Sunday, January 17, 2010

art dolls



Meet Frida Kahlo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Tamara De Lempicka and Vincent Van Gogh... reinterpreted in my drawing style! The following photos are of some Artist Art Dolls that I made for a Christmas present for my niece.



That is her waving at us!!




The collection picture above shows all the bits that went into the process to make them.

I searched the internet and books first for images of the artists and their artwork and printed inspiration pages to work from (top left hand corner)

Then I drew their faces first on paper with pencil, because I thought their faces were the most important part (top right hand corner)

When I was happy with the drawing, I went over it more exactly with ball point pen, then reduced it to the size I wanted and printed it at the top of an A4 page on my printer. I then carried on the picture and drew their bodies in pencil till I was happy with those (middle images)
I drew in these lines with ballpoint pen as well, rubbed out the pencil lines, and then scanned them into Abode Photoshop Elements 6 and darkened the lines and cleaned up any messy bits with the Photoshop rubber.

I found images of their artwork that I felt represented their style of art and printed out the images and the doll drawings onto iron-on transfer paper. I then ironed the images onto some fairly fine weave fabric that I found in my stash (bottom right hand images)

I clipped the images of the drawings with bulldog clips over strong pieces of cardboard, then I started painting them in with acrylic paints. When I was happy with all the colours and shading, I repeated over the lines with black Pitt Artist pen. I then carefully reironed the images between greaseproof paper, and it seemed to remelt the paint and lines back into the iron-on transfer again. I gave a small test piece a good scratch and the paint wasn't showing any signs of peeling off (Yay! that was one thing I was worried about!!) (see middle bottom images)

Next I sewed on the few little notions on Frida... the roses in her hair and the earrings. I then stiched the two sides of each doll together on the sewing machine leaving a small gap to turn through the right way. They were difficult to turn through the right way because the paint made the material very stiff and I didn't want to damage the painting either when I did it.
Then I stuffed them with some Dacron and hand stitched the opening at the bottom back together (Voila! bottom left hand corner)




These are the backs of the dolls showing some of their artwork. Didn't get good closeups of the faces of the dolls because the focus was fuzzy.

I hope to make some more artists to add to her collection in the future!

12 comments:

carole brungar said...

these are gorgeous! I'm guessing she will treasure them!

purplecat said...

I have been making art dolls too, they are such fun aren't they?

Kate Carvellas said...

Hi! I'm trying to catch up on my own blog and those blogs I so enjoy visiting! And..yours is totally one of them!! These dolls are terrific! I bet your niece was so excited when she received them! Wonderful work!

Casey said...

These are fabulous! Your niece is very lucky to receive such a gift!

Aunty S said...

She absolutely loves them! You are very clever!!

Margaret said...

Glad to have you back! these are awesome!! total inspiring! Mx

Kim O said...

These are sooooo cool!! I just adore them... you niece must have been thrilled to get them. I know I would be - great job.

artexplorer said...

These are so wonderful - I like the idea of having these great artists as cushion - a wonderful daily reminder of their work and inspiration!

Samantha said...

What a great idea!!

Joanie Hoffman said...

the dolls are so colorful & well done. i love all the research that you did to make these dolls so perfect! now i wish i had a niece who collected art dolls.
happy days,
joanie

Janna said...

These are fantastic. So clever...what a great gift and also a way to introduce and familiarize kids with artists and art...and to have them in the every day.

Dianne said...

these dolls are amazing!! love them all, and your drawing style.