19th Century Paper Dolls

I have been meaning to update for some time (always excuses, I know), but it's been a juggle working on other web-related projects. I am officially caught up, however, and so can devote a moment to some small bit of proof that I am working on the dolls that I had begun when I started this blog.

Here at the right is a riding coat for James ~ nothing fancy but I love the vibrant "cadmium pale" (I absolutely cannot resist that gouache color ~ everything should be cadmium pale in the world when I paint with it). I took the design from a simple 1840s cut. James ought to have something fancier, so I might make more than one style (he is, after all, all about excess). And of course I have will have to make a horse and a hound (or two) to go with this when all is said and done!

I also finished his West Point Academy cadet's uniform. This is two separate pieces, which is nice because then he can wear those white pantaloons with other coats, etc. And while I personally have a horror of white trousers, I do not doubt for a moment that James would have worn them and fancied them (as well as ones in "buff"). I've never thought of James as someone who would care for the dreary black suits that would dominate the latter half of the century.

While I have not been working on these dolls as much as I have meant to, I hope to step up. I have in addition to these piece here a pair of boots to go with the trousers (riding boots, of course!), and a fancy vest about which I have mixed feelings.

Next on the to-do is a winter coat and yes, I need to work on something for poor Emmaline. It'll probably be either wedding attire or a formal fancy attire for a ball for the both of them. And hopefully before Christmas!

I promised myself I would post at least one piece of clothing this week, so as to keep motivated as far as painting is concerned. I started working on a very simple vest for James, then got distracted into making this West Point Military Academy jacket. James entered the Academy in 1844 and graduated second to the last in his class in 1847 for sheer want of discipline (just missing the honor of being the "goat").

The style of the cadet uniform has changed very little over the years. I thought this would be extremely easy to make: simple style, one color. Easy right?  It was actually pretty tedious. All those little buttons!  But I think the effect came out well. The grey color came out very nice, even if the collar got a little woggly. I will make some pantaloons to go along with this. Hopefully soon.

The only thing I might add are the buttons on the collar (you can see them here on the left from this example of the uniform from 1859).

I probably should have angled the top row of buttons and frogs more dramatically (to the shoulder line), but it was hard to tell precisely where the line should fall based on several other pictures. I'm not entirely sure what accounts for the mild variations.

Nevertheless, it was certainly fun to do this even if it took me a lot longer than I anticipated.

I'm going to continue working on the clothes for this doll throughout the weekend. I'll try to have another little piece or two done and posted in the coming week.

So I dug up and finished the dolls I started making this summer. I can't believe it took me so long to complete them, but I guess I was distracted onto other projects for a while. I'm glad I didn't abandon these two, after all, since I think they came out just fine. I'm especially glad that I just stuck with them and finished them even though I didn't really feel like painting. The next challenge, of course, will be to make their clothes. I decided at the last minute to go ahead and do them in full color (instead of just sepia tints). I am hoping this won't end up a poor choice since I am pretty sure the daunting problem of color was what caused me to stop working on the first version of this particular 1840s James doll back in January.

I've been wanting to make these two dolls for a long time. Partly because this is an era I don't do a lot of work in, and partly because I thought it would be fun since James is such a clothes horse. Emmaline's clothes, I suspect will be much simpler, though I am sure I will make her a few nice things. But I am particularly looking forward to James's wardrobe because he is the one inclined to be stylish and fashionable, and to make a bold use of colors, etc.

I have some pretty good sources for clothing from the 1840s, but I want to be careful to construct my own designs and not just copy patterns, etc., from images. That might take a little extra work, but I have such a broad set of dress elements to work from that it hopefully won't make it too difficult. I already know, more or less, what I want for these two. I just have to settle into actually doing it.

For the coming week I am going to challenge myself to make their garden party clothes (the outfits they were wearing when they first met).

Click on the image to the right to see a close up of the detail on their faces. I am more or less pleased with their expressions, etc. Although Emmaline still does look entirely too much like me. It's probably the freckles more than anything.

Eventually I will post this doll in her entirety, but I just finished her face and was excited about how well it came out, so I wanted to share it. The picture here is enlarged somewhat so that you can see the detail. The actual heads are less than an inch tall.

So this is Emmie Fenton at 14 on the left, with her hair growing out after a bout of scarlet fever. I've always struggled with Emmaline's face because I describe her as being homely, but homely is hard to draw, especially on a character I like really well. So I tried to emphasize that she is not beautiful by giving her freckles and dark circles under her eyes (her health is never good), and otherwise making her plain in every way. Unintentionally, she actually looks kind of like me in this picture, which is okay too, I guess. The picture on the right is Emmie in her 20s (her hair all grown out again, and set back modestly). I tried to get a little maturity into her expression (or wisdom?), compared to the first face, but it may be too subtle.

I'll probably finish the body for this doll over the weekend. I want to make a few more Emmies (during the war and Reconstruction years, and then another one in her 50s-60s with white hair, etc.), just to get the full range of them like I intend to do with everyone else in this series.

I am still organizing content to fill here, but hello in the meantime!  I am using this first post to set up the tagging feature. It's my goal to add new content at least twice a week, so even though this probably won't be a "daily", I hope you will subscribe to the RSS Feed and check back regularly!

One of the things I hope to focus on here is paper doll men, which I think are highly underrated and underrepresented in the paper doll world. So while you can expect to see an array of beautiful dresses, expect to see even more frock coats, military uniforms, and other contemporary occupational wear.