Sari Scrap Flower Child Fairy

Every artist has their default zone, the supplies and techniques they turn to when they don't know what to work on or where to start. Sometimes artists have the need to putter with supplies as therapy and make art that feels comfortable and familiar and makes them happy. Sometimes we want to stretch, to try something new, different or even scary. But sometimes we just want to putter and be in the happy, familiar place. And both the new places and the familiar ones are good and necessary.

For some people the default zone is journaling, for others it is splattering paint, or drawing, or collage. For me, the happy, puttery place is making paper dolls.

My worktable, covered with paints, ink, scissors and bags of doll parts.

Sometimes my puttering is not even doll making, it just finding scraps of leftover projects and cutting arms, legs and torsos. Sometimes it is cutting interesting faces or clothing from a fashion magazine that may later become doll parts. I often use a doll body template that is available from Retro Cafe Arts, an online craft supplier. I also collect images of vintage paper dolls from sources such as The Graphics Fairy.

I keep a bin of doll components, and within that bin, baggies of faces, wings, shoes, hats, tops, bottoms, legs, arms and unfinished dolls. When I feel the need to regroup and relax, it is very meditative to pull out the parts and give birth to a new doll.

On top, a baggie full of some favorite paper doll components, and below, the start of a doll.

As I rifle through the baggies of parts, I select the ones that--in that moment--really strike me. Next, I move them around and audition the parts until the doll begins to speak to me. 

The head, from a fashion magazine, was too small, the skirt too short, and shoes too big.

This head was a vintage photo reprint with strips of Jane Davenport washi tape.

This face looked good, but was unfinished.

I liked the arrangement above the best, but the face was incomplete. Her eyes, nose and mouth are strips of Jane Davenport's washi tape that were placed on watercolor paper. I sketched in the rest of her head and hair with a pencil, added a neck and shoulders, then used Derwent watercolor pencils to complete the face.

I thought about leaving the green background, but decided a square head would look weird, so I cut away the greenish background, leaving only the hair and shoulders.

Strips of Jane Davenport washi tape formed the center of the face.

I cut a half-circular slit in the neck so the torso could be inserted, then secured it with a mini brad.

A piece of orange silk sari scrap fabric made a wonderful skirt. I gathered it at the waist, pulled the strings until it was the right size, and tied it in the back. A little dab of gel medium was added to keep it in place.

Once the skirt was stitched on, I discovered a couple of tiny holes in the orange silk, so I added a magenta sequin and clear gem, hand-stitching them carefully to cover the holes.

A hole in the silk skirt was challenging to fix.

A sequin and a bead covered up the holes and matched the mood of the fabric.

Arms, legs and wings were auditioned, chosen, and attached with mini brads and the doll was nearly complete. The torso and legs I selected are made from florentine paper, available on Gwen's website. I used some cardstock underneath the paper for added strength. The arms have a combination of commercial scrapbook paper and fabric covered with recycled teabags.

The finishing touch was special accent chain that was part of a shipment of Turkmen Jewelry Parts. It made a perfect belt, and was hand-stitched in place.

Detail shot of the fairy doll on my worktable.

The wings were made from a butterfly stamp on watercolor paper, and little peach floral brads attaching the wings to the arm add charm and whimsy. Layers of Baked Texture Embossing Powder were added on top of the stamped butterfly image. Dots of gold fabric paint were placed on the wing edge for contrast.

With her pink hair, wings, and fluttering sari skirt, she is a magical fairy, evoking spirit of a1960s flower child--perhaps my own inner child!

If you want to purchase any of Gwen's fabulous supplies, now's the time! There is a sale going on; just use this coupon when you check out.

Washi Weirdness

Jane Davenport has a huge and devoted following of mixed media artists. Her books and videos are wonderful, and her work whimsical, sensitive and beautifully done. So, when her exclusive line of art supplies hit the shelves at Michael's, most of them flew off the shelves. One of the items that I have been coveting--for almost a year--is her washi tape printed with assorted eyes, noses and mouths.

I love faces and paper dolls and that particular item really called my name. Finally, today, I found it. The minute I got home I started playing with the tape. I probably could have spent all day puttering with the tape and mixing and matching it with my various art and paper supplies.

First, I matched up three sets of facial features on a journal page. I thought it would be just a test page, so I used a page that had a splash of paint from cleaning my brush, and some random thoughts I had about the incredible light on a trip to Acapulco years ago and similar light on summer morning in my childhood bedroom, which had nothing at all to do with the washi tape girls, and mostly got covered up with paint anyway.

Next, I extended the heads, added lines for hairs, and added in the shoulders.

I added watersoluble oil pastels and acrylic paint. Then I had the idea of adding clothing from my stash of paper doll parts.

I added the paper doll parts. I decided to let them fall off the page a bit, and added brads so the legs and wings would swivel in when I close the sketchbook. I intentionally used items that were a little out of proportion to add to the whimsical feeling. Of course, the girls needed wings, so I added butterflies from Gwen Lafleur's downloadable pdf called Beautiful Butterflies as a finishing touch.

Earth Angel Warrior: A Modern Paper Doll

The things that made us happy in our childhood, when rediscovered as an adult, can be very healing and therapeutic. For me, one of the most joyful childhood pursuits was paper dolls. The fun was two-fold: they were imaginary friends that I could play with and create stories about, and they usually had a wonderful wardrobe—the kind I dreamed about owning or designing.

As an adult, I have rediscovered the simple joy of making paper dolls. Now my paper dolls are art dolls, with crazy hats, crowns, shoes, mismatched clothing, odd heads, and often wearing wings to help them soar. I search the Internet for paper doll templates and royalty-free vintage paper doll images, combining them with my own faces, fashions and magazine advertising images. I relax and become a child again when I putter with my boxes of doll arms, legs, bodies, clothing and heads.

For my latest doll, which I call the Earth Angel Warrior, I started with pre-cut doll pattern from Retro Café Arts. Some time ago I purchased (and used) their chipboard doll, but I saved the leftover cutout/negative space to possibly use as a template. I flipped over a piece of Gwen Lafleur’s gorgeous Florentine paper (which I had already glued to cardstock to give it extra strength for doll-making), then traced the arm, leg and body sections, then carefully cut out the parts.

Doll template, Florentine paper, and other supplies.

Body parts were traced on the back of the cardstock/Florentine paper.

Front of legs on left, back of legs on right.

The basic paper doll parts, made with Florentine paper.

Next, I searched through my boxes of scrap paper and doll parts and “auditioned” different elements. I also looked at Gwen’s downloadable “wondrous wings" PDF to see what caught my eye. I knew my doll would need wings, and I tried several of them, settling on some eagle wings. I sifted through my box of doll faces and found a model’s head from a magazine advertising photo which spoke to me. I also found a little piece of an orange mailing envelope and decided to use it for the torso.

I sorted through my collection of doll heads, hand painted faces and magazine photos.

The face and wings were gray-scale, and I felt they needed a bit of color, so I enhanced them with TomBow brush tipped markers and chalks. I added royalty-free vintage boots from The Graphics Fairy, and an upside-down butterfly from Gwen’s PDF for a hat, an idea inspired by artist Mary Jane Chadbourne.

The doll parts placed together, but not yet attached.

The grayscale wings and face, as well as the monochromatic butterfly,
got a color boost with TomBow markers and pastel chalk.

My inner fashion designer decided she needed a skirt. I printed one of the “fabulous florals” PDFs on cotton fabric, then cut a strip, stitched across the top, and pulled the strings to gather it to suggest a skirt.

To print on fabric from an inkjet printer, here’s what you do:

• 1-Cut a section of cotton fabric about 9” x 12” and iron so it is wrinkle-free
• 2- cut a piece of freezer paper about the same size
• 3-place the shiny side of the freezer wrap against the wrong side of the fabric and iron until they fuse and are flat and wrinkle-free (do not use steam)

Freezer paper was ironed on to white cotton fabric in preparation for printing.

After the fabric and freezer paper were fused with an iron, it was cut to 8.5" x 11"

• 4-using a cutting mat, metal ruler and sharp exacto knife or rotary fabric cutter, trim to exactly 8.5” x 11” so it is the size of a piece of paper.
• 5-snip off a tiny bit at top left and right corners. This will help the fabric pull through the printer without jamming.

Snipping a tiny bit from the top corners helps the fabric feed through an inkjet printer without jamming.

• 6-test your printer to see whether to place fabric face down or face up in the printer
• 7-select the design you want, press print, and it should emerge from your printer
• 8-peel the freezer paper away, and you will have the printed cloth. If desired, iron the fabric to help set the design and prevent running or fading.

Gently peel the paper from the printed fabric after it comes through the printer.

Two of Gwen's downloadable pdfs were printed on fabric.

For the doll’s skirt, I chose a section about 4” x 8.5”. Rather than keeping the skirt flat, I decided to gather the top to add some dimension. I also added, using a glue stick, a little checkered ribbon at the bottom. Glue sticks are great when using fabric with paper because they don’t stiffen the fabric or cause discoloration. I also added a little rust-colored piece of Gwen’s sari silk ribbon as a belt, which also covered up the stitches at the skirt’s top.

The top few inches of the rose-printed fabric was cut for use as a doll skirt.

Close-up of the skirt fabric, with stitching at top (to be gathered) and gingham ribbon at bottom.

The skirt was gathered at the top and fit to the doll's waist, then glued in place.

The finishing touch was a belt of Gwen's orange sari silk ribbon.

Mini brads were used to connect the body parts and enable the doll to be posed.

The final step was putting all the pieces together. Unlike traditional paper dolls that don’t have moveable parts, and have ineffective little tabs to hold the clothing on, I like to use mini brads to assemble my dolls. With an awl, I hold the pieces in place, then gentle poke through both layers to form a hold. Brads come in many shapes and sizes (like and can be subtle, or used as another design element.

The finished Earth Angel Warrior paper doll, with flora & fauna elements.

When all the elements were put together and I saw the finished doll, I realized that she was made of flora and fauna elements—with the bird wings, butterfly hat and rose skirt. While her face wasn’t traditionally pretty, it looked fierce, confident and interesting, and she seemed like a warrior. So, I decided to call her my Earth Angel Warrior. As a finishing touch, and to echo the flora/fauna theme, I put a feather in her hat and another in her hand.

 We are doing a Gwen Lafluer Artisttribe BlogHop!

One lucky winner will receive $20 Gift Card to the Shop at Gwen Lafleur Studios! All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on any or all of the blog posts during the hop - the more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to win! (One comment per person per blog please.)
You have until Sunday, October 1st at 11:59 p.m. mountain time to leave your comments. The winner will be announced on the Gwen Lafleur Studios Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/GwenLafleurStudios) on Monday, October 2nd.

Please visit the blogs of the other Artisttribe bloghop participants:

• Jackie P. Neal
• Lynda Shoup
• Jill McDowell
• Sandee Setliff
• Gwen Lafleur

_____________________________________________________________________________ 

• To visit artist Mary Jane Chadbourne's website, click here
• For the Retro Cafe Art website, click here
• For the Graphics Fairy website of vintage downloadable images, click here

She Always Knew She Could Fly Doll and Scribe-Muse Journal Page

She Always Knew She Could Fly

This little paper doll's body was made with a Retro Café Art template and commercial scrapbook paper. I had already used the doll for my Empowerment Paper Doll a while back, but I cleverly saved the paper it was punched out from, and used it as a template, carefully tracing the shapes onto some pretty pink scrapbooking paper.

The skirt is a little piece of a paper towel that had been used to wipe up the overflow from some spray dyes. A section of paper towel, about five or six inches long by three inches tall, was gathered at the top, then tied to the back. It is secured with a paper flower cut with a punch and a floral mini-brad center. The wings were stamped on white paper. The shoes and crown are Graphics Fairy royalty free images, printed on cardstock, and the face is mine--from my kindergarten photo. The background is painted deli paper.

It reminded me of the innocence of childhood, before there was anyone telling you what you could and couldn't do, believing anything is possible, exploring the world. The crown represents the feeling of magic, of believing you have special talents, and the wings represent the freedom to fly and soar and be your best self.

I was the scribe, I was the muse journal page exploring past lives

In a similar vein, I have been thinking of past lives, what I would have been, and who I would have been there with. Of course there is no way to prove my theory, but I have always felt a connection to Illuminated Manuscripts and wondered if I were one of the monks or scribes that helped create some of the beautifully illustrated pages. This journal page is the beginning of my exploration of that thought. The doll parts, face and butterfly wings are from the Graphics Fairy. The crown/halo didn't work out the way I intended. It is a piece of a pink Gelli Print on deli paper, done with a lacy stencil. Journals are the place to allow yourself to be imperfect. The page is not exactly what I visualized, but I hope to do a series of paintings in this theme on my upcoming art "stay-cation."

"You Can't Always Be Pretty" Paper Doll

Paper doll with Dina Wakley stamp head

The head of this doll had been sitting around in my doll part box for months...maybe years. Of the set of four Dina Wakley heads that I purchased at the Ink Pad, it was the one that I used the least. There were two problems: the expression looked really sad, and when I stamped it onto yellow cardstock, the face image came out sketchy and uneven. Last night I challenged myself to use up some items that had been hanging around the doll box and make a new piece out of them.

The dress/body had been cut from a stamping experiment that was unsuccessful. It was blurry, and the splashed on paint didn't work with the purple ink and light green cardstock. I dressed it up a little with some punched out flowers, and attached them with mini brads. The legs are from a 1960s "go-go girl" paper doll, and I added a curlicue stamp to the bottom of the legs to give a look of boots. The arms are from a Victorian child paper doll, and are a little too short and fat to go with the long thin legs, but since people often have their limbs out of proportion, it seemed okay.

The "fix" for the face was easy, and I should have thought of it ages ago--I simply went over the sketchy parts and darkened it with a marker. The arms got a partial stencil to simulate a "sleeve" of tattoos. The doll seems to say, "I am not beautiful, I am unique and interesting." She looks like an urban hipster intellectual who shops in thrift stores and spends her money--instead of on clothes--on books...and probably art supplies. She is the anti-fashion doll, and is a reminder that it is okay to be serious and that you don't always have to be perky and smiling.


"The Bridge" ATC Dolls

This summer, there was a new TV series called “The Bridge” that premiered on FX in July. Somehow my local deli ended up—in August—having coffee sleeves advertising the show. I loved the graphics, and the faces reminded me of Starsky & Hutch, from the 1970s TV show. I collected a few of the sleeves and tucked them in my art bin.

This fall, we had an Artistcellar ATC trade through Facebook. I was a little ATC stenciling maniac one Saturday, and made about 40 different ATCs. I traded five and tucked the rest into my art bin for future use. I used many stencils, including the Harlequin, Sunny Compass Rose, Mini Chakras, and pocket stencil words.

 On a recent day off, I pulled out my art bin and rediscovered the unfinished Artistcellar ATCs, a bunch of other unfinished work, and the coffee sleeves, so I decided to combine them.

First, I carefully cut the coffee sleeve so each face was separate. I used pieces from the backside of the coffee sleeve to create necks, and glued them to the faces with matte medium. I added a little packing tape on the back for extra strength. Next, I trimmed the faces down, but left the orange road to suggest a beret. That looked a little strange, so I decided to go really strange, and added crazy hats.

I called the face with the moustache “Starsky,” and gave him a body from one of the extra Artistcellar ATCs that I didn't trade in the facebook exchange. The ATC was created with a Photoshop collage of Graphics Fairy butterflies, which was printed on cardstock. I overprinted it with pocket stencil inspirational words, and flipped the stencils over to create a word shadow in a different color. The head was out of proportion to the body, so I went with the weirdness and gave him tiny child-sized vintage arms and legs from Graphics Fairy royalty free images, printed on cardstock and attached with mini brads.

 

Doll number two was, naturally, christened “Hutch.” He was awarded a crown, Graphics Fairy vintage child paper doll legs, and arms from a Disney prince. The body was a leftover ATC from a 1960s themed trade—it has a graphic image from a concert poster and a few of the lyrics from the folk/rock anthem “Woodstock” that were combined in Photoshop. Both ATC bodies were edged with brown chalk ink to give a vintage effect.

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?

Paper Doll From Stencil Scraps

When I need to do a little art, something that always restores my sanity and puts me in a happy place is making paper dolls—I immediately go back to a safe, happy childhood place. As a personal challenge, I decided to see what I could do using ONLY what was already in my art bins and scrap boxes.

First, I found a paper doll template that I had already printed out. (There are many free sources online; Retro Café Arts has a variety of doll templates that you can purchase.) The graphics fairy blog has free, downloadable vintage images—I love their shoes, hats, faces and clothing, and often use them in my doll-making.

I looked through my reject projects, imperfect printmaking work, and bits left over from other projects to see what inspired me. For this doll, I started with some of my own paper, which I had designed in Photoshop and printed from a color laser. I applied white printmaking paint onto my paper through various stencils, such as compass rose, steampunk and harlequin.

Using the doll parts template, I cut the body pieces out of the scraps of stenciled paper, and connected them with mini-brads. For the legs, as well as the belt and the ribbon on the hat, I used a bit of paper that had accidentally been sprayed with lime and turquoise Dylusion ink. (The hat is a Graphics Fairy image.)

I cut the skirt from a circle of the compass rose stencil, and the fleur de lis on the hat is from the same stencil.

The doll’s face is a Dina Wakely stamp, applied with black archival ink stamp pad. It was a “reject” because the ink printed a little sketchy, but I used a black pen to touch up the imperfect sections. A touch of blue was added to the hair using a Derwent block and a koi brush, and a tiny bit of skin-toned peach chalk in was applied to the face.