Introducing Alice

Made especially for Alice in Australia

Introducing Alice - I think my favourite of all the dolls I've painted so far - but Alice is also special for another reason - she is the first doll I've made for a real person.

Agman (Terence) at Aviator always leaves such nice comments for me whenever I post paper dolls and tells me how much his granddaughter Alice likes them - so I decided the next doll I made would be especially for her.  Alice I hope you like your namesake (Granddad as you probably already know has a full size scan of the doll for you).

I also sent a scan of Alice to OPDAG (the Original Paper Doll Artist Guild).  I knew that the doll did not qualify for any of their upcoming themes but Jenny from OPDAG has offered to include her in the Showcase section of the Studio magazine with a link back to this post - so that is quite an exciting prospect as well.
 

  

Alice - Original Sketch

 Alice is a companion doll for Clarissa and the second in a series of dolls I'm making based on the beautiful artwork of Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone.  I've wanted to try my hand at making dolls in slightly more unusual poses for ages and so a young girl sitting playing not only gave me a subject that was interesting to paint, it also meant I could fit three dresses onto a single page.

I based the doll on this illustration of Curly Locks taken from 'A Gift Book of Nursery Rhymes' - one of the loveliest figures in the book.   

 
Although I included the blue dress she is wearing as a separate outfit, designing the other dresses allowed me to play around with different fabric techniques.  As much as they are inspired by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone they also owe a huge debt to artists such as Ron Embleton and Jose Ortiz who feature regularly in my blog and whose work I've tried to emulate since childhood.

The most fun I had while making this doll was thinking up different objects for her to hold.  Part of the challenge of course was fitting the object to the shape!

It was very rewarding making and dedicating a doll in this way so I think it will be nice to continue the idea with the next doll in the series (I don't know how soon that is likely to be as I've had the advantage of being on holiday for the last week - giving me lots of lovely time to indulge in the things I enjoy!)

However - if anyone reading this would like me to dedicate a doll to a special little girl, let me know by leaving a comment (and obviously her name) at the end of this post.