AEDM Day 22-Clown Sketches

AEDM Day 22-Clown doll-She's a white china doll with a cloth body and a painted face. I rescued her from a flea market for a couple of dollars. I know I said yesterday that I was going back to sketching one figure, but my mind was changed when I got up this morning and decided that I was a little bored of sketching with a pencil and picked up an ultra-fine black sharpie instead. No darkening in my photo program so the images would show up today.

She is posable, so I sketched her kneeling with her hands outstretched in the first sketch. I also included the hideous huge lace collar that she was wearing when I bought her.

The second sketch has her seated and waving, without the collar. Her toes turn up like elves' shoes. Her jumpsuit and hat are half blue and half peach. There are two gold pom-poms on the front and her shoes are painted gold. The clothes were probably once a rich, bright orange and blue satin, but when I found her they were limp and faded, with the elastic stretched, and the hideous lace collar and trim on the sleeves and legs. She's very bedraggled looking, but loaded with character, which I'm not sure I captured.

The nose is too wide on the face close-up, but there's no second chance with a sharpie. :) Her face is white with blue eyes, gold eye shadow, black liner, pale pink cheeks, and a darker rose bud mouth.

I enjoyed doing these. Most of the time I was in charge, but sometimes, the sharpie was. LOL
Anyway, I feel like I'm getting better and I'm no longer afraid to use my expensive art supplies, even if it's just practice. I have art papers that are years old, because I was afraid I'd ruin them. Not so anymore! I've decided that if I ruin them, I'll still learn something from trying, so I just jump right in and start throwing images and color around and I'm having a blast. Far different from being tensed up and afraid to use the materials, but it's taken me a long journey to get to this point, and I've enjoyed every minute of it. :)

AEDM 20 & 21-Doll Sketch Twofers

AEDM Day 21-Sally & Bunny- Sally is a vinyl doll from the 50's. She's wearing a blue gingham dress with a white yoke and black patent shoes. I wrestled with her eyes until I gave up, which accounts for the darkness, that and I used a carbon pencil. Her eyes actually don't look this bad in the real sketch. Bunny is a little stuffed rabbit that belonged to my Pekingese, Kibbles, only she never got the chance to play with it. He actually has a pink striped body and legs with pink flowered sleeves, but I didn't have the patience to sketch in the patterns today. I see that I also left off the shadows on the floor, and I forgot to ground them again. Why do the mistakes show up AFTER you post them? :)

AEDM Day 20-Griffin and Tululah-Griffin is porcelin with a cloth body. He is the same doll I sketched yesterday, only it was only his head. He's still waiting for a kiss. Tululah is an ice blue bear that hubby got for me. I did a better job on her the other day. Anyway, I tried and I learned. So far, so good! :)

I think I challenged myself too much with these two in trying to sketch two figures. I'm going to cut it back to one tomorrow. I already have her picked out.

AEDM 16,17,18, & 19- Four Doll Sketches

AEDM Day 16-This doll is also Solange, except that I decided to practice foreshortening and posed her this way. I changed her face and hair to give her a different look, and I also added the joints that I left out of the other two drawings. I didn't realize that the face was so round and chubby looking, or that I got carried away with the darks on the face, until I posted it. Oh well!

AEDM Day 17-Also Solange, except I changed her hair and dress. I know there's a hard line around her neck, but this is where her head sits on her neck. She is, after all, a doll. :) I haven't been worrying about getting an actual likeness, but this actually favors her, and if I'd gotten the mouth a little smaller it would have looked a lot like her.

AEDM Day 18-A little 8" bride doll that I found at a flea market. I got her likeness pretty good. She's hard plastic with a mohair wig, The wide piece in the skirt is lace and there's a wide ribbon around the waist, tied in a bow in the back. She's also wearing a veil. The whole thing is brownish with age. Her white shoes are painted on. She's very old, but timeless. I like her a lot.

AEDM Day 19-A porcelin boy doll that daddy got for me. I meant to draw his whole body, but got the face started too big. He would have been without feet AGAIN, so I stopped here. :) I think he's part of a pair. He's waiting for a kiss and has a rose in his hand. Daddy thought he was so cute. His jacket is actually plaid, but I didn't have the patience to try it this morning, so it is what it is. One of the handful of boy dolls that I have in my collection.

A few times I've had to make myself start the sketching, even though I really enjoy it once I get the first mark down, but I am learning so much and gaining in confidence. It's absolutely been worth doing, and I'm glad I've been able to sketch every morning so far.

The next series may be my angel ornaments or a series of painted dolls. I'd never done a series before, and I'm finding it very interesting. Who says dolls are for children? :)

AEDM Day 15-Doll Sketch-Solange 2

I decided to sketch Solange again (see yesterday's post), because I really like her, and she is so posable. I modified her dress some to change the look. I didn't do too well on the foreshortening of her arm, leg, and dress, and she also has a much prettier face than I've given her so far. But that's why I'm practicing. :)

AEDM Day 14-Doll Sketch-Solange

Solange is a hard plastic doll with a vinyl head, from the late 50' s or early 60's, and is fully jointed so that she can be posed in any position. She was made by Uneeda and is one of their Dollikins. I found her at a Nashville flea market in her birthday suit, and she was sooo embarrassed. She had been a ballerina, so I combed her hair into a bun and put soft rubber pink ballet shoes on her. Mama made her a pink satin dress. It's a tad big in the neck, but Solange loves it.

Solange is about 20" tall standing. I seated her because the rubber bands that hold her together need replacing and she can't hold the poses standing. Good thing I decided to sketch my dolls. They are in need of new elastic bands and some other minor repairs. I'll have to get on that soon.

Solange is a great model for practicing real people because she can be posed in so many ways. Even her wrists are jointed, and she's much prettier than one of those blank artist mannekins that I bought years ago. :)

She is seated so far to the left because when I started her this morning I was going to loosely sketch her in two or three positions on the same page. This as far as I got, so I added some words to kind of balance her on the page. I like her! ;)

AEDM Day 13-Doll Sketch-Little Miss Marker

Little Miss Marker was a birthday gift. She is all vinyl and is wearing a nautical outfit. I have to tell you that all of the dolls I've sketched look waaaay better than my sketches. I'm not trying to get a great likeness. I'm just practicing the facial features, the poses, and shading. I can see the shade nuances, but getting them to come out my pencil is another matter. Oh, well! :)

AEDM 10, 11, & 12 Plus EDM 247- Doll sketches

AEDM Day 10/EDM 247-Something Creepy...This is Thumbelina, a vinyl and cloth doll from the 60's, that I rescued from the flea market. I got the bright idea to use a gel pen to sketch her on a paper that had some ink residue on it from the printer. Needless to say, the gel pen was in control. Then I got another bright idea to use a touch of red inktense pencil for accent. Her cheeks looked ok until I used a verrrrrry damp brush on them. Way too red, so I tried a white wc pencil over the top, with the result being what you see here. Thumbelina looks a little too creepy. I wasn't going to post her, but then I decided I would share my flops as well as the better ones.

AEDM Day 11-Thumbelina again, this time I went back to my old standby pencil. I seem to have something against feet. I did get one foot, minus the toes, on this page though. Again, not one of my better sketches, but I'm learning so much from the practice. I know, her head is a little small for the rest of her. I don't know what happened there, but I didn't have time to erase and re-draw it. Maybe I'll do better next time. :)

AEDM Day 12-Tiny Tears-Tiny is one of my childhood dolls from the 50's. She is vinyl except for her head, which is a very hard substance with the crown cut out for her wig to fit into, thus the mask-like line where her wig fits into the edge of her face. She has weighted glass eyes. She was very much loved and played with. Unfortunately, I played Dr. with some nail polish remover on her face and took some of the paint off and her eyebrows. Her eyelashes are also missing. I did re-paint her face when I started my doll collection with the five childhood dolls that I still had after I married. The holes in her mouth and on the sides of her nose are where she drank from a bottle and cried "real" tears. Her light green dress was sewn by one of my favorite aunts, who drowned when I was eighteen. It buttons up the back and has a sash. The dog is a little stuffed Pekingese, light tan. LOOK! She has feet! LOL

The baby dolls are harder to draw, seems like, but I'm getting there. :)

AEDM Days 8 & 9- Mei and Ruthie

I didn't get Mei and her bear friend posted yesterday, so I'm posting them with Ruthie today. Here goes!

Mei is a tiny clown doll given to me by one of my best friends. She is dressed in a satin jumpsuit with a large collar. She has a porcelin head and cloth body and limbs. She didn't want to be sketched alone, so I coaxed the pale blue long-haired bear, given to me by hubby, to pose with her. They held perfectly still while I tried to capture the different textures, but they were glad when I stopped. They were tired and I was too! :)

Ruthie is a vinyl doll from the 60's, rescued from a flea market. I loved her red hair, which was a total mess. It took a long time to get it into some sort of shape. She was also in her birthday suit. Mama made her a light navy blue dress out of velvet-like material and crocheted trim around the neck, sleeves, and tail out of white cotton thread. I added the white ribbon, the white underwear and knee socks, and the black-patin, laced shoes.

I used a carbon pencil instead of a regular one for a change. It was a little harder to control, but I stuck with it til I got ready to stop. Also, the lightest shaded foot was supposed to be making a step forward, but I couldn't get it to go there. Maybe next time!

Anyway, these are my last two attempts for AEDM. I also took a piece of 300# wc paper, wet it, and dropped black and red Sumi ink all over it and let it run and dry, which made a variety of grays. Then I dropped more pure black ink in randomness on top and left it to dry a couple of days ago. It's still sticky. I haven't decided how to proceed on it yet. I just wanted a break from all the pencil shading. When it's a little further along I'll show you. (I "borrowed" the idea from Leah over at AEDM). Thanks, Leah! I hope you don't mind. :)

AEDM Day 7-Doll Sketch-Sonja

I did it again! I failed to leave room for Sonja's feet, and I so wanted to show off her skates that I made for her! :) Sonja is a hard plastic doll from the 50's, given to me by mama for one of my birthdays. She is an ice skater, wearing a golden yellow taffeta dress with a peplum and lace the same color. Her golden blonde hair is swept back into a pony tail. She was barefoot when I got her at a flea market, so I made her some skates out of white felt, laced with gold thread, and sporting paper clip blades. She was so tickled and wanted to try them out right away. :)

I may have bitten off more than I can chew in trying to draw a doll a day for a month. It's taking more time than I thought it would. I'm proud of myself that a fourth of my challenge to myself is completed. 7 doll sketches in 7 days. That's quite an accomplishment for me, if I do say so myself. LOL Only 21 more to go!

AEDM 6-Doll Sketch-Suki

Well, I actually got the whole doll on the page this morning! LOL

Suki was given to me by my sister-in-law for Christmas one year, and I think she's adorable. She has a white porcelin head, arms, & legs on a soft body, and is wearing a white eyelet pinafore over a pink/wht gingham dress with white lace and white soft leather shoes that tie. Her hair is black and the bow is white.

I used the graphite pencil in the Canson sketchbook again and darkened the scan. I am getting much better at seeing the nuances in the lights and shades, even if I forgot to darken the lights in the black hair this time. I got distracted. But I had a great time getting to know Suki better! :)