Year: 2010

Flame Colored Gown

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Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

This skirt is not intended to conform to the realities of fabric. Paperdolls 1, real life 0.

In any case, it reminds me of poor damned Linnetta, possibly because of the pale vermilion and sunburst yellow. (How impossible is that dress, too? Paperdolls 2, real life 0. Still one of my favorites, improbable or no.) In my imagination, she and her sisters are still bound to the Devil, and he’s never short of jobs for them. She can wear this, then, but I doubt it would give her much pleasure anymore.

Oops! I forgot to note down the colors I used for today’s dress, and yesterday’s too, and now the pencils are all put away… Let’s see — black, pale vermilion, poppy red, sunburst yellow, yellowed orange, cream, non-photo blue, Copenhagen blue, dark umber, bronze. I think. Forgive me, I am still out of practice…

Layered Green Gown

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My friend posted this poem to her Facebook page, and for some reason — perhaps all this recent practice in letting go — it has been on my mind as I gathered my paperdoll materials over the last couple of days.

You shouldn’t attach to one thing blindly.
You shouldn’t say “I can’t live without her.”
You just shouldn’t say it.
Because you can!
There’s no need to use such clichéd words.
……Don’t love too much, for example.
If she loves you less, your heart will break.
And usually, she loves you less than you love her anyway.
If you don’t love too much, you won’t hurt a lot.
Besides, if you don’t own much, you won’t be owned either..
You shouldn’t own the building you work in,
your table, your phone, your cards..
In fact, you shouldn’t even own your hands or legs.
You should act as if they are not yours.
Then, if you don’t have anything, you won’t be afraid to lose.
You should act as if you can live without them.
For example, there shouldn’t be much furniture in your home.
You should be able to walk around clumsily.
If you insist on having something,
You should own the points where rooftops join the skies.
You should own the sky.
The sun, the moon, the stars…
For example, the northern star should be your star.
You should say “It is mine!”
If you really want something of your own,
Rainbows should be yours, for example.
If you really want to belong to something, you should belong to colors
To orange or to pink, for example.
Or you should belong to paradise.
You should live without owning much,
And not belonging to a great deal,
As if life will slip away from your hands any minute,
And as if it will be yours forever.
You should live attached to life,
Hanging onto its edge…

Can Yücel (1926-1999)

I do not think I could take the first piece of advice, whether or not it’s true; I’m too intense. But at those times when I pay for it in melancholy, it helps to belong to green. Could I be of any other color? What of you, I wonder?

Well, as you see, I’m back, or at least I will try to be! After I get out of practice, it can be difficult to draw anything, and I still feel a sort of residual stress from all that’s been going on over the past couple of months. (I tend to be a pretty upbeat person, but my temperamental moods are proportionately bad, and it gets hard to draw when I’m out of sorts. My state of mind definitely corresponds to my paperdolling proficiency.) Don’t worry about me, though: I’m very happy in my new home. I’ll write more about it soon.

A short update!

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Hello everyone! Thank you for your patience during my move. Things have been going very well so far — the cats were fine on the plane, all of our stuff made it across the country and we’ve already found an apartment. So far, the worst that has happened is that I packed my shampoo in my suitcase without closing the top properly, but even the annoyance from that was very well contained; with something like that as our biggest problem, I think we’ve been extraordinarily lucky indeed!

We are still getting the new apartment set up, and I have a hard time concentrating on anything while I feel so unsettled, but as things come together, I find myself wondering which box I packed my pencil sharpener in… Be patient with me a little while longer, and I hope to be drawing again by next week!

Black and Blue Medieval Gown with Purple Roses and Silver Underskirt

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I’m sorry I haven’t been drawing lately: I’ve really been in a slump. I’m fine, just busy and anxious: we’re moving from Michigan to Washington State on the 27th. I’m really happy about it, but it’s just really all starting to hit me.

As you see, you do not really miss all that much when I am in a slump, because if my heart’s just not into it, whatever I produce looks lousy. Certainly my intention for this dress was not “Evil Queen’s May Day.” How’d it get to look so gloomy? I could understand it if I had been listening to gloomy music while I was drawing (the kind of music Brian calls “high-school-is-hard-music”) but I wasn’t, I promise…

I can’t really say when I’ll be drawing again. If the desire isn’t there, the results are worthless, as you see. (And you’re not even seeing my first stab at coloring tonight, the 30s black and white dress done in pink — it was hideous.) The desire kind of comes and goes, somehow. I expect that once we’re in Washington State, I’ll be more cheerful, and there’s no need to worry about me because I’m perfectly fine and very lucky to be moving, I’m just being a little temperamental, I guess ^^;; Please forgive me, I’ll be back, and I haven’t forgotten about the other contest winners — I especially don’t want to do a bad job on those, so it’s really better to wait a little while for them!