Friday, January 10, 2014

Paper dolls for Paper Saturdays...down the memory lane

As a new year resolution, I joined Paper Saturdays, a group of artists with a passion for paper and all the art form that can be created with it. Creative blogger Manon Visser hosts this lovely initiative.

Ever since my childhood I had a special love for paper. Most of my games involved drawing, cutting, pasting any sort of shapes, animals, homes...then, for the longest time I stopped playing with paper as I rarely had time for drawing. My studies, travels and other activities absorbed me completely. After graduating and settling down, though the passion resurfaced.

Now, every once in a while, I even play with paper dolls. In previous post I mentioned how much I enjoy the beautiful porcelain dolls that Marina Bychkova of Enchanted Dolls make. When I discovered her blog a few years back, I decided to participate in a contest she held. My idea was to make a paper version of one of her dolls (the beloved Edie, in her unfinished incarnation of Cosmos Exploratum Genesis) and to give it a special paper case in the shape of a matrioska. The idea behind it was to show how Marina's art bridges her Russian roots with modern art. Since Cosmos has never been completed as a doll and never received a background story from her creator, I invented a little sci-fi tale to go with the illustration on the matryoshka's surface.

Below, you can see a very early drawing done in watercolor (yes it's terrible...but I was experimenting at the time) and a prototype of the doll I ended up sending her.


The following are images of the final matryoshka. I guess it looks quite rudimentary, but I had a lot of fun making it. It was like being a small child again, plus I tried to measure myself with the depiction of a futuristic landscape...which was quite challenging.

This was the front with a nocturnal view of the city of Cosmo. In my story she was a time traveler...so that explained her nakedness, since, as everybody knows, you cannot take with you your clothes, although she retained the headpiece because it was part of the time machine device! It's too bad I don't recall the whole story I made up for her...:D . To close it, I made 4 small cuts at the top and bottom to allow the passage of a golden ribbon.
This was the back of  the two dimensional matryoshka, a daylight vision of the city, if you want. It shows here we are dealing with a society that had reached a lovely equilibrium between preservation of ancient art and architecture  and of nature itself with the needs of a modern civilization... The lion in the emblem is a reproduction of the famous golden Achaemenid Lion (half the way down in the page)
This is how I packaged the doll. I did not have to cut through the back, because I cut through the paper lining instead! It felt so clever at the time! :D The quality of the scan of the doll is not very good because of the extra bulk of the ribbon...I did not think of using a camera at the time. She had a very dreamy and serene expression and her features were more delicate than the ones of the prototype that I kept for myself...


Anyways, I made more paper dolls ever since, as you can see from this blog. I never published this one before, though. I hope you enjoyed walking with me down memory lane!

12 comments:

  1. Good on you! Joining new groups can be a fantastic way of keeping creative :-) I always loved your wonderful hand painted dolls!

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    1. Thank you dear Monika! Nice to hear from you! I keep an eye on your beautiful creations for ED. One of these days, I'll knock at your shop's door...:)

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    2. Hello Sweetie! I will answer your comment on my blog here so you can see :-) I have always had two blogs - one for my painting, and one for my sewing. It is just that I have not been drawing so much in 2013, barely at all... so the sewing blog took precedence. I use flickr (also a new account, because my old one was blacklisted by flickr as being obscene - too many nude dolls) and FB pages (again, one for my drawing and one for my sewing) I always love seeing your beautiful Enchanted Dolls :-)

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  2. Paper Dolls are a big passion of mine too and I am happy you have linked this wonderful doll with us! Happy Paper Satudays Astera and I hope you will stay with us for a very long time! ManonX

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    1. It will surely be my pleasure! Thank you so much for organizing this. It's good to feel connected to other paper lovers. :)

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  3. I am amazed by the amount of detail, care, love and inventiveness that went into this wonderful piece of artwork. I have never seen anything like it, and you are so talented. The story is interesting, and the artwork on the case provides a story in itself. Yes, I did enjoy walking with you.

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    1. Thank you so much for visiting and living such a lovely comment. I am coming to visit your blog in a minute! ;)

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  4. You are WAY too hard on yourself. I think she is amazing! You are super talented and I just love how she can be tucked away inside another piece of your art.

    It was nice meeting you, I look forward to seeing more of your art throughout the year.

    Hugs
    Caroline

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    1. Hi Caroline! Nice having you here! I am glad you liked my little bidimensional time traveling matryoshka. Please do come back to check on me! :)

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  5. these are wonderful!
    you have a beautiful style about this. the futuristic details and the body details are wonderful. Such a joy to see!

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    1. Thank you dear! The futuristic component was very difficult for me. Although I am an avid consumer of sci-fi, I am usually content with admiring other people's rendering of out of this world landscapes. My works usually look to the past or to the nature around me, so I had to try a few things before I settled down with this design. Happy you liked it! :)

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  6. Wow! I think this is just gorgeous! The doll, the front and the back of the matroyshka cover. Beautiful artwork! :)

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