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...

Paper Saturdays

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!

About Enchanted Doll

This is going to be a long post, so I invite you to find yourself a comfortable armchair with soft pillows, get a nice cup of tea, and relax…or get excited…which is what happened to me when I saw for the first time an Enchanted Doll.

These are the most remarkable, expressive and truly artistic dolls I have ever seen. Enchanted dolls are a creation of the gifted Marina Bychkova, who is originally from Russia, but has grown up, studied and now works in Vancouver, Canada.

I don’t remember feeling so enthralled by a doll since the years of my childhood. I am not a collector and know very little of the ball jointed dolls world. But in this case, it was love at first sight…and I am not the only one! People of all ages and walks of life have fallen under the spell of these porcelain beauties.

Not only Marina has brilliantly engineered her dolls to be perfectly posable, well balanced, and exquisitely proportioned, but she has also mastered the art of painting life into their faces. The observer has often the impression to be in front of a mystical figure or of an ancient spirit trapped in the porcelain and about to burst out of it.

  

Furthermore, she is a wonderfully skilled designer of jewels and costumes. Her costumed dolls are breathtaking for the intricacy and historical accuracy of their gorgeous outfits.

Marina literally invests hundreds of hours in producing gowns, headdresses, crowns and dreamy shoes.

Last and most important of all, Marina’s works are not simple expressions of grace and elegance. Each doll in her collection carries a meaning, has a story that calls our attention to deep and sometime sad or even unpleasant truths of the human condition.

Beside her many artistic accomplishments, Marina is also a very generous individual and once a year, in occasion of her birthday, she holds a contest that awards one of her coveted nude dolls to the winner and other precious tokens of appreciation to the runner ups. This is a fantastical opportunity to be creative and have a chance to become owner of an Enchanted Doll.  

Isn’t she great?

You can see much more on her website, http://www.enchanteddoll.com
All pictures presented in this post belong to Marina Bychkova and appear on her webpage.

PS: As you can guess, I had to participate in the contest…but this is a topic for the next post!