Posted in ephemera, illustration, tagged illustration, vintage on July 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Yes, it was a year ago today that I did my first post on this blog. What do I wish for in the next year of posting — more art, better health and a bit more stamina to accomplish ever more art.
In the meantime, here’s a mini gift: go read James Gurney’s blog post for today. I found it both reassuring and inspirational and I hope you will too. Here’s a hint; Thinking is really the most important part of creating any sort of art.
Posted in ephemera, illustration, tagged animals, doll, illustration, vintage on May 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Yes, I realize that I’ve been having a rather rough time on the health front for the last few months; but at least this most recent blow (nasty, nasty, ugly choke-inducing head cold) seems to be fading. Hopefully I will be turning a corner towards better days and be getting back to making some art soon.
In the meantime, I’ll just be napping in the woods with a few friends. That bear is sure to have a thermos of tea with honey — whiskey is probably too much to hope for.
Posted in ephemera, illustration, tagged animals, anthropomorphic, illustration, vintage on January 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »
No, I’m not planning to entertain any animals; my house is too small. However I do have a small collection of vintage sourced images of animals entertaining themselves. They seem pretty darn good at it too.
The bright flat area colors and simple outlines of this picnic scene rescue it from being overly precious. The interesting (almost faerie-ish) tree and the old-fashioned peddlers wagon are great elements in themselves but in the case of this image they also serve to contain the scene; giving it an intimacy of setting that it would not otherwise have.
One of the best parts of an outdoor summer party is the dancing. That pig is a snappy dresser and the cat is exceedingly light on her feet. Please take notice of the two little bugs enjoying the action.
This somewhat more sedate tea party has an autumnal look to me. All the earthtones and the very confined area of the composition suggest everyone has squished up inside to be cozy. I imagine this party is quite loud, with everyone talking at once. Rabbit seems to be wondering if the tea supply is going to run out and I really don’t fancy the way Cat is eyeing poor Squirrel who just wants to eat his jam tart in peace.
Lastly here is a bunch of wild, crazy animals having an outdoor winter free-for-all festival. Obviously too much scrumpy has been consumed, and in a rather short time span. Look at the raccoon at the far left (behind the woodchuck); by the look of him he’s drawn the short straw to have to get Possum home safely.
Posted in ephemera, tagged paper doll, vintage on January 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Today being another in a succession of gloomy gray days I decided to post something bright and cheerful.
Daisy is from the late 1970s and is, as will become incredibly obvious, a Holly Hobbie clone. Well, not a clone exactly as Daisy (the doll) has her own rather distinctive look. But clone-ish in that she has that same prairie-style look to her wardrobe.
She’s really kind of sweet even with her rather oversize head. Actually I think her large noggin makes her especially sweet. Though it does make me wonder, how much of her head is hat and not head at all.
Love the artist smock with the button-up sides.
There’s the very obvious Holly Hobbie patchwork pinafore over a blue dress.
And a warm coat; it may be a gray day, but baby it’s cooold outside!
Posted in book, ephemera, tagged book, doll clothes, paper doll on November 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »
I’ve been having a really good time today playing with a new present I got myself.
This new book is by artist Emily Martin aka Black Apple. The book is divided into three parts.
Part One is her original paper dolls and their clothes. Each doll has a personality profile including likes and dislikes, for instance, here’s Alice’s list: Likes: Cats, Books with pictures, Her usual height; Dislikes: Boring Lessons, Disorderly tea parties, Egomaniacal Monarchs. Here’s my favorite personality list item . . . Dislikes: Being Poked (Baby) and yes, before you wonder, Baby is just that; a little rosy-cheeked human baby who looks like the kind of tiny baby doll that sort of slumps warm and cozy in the palm of your hand. Part One also includes a section of background paintings, and a toy theater.
Part Two is “Paper You” which is exactly what it sounds like. It has a bunch of customizable paperdolls with equally customizable clothing. You pick the doll that looks the most like the person you want to make a doll of and well, fix it up to include the right color eyes, the correct hair, shoes, etc. Then you make it some clothes. Hours and hours of fun. Here’s the doll I made:
I had bunches of fun working on this. I did what the book suggested and used my scanner/copier to make color copies to work on. I used colored pencils, clip art and a sticker to decorate the clothes, you know, the sort of stuff that is always lying around the workroom. Most of the clothes are extremely plain, the idea being that they are sort of blank slates for you to build on. For instance the underwear, the green top, the purple/black/white faun dress, and the yellow neck scarf were originally totally white. The yellow dress was just a plain yellow dress, I added the elephant bag (which is NOT in the book, it’s picture I had on file). I colored a hat band on the top hat and added texture/color to the green dress and blue jeans. I added the owls, the faun panel and the bug lady. I did customize the doll itself, adding rosy color, darkening the brows and eyelashes and giving it brown eyes. I also drew the shoes and then made a pair of wicked cool boots out of a practice doll’s feet (her face didn’t work out — oops).
Part Three is projects make with/for the dolls including a storage armoire (to keep the extensive wardrobe of clothing in don’ cha know), play sets, display stands, jointed dolls, flip books, stationary, and a mobile. It also gives directions for playing “Exquisite Creature” which is a more kid-friendly name for “exquisite corpse”; the old funny tri-fold collaborative draw-a-picture game.
This is a particularly nice book. I wish there had been a book like this when I was a little kid. Edith Flack Ackley’s old battered paper doll book borrowed from the library was the best I had back then and this is in color and has better dolls and more projects. Well, better dolls if you’re very into conjoined twins, bears, goth girls and onion-headed creatures . . . which I am. So there.
Posted in ephemera, tagged vintage on November 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Ever feel like things just aren’t going the way you’d hoped? Perhaps this next week will be better.
Posted in ephemera, tagged doll clothes, paper doll, vintage on September 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »
I feel a bit guilty about not posting last week, even though I was sick in bed with a bug; which is a pretty good excuse actually. But anyway here is a little bonus post for this week: a Crissy paper doll for you to print out and draw outfits for. Be sure to click on the picture to get a larger image.
I had both the actual doll and this paper doll as a child; both of which I have managed to reacquire thru the auspices of ebay.
Here’s a website where you can learn more than you ever wanted to know about the Crissy doll family. Check out the sewing/crocheting page where you can see (and download) the commercial clothing patterns that were available for her.
Have big fun!
Posted in doll house, ephemera, tagged dollhouse, paper model, vintage on September 29, 2010| 3 Comments »
This is a trial run of a little paper dollhouse that is made of ink-jet printouts fused to cracker and cereal box cardboard. The files were sent to me by Esben (a very generous toy theatre fan) from Denmark. The dollhouse was originally published in Illustretet Family Journal in the first part of the 20th century. This was a Danish magazine that included a great many paper models including some fantastic toy theatres. Since this is just a trial I shrank all the parts down to fit on 8-1/2 x 11 paper and didn’t pay strict attention to scale. The house turned out to be around 1/24 scale (1/2″ to the foot). Even at this size I can easily fit my hand into the attic to arrange the furniture and a friends six year old had no trouble at all playing with the house.
The house is designed to come apart into two pieces — voila! the attic comes off. I particularly love the wallpaper and wainscoting in the attic.
The parquet floor and french doors in the downstairs room are rather elegant, and the little portraits and sconces are lovely.
The attention to detail carries over into the furniture. Notice the woodgraining on the bedroom set (and the mattress ticking on that bed). Downstairs the table cloth does overhang the table legs all the way around (the legs are inset about 1/8″) and the designer included a piano!
The furniture is only partially cut out — those little white spaces in the chair and table legs should normally have been trimmed but this was only a test. I printed the furniture sheets on plain white cardstock and didn’t fuse any reinforcement. They are surprisingly sturdy.
The actual assembly went smoothly, all the parts were well designed and fit together as they should. The only problem I had was that I should have just used plain card stock for the attic dormers. The cardboard was a bit too thick and made fitting them very fiddley. Also next time I would cut out the window panes; it’s too dark in that attic. It would be great fun to do this project again on a slightly larger scale and make little dolls to live in it.
Posted in ephemera, tagged paper doll, vintage on August 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »
This is a vintage paper doll that I picked up a little while ago.
Shhh! She’s a Spy.
She’s also adorable and this is one of those mid-60s sets which had two dolls (a big and a little) with matching outfits.
I especially love the white trench coat outfit — it reminds me of Agent 99 from the Get Smart show.
pamelavelner.blog 