2021 Topic 2 A Pocketful of Dolls with LPC {by Leandra Franich}

 2021 Topic 2: A Pocketful of dolls {by Leandra Franich}

It's Leandra tonight with an actual blog post! Working with limited supplies and scavenged stamps from the 'spares' pile, she's pulled together a very tall booklet of pockets to house her Lynne Perrella ladies. There's a kind of regal feel to them. On a more practical level, these could be a selection of bookmarks, but maybe they are destined for bigger things...they might  eventually end up on a canvas on the wall! For now, they are safe in their pockets.

Hi everyone, really nice to be sharing some art with you today

 

I imagined this post when planning the blog topics last year. I had seen some of the stamps that Lynne Perrella was planning with us for 2021, and there is a big doll vibe, so I guess that has been on my mind thinking a lot about her release coming up in March. As a warm up, last week I was mucking about with this concept, albeit a bit more complicated than I've shown here today, for a new Hot Pick release we have coming up (next week!). And then, serendipitously, Instagram popped up with an IG live from @megan_whisner_quinlan (whose creative style I totally love) and lo and behold, she was also thinking along similar lines using Lynne Perrella heads with her scrap printed papers to make dolls for her journal pages - you should go check out her feed to see what she created. I watched some of Megan's live, it was pretty late here in Europe and I went to sleep thinking of my project. I woke up the next day super-inspired for a series of tall LPC dolls.

For this project I wanted to strip things back and go quite simple. Muted colours, neutral balance, and simple decoration details on the dolls. A lot of my stripped-back play is due to having zero craft stuff at my fingertips (not a bad thing) but ALL my stuff is still packed up in boxes until we have  redecorated and figured out where my craft space actually will be! So it's going to be a while... and lucky for me I can raid the pile of rejected stamps, half bottles of paints, and what more do you need right?! Anyway...these very posh looking ladies ended up double sided (mostly to ensure the necks were supported so the hardest part was getting the heads to work from both the front and the back.

I started out choosing a colour palette from the Fresco Paint Range ...

 

Grey Blues (Wolf Eye, Blue Smoke, Blue Jeans)

 

 

Neutrals (Taupe, Truffle, Eggshell), 

 

 

Grey Greens (Toad Hall, Khaki, Lichen),

 

 

...and a pop of warm (Caramel and Sand). 

 

I used eggshell constantly, to soften the tone back. At first I started with Eggshell and the lightest of each shade to make some backing cards, these I thought I would stamp the faces on. But I ended up stamping all the faces on the left hand sheet.

 

The stamps were from Lynne Perrella Sets....

 

There are plenty of Lynne Perrella stamps that work so well for this. I used really small faces, but there are many much larger options too!

For the bodies I followed the same background idea with the 2 darker shades...

 

 

... and over-stamped with the other lighter colours, allowing the colours to blend as I went so that the paints of each pallet were being used in a blended way on top of each of the backing papers.

 

I used a variety of stamps over the backgrounds, you might recognise some Sara Naumann and Scrapcosy stamps from the January releases. Follow those links for stockists.

From these scraps I drew bodies to fit on the stamped heads/ shoulders. I wanted the dolls to fit into tall narrow pockets - my pockets needed to fit within encyclopedia columns, so I was thinking VERY tall and narrow!

 

 

You can see I scribbled the shape and added scraps of book paper to tie in with the pockets, plus a bit of stamping in black here and there. These are double sided, so here is side A....

 

 

... and here is side B....really good fun and pretty sure I could have made a castle full of these, they do look quite regal!

 

Next for the construction of the 'doll holder'. Old book pages from an encyclopedia were glued together 2 high and 3 wide. They were pretty fragile, so I knew they needed doubling up somehow. 

 

 

It was clear each doll could perfectly fit in a 'column', so I made folds to pull a whole section up and then zig-zag across. It felt sturdier.

 

 

Last week the girls used a weird kind of pastry we have found here, i think it is called 'brick'. It's like a cross between filo pastry and normal, but is good for making spring roll shaped baked things that would have a savory or sweet filling. Once cooked it ends up crunchier than pastry but less flaky than filo. Anyway, in between each layer of these crepe looking circles is waxed paper! See-through waxed paper!!! I nabbed the whole pile to try out for gel printing (when I find my gel plates) but for this project they were also ideal to create see-through pockets! 

 

 

And yup, glue is also missing in a box somewhere, but a sewing machine is easier to find! And so stithces became my glue. I stitched rectangles into place, and numbers above each doll, and names for each doll too.

 

 

And I also stitched along each fold-edge to give a bit more structure

 

 

Here's the 'pocket' detail...

 

 

So now I just needed to slot the dolls in!

 

Here you can see the whole set up, and then I went on to decorate the 'cover'

It's fun when small stamps can become the beginning of  something bigger! And even the same face can look different if you mix up the box-background.

The cover was from used up scraps with another Sara Naumann stamp and I also used her new stencil with some Grunge Paste on the cover too!

 

A few close up details

 

Super happy with how the waxed paper worked for this project, it's nice to still see through each pocket!

Here's a better look at the front cover. I kept it understated, the dolls then taking centre stage once the 'door' is opened.

 

I really enjoyed this project, it fell into place from start to finish. And look, my tulips popped up just in time for the photo shoot!

 

Thanks for joining me today, 

 

If you want to share your 'pocketful' creations, head on over to PaperArtsy People, where we really love to see what you get up to or tag me on Intagram @PaperArtsy !

 

Stay safe

 

Leandra