Sometimes I just look around my art studio and try to imagine what I can convert into cold hard cash. Like this project that was printed out and then shoved under my bed because I was too lazy to cut and assemble them. So today I watched Beyoncé Knowles self-directed documentary "Life is But a Dream", consumed an entire chocolate "orange"... and oh yeah... put these together. I DO NOT recommend watching this Beyoncé documentary with the same enthusiasm that I DO recommend chocolate oranges. I like any candy that begins with a heartless act of violence, i.e. slamming them on the table to break them first. Exciting. Exciting in the exact way watching Beyoncé Knowles give an hour of monologue to a camera (about how her pain is different but really the same) is not. Anyway... behold Victorian-style horror comic full of murder:

I've been awhile since a post; my apologies. I just finished up Thumbelina and The Swallow. Thumbelina is my tiniest doll (life-size!) and the bird was a big, folding, complicated thing because I wanted him to fly but also collapse into sickness per the story. Well.. first sick, and then flying. Everyone has been telling me that Thumbelina's expression is a bit morose, but if you'd just spent a winter being engaged to a mole in a pitch black dirt tunnel you might feel a bit post-traumatic stress disorder-ish.

 

My daughter Alex was my inspiration for Thumbelina's face, and this was actually from a photograph I took of her where she was upset that she had to wait for a horse-drawn carriage to take her on a 'haunted hayride'. So apparently post-traumatic shock syndrome and impatience mixed with annoyance look roughly the same.

 

One of my favorite quotes from Alex was something she said when she was five years old - "All the birds you're going to meet in this world are my friends. They're my bird friends."

 

This was the original graphite sketch of Alex. Later scanned in and colored digitally.


So step one in making a paper bird with collapsible wings is to make a prototype, and then on about your sixth prototype you get one that functions AND looks ok. From this point I traced around each piece and then actually drew in the feathers and bird stuff.

Toto - 100 lbs of grumpiness trapped in 10 lbs of gray fluff.

I finally finished up Dorothy. Poor girl had been sitting on my desk for over a month now waiting for her Toto and basket. They prepare you for a lot of things in art school but never how much self-discipline it takes to sit and draw an object as completely boring as a basket. There's no glory in baskets. Drawing baskets is a thankless job.

I had a lot of fun drawing Toto. I actually did a sketch of him as sort of small, frail, black, and with the pointy ears like he was cast in the MGM movie... but after staring at it, I just didn't like it. When I think Toto, I think of a cranky little grumpy old man type personality trapped in 10 pounds of gray fluff. Toto was the kind of dog that would bite you on the ankle soon as look at you.

So I drew a little tough-guy version of Toto with a snaggle-tooth and liked him much more. I feel better sending Dorothy to Oz with a scrappy Toto... don't you? Cause Oz is sort of a terrifying place.

Dorothy and Toto Jointed Paper Doll from "The Wizard of Oz"

(Don't you enjoy how I talk about my dolls like they're real people? Don't worry - it's mostly sleep deprivation talking.) Anyway, here's some photos and Dorothy is already up on Etsy.

We are siamese, if you please. We are siamese, if you don't please.

Today I took one of my rescued drawings from college (that of a pair of siamese twins' faces) and added a dress and legs and arms. As I was doing that, the absurdity of what I was working on started to sort of take over and I decided to add a teddy bear that was in the same state of 'togetherness'.

I should have stopped there... I COULD have stopped there, but then I thought what could make this more fun except matching monocles (since why would one identical twin have weak eyesight and the other have perfect eyesight? REALISM!! I'm a fan of it).

So, monocles in place, it became completely necessary to add a bubble-pipe. Probably my darkest bit of humor to date...

Enjoy. I'll put them on Etsy tomorrow.




Siamese Twin Paper Doll: matching teddy bear accessory, matching monocles, and singular bubble-pipe (so that they have something to fight over).




Siamese Twin Paper Doll: Detail



Skin like lime sorbet, a smile that could stop a train... and flaming spheres for if the smile doesn't stop the train and the train still needs to be stopped... THAT'S the Wicked Witch of the West.

Consider the Witch completed. She'll go up on Etsy tomorrow cause tonight I'm going to try and finish up Dorothy. Poor Dorothy has no Toto currently. A Dorothy without a toto is like a house with no foundation. Dorothy focuses on the safety of her dog to cope with the fear she feels herself.

(I'm deep.)

Anyway - here we have a witch. She's very pose-able. She's going to look just smashing with some giant angry flying blue monkeys around her. (I will start those AFTER this weekend's comic book convention.)

Wicked Witch Paper Doll: w/ fire sphere and red poppies, standing pose

Wicked Witch Paper Doll: fire sphere and hat, flying pose

Wicked Witch Paper Doll: 'bad-ass' pose