Les Petits Roi et Riene - Final Project Completed

All finished! Adding the boy doll to the layout was a challenge. I had to place him just so in order that his arm fit behind her at the right spot, and I didn't want to have his legs partially covered by her skirt. Rather than paint her dress and his jacket, I used scrapbook paper. I wanted the hair to resemble the powdered wigs worn at the time; they were pretty elaborate but I decided to keep it simple. I'm pretty happy with the way my little king and queen turned out. This class was so much fun and has really inspired me to draw more Petit Dolls. Thanks Suzi!

Petit Dolls Final Project Sketch

For the final class project, I chose to use a doll I drew that was my interpretation of Marie Antoinette. Suzi had provided us with a template of a boy doll that we could use if we chose. The style of her boy didn't exactly work out for my girl, so I redrew his face and parts of his body to make him fit my theme. He's upside down because her skirt was so full that I had to flip my sketch book in order to fit him on the same page. Unfortunately my scanner cut half of him off, but you get the idea.

Petit Doll with Kitty

Before I cut out my Petit Doll, I prepared my wood piece. I chose my color palette. Since I would be giving her a pink dress, I decided to go with pink, purple, touches of blue, and anything else I thought would work. I chose paper scraps to add to my background for interest. When I was satisfied with my preliminary background, I cut out my doll and glued her on. Once she was thoroughly dry, I painted her eyes, lips, hair, and dress. At this point, I decided to scrap the dolly she is holding and substitute a flower instead. I added more color to her face and gave her pinky cheeks. To finish, I also touches of color to the background, some stamped images, and embellishments. I also added a little friend. Here is my completed Project 1.

Petit Doll Project 1

After I drew my dolls, I decided I would use the doll holding her dolly since she would be a bit simpler to work with. I began working on shading her face using colored pencils and blending the colors together in order to give her pleasing skin tones . At this point, I left her eyes, hair, and dress uncolored because I wanted to do these after she was cut out and mounted on my board. Her nose smeared a little during the blending process because I had sketched with a softer lead pencil. I knew I could wait and correct the smear after gluing her onto the board.

Petit Doll Sketches

After playing with heads, the next step was to sketch a Petit Doll on paper that would be for our first project. Suzi encouraged us to draw dolls with simple lines so it would be easier to cut them out. I made these two sketches.

Petit Dolls Beginner Class

In April, I signed up to do Suzi Blu's Petit Dolls Beginner Class. I had taken the Petit Dolls Winter class, which I really loved, so when Suzi offered this class I knew I had to do it. In this class, Suzi is covering more of the basics like background preparation, composition, shading, shabby technique, embellishments, using beeswax, and lots of other cool stuff. Suzi is a great teacher who generously shares her knowledge, is encouraging, and genuinely cares about her students.

At the beginning of the class, we were encouraged to make sketches of heads and experiment with drawing eyes, noses, lips, hair, and eyebrows to give our dolls different expressions.

Mother's Day ATC

Life has been a little crazy, so it's been awhile since I've posted. In between all of the busy stuff, I've managed to fit in some one on one time with my Muse to create. Working in my journal is a great stress reliever and is very freeing for me since I can simply play with no pressure or expectations. It's been a lifesaver!

Before I knew it, Mother's Day was looming on my horizon. I decided that I wanted to make an ATC to send to my friend Jerilyn as a surprise. I looked through some photos I had collected and absolutely loved this one. The sweet expression of love between the little girl and her mother touched my heart, and made me think of the love shared between mothers and their children throughout the centuries. I love the way it turned out, and Jeri was thrilled to receive it in the mail.