads.

 Here's the final dolls, open and closed:

Interested in learning how to make your own ATC dolls? Later this year I will be teaching a Folding ATC Doll class at The Ink Pad NYC! I'm super excited to share this fun project. Look for announcements from me and The Ink Pad NYC about the date and time.

Back to My Roots

When people don't know what to draw or paint, I usually ask, "What did you love when you were about 10 years old?" Then I tell them to start with that. Going back to what you loved as a child--be it coloring books, finger paint, Play-Doh, mud pies, dandelion bracelets or any other child-like artistic expression--is good for the soul.

Folding ATC doll for PaperTraders "Winner Take All" June 2017 art lottery

I have been through a difficult time in my business life lately, and it put a big strain on my emotional state. So, I took my own advice and backpedaled to my childhood for some art fun. My favorite childhood thing to play with? Paper dolls. For the folding ATC doll above, I used royalty-free reprints of vintage paper doll parts from The Graphics Fairy. The 2.5" x 3.5" base (ATC, or Artist Trading Card) is made of a piece of vintage magazine text that was painted and stamped. The limbs are put together with mini brads, which allows the pieces to be posed and even interchanged with other dolls.

The face is an original that I made using the method from Jane Davenport's Beautiful Faces DVD. I scanned it, reduced it, printed it on card stock, and cut it out. Here's my step-by-step blogpost on how I created the face.

For a folding ATC doll, the rule is that all the extra pieces must tuck behind the base card. Here's what the doll looks like folded up:

ATC doll folded up to 2.5" x 3.5"

Continuing my "back to my roots" art theme, I used an old McCalls pattern piece as a base for a journal collage. As a young girl, teen, and into my 30s, I made many of my own clothes. I still have my favorite patterns from the early 1970s!  After applying (with matte medium) an old pattern as a base on my journal pages, I added some pretty ribbon, printed teabags, a handmade soy batik fabric strip and a mini piece of fiber-art for this two page spread in my art journal.

Art journal left and right spread with old sewing pattern as a base.

The third part of my latest "back to my roots" artistic journey was rediscovering my inner textile designer. In my early 20s, I studied textile/surface design at FIT and worked as a print stylist in New York's Garment Center for nearly 10 years. I "retired" for motherhood, then went into graphic design and writing as a career.

About five or six years ago, I took part in a SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) project called "Visioning" and designed and printed my own line of fabric. Many of them are available on Spoonflower.com.

While recently cleaning my bins and boxes of papers and art supplies, I stumbled on some prints of vintage French textiles that I had ripped from an interior design magazine. I was startled at how similar they were to some of the fabrics from my own line. It really had me wondering about reincarnation. The designs are dated 1941, and I wasn't born yet, so who knows?

I used the magazine print on the right side of my journal, and added strips of my fabrics as borders at the sides and top. On the left side, I created a fabric collage of scraps of my own fabrics that struck me as similar.

On my worktable: vintage textile designs on right, collage of my designs on the left.

Reproduction of textile designs dated 1941

My original fabrics, printed on cotton, bear a striking similarity to the vintage 1941 designs.

Just Mixed Media...and Me

Two page spread of my handmade journals in the premier issue of Just Mixed Media

A few months ago I submitted some photos to the editor at Scott Publications, with the hope that they might be included in a new magazine they were putting together. I sort of forgot about it, until I saw a Facebook post from Sheri Welser about her artwork being included in the magazine. I was at work and couldn't rush to my mailbox to see if by some miracle any of my artwork was included in Just Mixed Media.

 I saw, on the right side of the page Sheri photographed, a little edge of the next page that had a partial sentence: "Linda Ed..." and "Faux Ra.." and realized that my Faux Raku container was on the page beside Sheri's work. Some crazy happy dancing occurred in the aisle of my office.

When I got home and found the new issue in my mailbox, I flipped through it and found that they had not only included my Faux Raku piece, but a full page of my folding ATC paper doll. I flipped through and found a double spread of my handmade journals and journal pages. Wow! Even more happy dancing, but this time the whole family danced. My husband wanted to buy 100 copies and send them to everyone he knew. (I nixed that number, but did order a few extras for my archives of course.)

A few years ago I was creating fiber art almost exclusively. I still love it, but stitching and cutting through layers of fabric, batting, and backing is a "no-no" with my neck and shoulder injuries, so I switched to mixed media, working mostly with paper and paint. In some ways it was easier--painting on paper is much easier, and less complicated--than trying to get original designs onto fabric. And paper is soooo much easier to cut. And it is much faster to create artwork with paper--no pins, no basting, no stitching required.

The learning curve was a little steep. There were so many new techniques and new products to explore. All kinds of new (new to me) blogs and websites and articles to read.

It had been a few years since any of my work was published, and I was getting a little discouraged, so being part of Just Mixed Media was a good boost to my mental health.

Hopefully I am on a roll. Not that I create art with the intent to be published--I don't. I create because there is an energy in me that wants to be let out, a need to make art and express myself. I don't aim to see artwork; it is almost always too personal to part with. I like to write about it and share photos on my blog or other electronic outlets. But is sure is nice to see my work in print.

Ricola Wrapper Nesting Doll ATCs

 

The wrappers on Ricola candies are almost too pretty to throw away. The little delicate flowers on the original flavor remind me of edelweiss and the Sound of Music. The cherries on the cherry flavored Ricola are even more striking. So, I started saving them and incorporating them into my ATCs.

When Paper Traders yahoo group announced a nesting doll swap, it seemed a perfect fit for me. I love dolls, especially traditional Russian nesting dolls. I set about cutting and pasting to create a unique and original design.

I combined an original design of my own, a tile design (you can see the fabric I made from my tile design here) with some gingham paper and a zetti-ish diamond pattern.

The cherry Ricola wrapper had a nice color and feel to it, so I made sure to use it in the biggest doll and also in the background, near the hidden quote.

Here are links to some of my other ATCs than incorporate the Ricola wrappers:
Splatter House ATCs
and
Fly Free ATC

Hipster ATC Doll

Discovering that you could make paper dolls using an ATC as a base opened up a new range of possibilities for me.

I have hundreds of leftover ATCs, in various stages of development. When I make a batch, I trade a few, keep a few special ones in my ATC binder with clear pockets, and stash the rest in an ATC limbo box, which has pieces that are too nice to throw away, but I somehow never used.

A year or two ago I did a trade with butterflies, and used lyrics from Janis Ian's song, At Seventeen. This card has one of the lines: "one of these days I'm gonna lift my glistening wings and fly." I printed the words out in white on a green background, then used a butterfly stamp with white printmaking paint on top.

The butterfly wings started with a stamp I purchased at The Ink Pad. I added color with Tombow brush tip markers. The face is a Dina Wakely stamp, also from The Ink Pad. I added color with Derwent blocks. The arms and legs are from my "doll part" stash box that I have collected over the years. The "tattoos" are part of a Balzer Deco Doily Stencil that I got from artistcellar.com. I used a brown chalk ink through the stencil.

At first, the doll had a different face, but it didn't work, so I auditioned a few from the stash box. This one looked like a man, but a cool guy, so I thought, "why not?" A really cool hipster would not be afraid to wear butterfly wings, right? Or carry a rose in his hand?

More Quirky ATC Dolls

In the quest to use up more of my scraps before buying any more art supplies (who am I kidding? I went to the Ink Pad last weekend and got some new supplies...but only things that I use all the time and had run out of...and maybe a new product or two...) I have been making art from my boxes of paper scraps. I have a giant box under my worktable and a couple more in my art supply cubbies, so the scraps of scraps are either being used up or thrown away.

I used to be addicted to making arty paper dolls. I used a lot of vintage paper doll parts, combined with a basic template. Now that I have discovered a new twist--the ATC paper doll, I am having more fun than ever.

This quirky paper doll uses a leftover ATC made with with Artistcellar stencils that was a little bit imperfect, newsprint arms, legs from a free vintage Graphics Fairy paper doll, Graphics Fairy wings and hat, and an original face. The face was doodled during a phone conversation a few years ago...she is kind of my alter ego, who I call "Esme". She is the opposite of the inner-critic...more of an inner cheerleader, and her face shows up in various pieces of artwork.

The second doll has a face that started with a Dina Wakely stamp, purchased at the Ink Pad. I added Derwent watercolor blocks for color. the arms and legs are vintage advertising and newsprint, and the boots are a free downloadable image from Dover Books. The ATC body is a semi-reject ATC from a music themed trade, which used lyrics from one of my old favorite songs, Woodstock, made famous by Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and written by Joni Mitchell.

The really cool thing is that the ATC dolls fold up into a little 2.5" x 3.5" package, which makes them easy to store and mail to friends of all ages.

ATC Dolls



When the Paper Traders Yahoo group posted a notice about trading ATC dolls, I was intrigued. For years I have been making and trading arty paper dolls, but making them with a rectangular ATC body instead of a human shaped or clothing shaped body was a new twist.

It seemed like a good way to use up leftover ATCs also...for almost every ATC project, I have extras--the ones that I love too much to give away, the ones that were imperfect and not good enough to trade, the false starts where a good idea didn't really quite work out, and the over-runs of extra 2.5x3.5 rectangles that just didn't get used up. The center one is has stencils from Artistcellar.com, and was a leftover piece from a recent Artistcellar ATC trade.

I added faces that began with Dina Wakely stamps, washi tape, Graphics Fairy shoes, hats and butterfly wings, and whatever else I found rummaging around in my paper scrap boxes. The pieces are attached with mini brads.

The charming part about these dolls is that they each fold up to exactly 2.5" x 3.5", perfect for fitting into an ATC plastic sleeve or tucking in one of those baseball trading card book sleeves.

These ATC dolls might just be my new favorite thing to trade!