AEDM Day 30-Ginny Skates

Ginny doll is an 8 inch vinyl doll that Mama bought, then later gave to me. I have several of the Ginny dolls. She is wearing navy jeans, a white shirt and belt, and red plastic skates with yellow wheels. Blonde hair hangs below her waist. I don't know why I like backlighting and theatrical lighting so much, but I do, for some reason. Hence, her face mostly in shadow...again! I like her!

This is the last day of the Art Every Day Month challenge. I'm kind of sad, but also ready for a break. I set my personal goal to sketch 30 of my dolls in 30 days, and I'm happy to say that I achieved that. I could keep going for a long time. I have over 100 dolls, and I may do some more sketches later to add to these, although I will use different paper and I will have some new glasses. :)

Each doll represents 2-3 hours per day for the last month spent experimenting with different poses, doll shapes, ages, hair, clothing, lighting, and personality. I showed up at my table whether I felt like it or not and started putting down marks, and I've come away with a better understanding and knowledge of all the things mentioned. I have surprised myself, and I feel that I've grown as an artist, so my goal was accomplished and I'm doing the happy dance!

Thank you Leah for hosting the challenge. You do a great job! And thank you fellow participants and also the Every Day Matters group (whom I've been sharing my sketches with), for your encouragement and for sharing your wonderful work. I might not have completed the challenge if y'all hadn't helped me. :) I've been so inspired by so many of you, and I'm truly glad that I did the challenge with you this year. Hope we can do it again next year! :)

AEDM Day 29-Doll Sketch with Flowered Hat

This is the same doll that I sketched yesterday from the back. I left the lighting from below her. I like theatrical lighting for some reason. I am also resting from all the folds and wrinkles in previous clothing. It's funny, I decided to rest from wrinkles and tackled a hat with flowers and ribbons. LOL But that was also good practice! AND I managed to get all of her feet on this one! She's not perfect, but I like her.

Each doll has its own personality, and I've gotten much better acquainted with them through the sketches. They are perfect models. What can I say? :)

AEDM 26, 27, & 28-Doll Sketches & a Doodle Sheep

Welcome back to the land of no feet! LOL
AEDM Day 26-Barbie stretching-I decided to try Barbie in a different pose. Unfortunately, her left foot ran off the page and her right foot ran into the previous sketch of Barbie leaping. It looked like ballerina 2 was kicking ballerina 1 on her behind, so I taped a piece of paper over ballerina 1's legs to scan 2's sketch. Not only does the tape show, but the edge of the paper too. This sketch should end where the tiles end. Also, AFTER I posted the sketch I noticed a little ghost in the background looking over the ballerina's shoulder. It's Day 28's sketch peeking through the paper. What can I say? Some days I should just stay in bed. :)

AEDM Day 27-Pirate again- Pirate girl was laying handy, so I decided to try her in a different pose also, and without the huge ruffle. One foot was propped up on something as she leaned against something else. I was mostly finished and decided to take a break. When I returned she had also decided to take a nap and had fallen over, so I did a little more to her and called it quits. I think the dolls are beginning to rebel on me. Anyway, it is what it is. A learning experience. :)

AEDM Day 28-Doll with a Hat-My father-in-law found this doll at a yard sale or flea market and brought it to me. She is white porcelin bisque with a cloth body, a blonde wig tied back in a pony tail, and a painted face with large brown eyes. Her clothes were gone, so I put this red plaid (I didn't have the patience to sketch the plaid this morning) cotton duster on her until I could sew her a new dress years ago. She's still wearing it. The duster was made by my Aunt Nellie in the 50's for my Tiny Tears doll. Anyway, she's also wearing brown cotton stockings, black patent shoes, and a straw hat (which I again got lazy on). She's not an expensive doll, but I like her, and I'm pretty happy with the sketch. Oh yes! I decided to try theatrical lighting and put the light below her. I like it! :)

This a doodle sketch that I did a while ago. It's not part of the AEDM project, but I'm beginning to want to see some color, so I thought I'd share it. I call it "Sheep in Pink." :) Hope you're having a nice weekend and I hope something on here made you smile!

AEDM Day 25-Barbie Ballet Redo

AEDM Day 25- Barbie again-This is what I meant for the sketch yesterday to look like (incidentally I went back added some to the back of the tutu on it to make it more balanced). I had a lot of trouble with this one's face and there was a lot of erasing. I used a spotlight on this one instead of the overhead light. I like it much better, but there's still too much darkness on her face for my liking.

This was my Barbie as a child in the late 50's. I picked the red-haired bubble-cut because she reminded me of a beloved older cousin. I was lucky enough to have a few bought outfits, complete with accessories and shoes, for her, but I had a big bag full of clothes that mama made her. Every time she made my Barbie a dress, she had to make my best friend and my cousin one too. My best friend and I played Barbies until we were fourteen years old (times were different then), and every time we spent the night at each other's house, it looked like we were moving, with our Barbies, their clothes, horses, etc. We had a lot of fun though. Little girls grow up waaay too fast these days, in my opinion.

See, I'm still playing with dolls! LOL

AEDM 23 & 24-Doll Sketches-Pirate Clown & Ballerina

AEDM Day 23- Pirate? Clown? or both?-She is white porcelin bisque with a cloth body, and I rescued her from the flea market also for a couple of dollars. She's wearing a delicate dotted white cotton blouse tucked into white satin knee britches and a white satin skull cap tied behind. A soft pink sash goes around her waist and ties behind, and there's a big net ruffle trimmed in silver over her shoulders and accented with a pearl button holding a soft pink bow. Dark pink strap heels painted on her feet complete her outfit.

Her face is white with delicate blush on her cheeks, a soft reddish-pink on her lips, and soft blue eye shadow over blue painted on eyes.

She's a beautiful doll, and I in no way did her justice. I forgot to turn the overhead light off and also had a spotlight on her, which made the lighting confusing. She isn't posable, so I kind of leaned her up like she's sitting on the edge of something and she kept trying to fall forward. I got lost in all the different textures, shades, etc., but it was a good lesson for me.

AEDM Day 24-Barbie in her ballerina outfit-I know, she doesn't look much like Barbie. She looks awkward and once again I didn't leave room for her feet and her ballet shoes. I barely got her hand on too. LOL This is my original 1958 Barbie with the bubble hair cut, which is red. It's also an original ballet outfit for Barbie.

I turned the spotlight off and used overhead lighting. Not a good idea, but I didn't want to start over. I posed her to look like she was in mid-jump with both legs and both arms behind her. It looked good in person. Unfortunately, I wasn't that adept at drawing it. Thus she looks...well, kind of different. :)

I didn't really want to post either of these sketches, but as they are part of my learning process, and I did say that I was going to show the bad, as well as the better, here they are. I did learn some things while working with them, but I think I'm beginning to need a break from them. I find myself trying too hard to see all the little nuances and I'm straining my eyes. I'm sitting right on top of my setup when I'm trying to sketch them and the light is glaring in my eyes and on my paper, which is not good. That's one thing I've learned. I need to have a little space between me and my subject. That may also be why their feet keep running off the pages. LOL

This series has been really good for me, and I kind of hate for the month to end, but at the same time, as I said, I'm beginning to need a break. I need to do some doodles! :)

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.