Being an Artist

What's it like being an artist?  Am I really an artist or just a mouse pretending to be one?  What does it take to be an artist?  These questions I often ask myself when presented with a task, a challenge, I'm not sure I can meet.  Its defeating, depressing - it causes one to have their confidence shaken.  And, shaken I was several times when trying to paint this second beach pail.  It has come to mind that when I show samples from books to customers, I should only show samples of what I know I can reproduce in miniature.  However finding this darling little pail in Life's a Beach caused me somehow to scan and send it thinking it might be fun to add to the millieu of samples.  Of course my friend, and customer chose this one.

Page from Life's a Beach

My first thought was to find some other examples of 1920's style beach scenes with similarly dressed children.  After all, the first pail was painted from a flat postcard!  And, if you look at the photo of the original pail, the image was lithographed on the side of the pail, not the front.  Due to this, the image receeds off to the right around the pail in a diminishing effect.  It was a much wider scene than what could be painted on the front of a pail.  There is also no way to know what is actually painted in the rest of the scene.  Add to this, the ridge bump in these tiny pails I have, and you have yourself in a quandry.  There were no postcards or images I could find that even came close to this, and my customer wanted this one.  I don't blame her.  It's darling!

After the initial masking and enamel spraying of the base, I had to free hand the Art Nouveau border within the confines of the front of the pail and under the ridge bump.  If the image had to be painted over the bump, it had to include only the border and sky as you wouldn't want a bump in the child's bonnet!  Yes, I often do a quick transfer to get the sizing right in these tiny scenes, however due to the nature of the original photograph, I had to free hand the child in blue.  I just about tossed the pail at this point.  I kept telling myself, "Be an artist.  You can do it."  Still my confidence was shaken, as I couldn't really get all three children in that small space.  They would have been crammed in together.  This scene was never meant to be a frontal piece.  I conferred once again with my customer, and she told me that as long as I got the two girls in there, she'd be happy.  Phew!  Well, there was still the task of the borders.

Here's another condundrum.  A metal pail is a smooth finish and it is near impossible to paint without visible brush strokes.  This does not occur on the wood surfaces I paint since they're porous, and generally flat.  Dealing with the bump, the roundness of pail and the smooth finish of metal all added to the difficulty of painting the borders with this one.  If I followed the blocking of color as done with the book pail, I would have had to design something suitable to fit in that front space, and deal with acrylic brush strokes.  I finally decided on following the color scheme, and accepting the scroll work as the border.  All the black lines were hand painted as well.  Why?  Well, some might use a Micron .05 pen, but I've tried this, and the lines come out nicer by brush.  Trust me.  They do.

We needed a picnic basket and beach ball.

After all that rigamarole, I still had to spray it with the clear, high gloss coat.  For some reason, I oversprayed and the gloss began to drip.  Ack!  I tapped the bottom on the overspray paper and shook it gently.  Drip, drip, drip.  Had I ruined it after all that work?  No.  It did dry.  It dried hard and glossy and I love this product.  Krylon Triple-Thick Clear Glaze.  Try it. (Did you know you can click on any of these photos and they enlarge?  Try it.  I know they're hard to see.)  

I haven't shown a work in progress in some time, so I've added a photo of my painting table with the pail at Stage 3.

Next?  I'm going to finish reading A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin (third book in the Game of Thrones series), and begin a dress for poor Lettie, finally. 

Speaking of losing one's confidence, that tiny Lettie Lane doll house is mocking me.  I truly have to decide at some point weather I'm going to continue painting.

Love,

Miss E. Mouse

Miss E. Mouse's painting table - pail in the works.

Fait Accompli

It has come to my attention fully, that I've much to learn when it comes to drafting patterns, or redrafting them as it may be.  The original pattern for this coat dress was way, way, way too large for this doll.  I thought that after several successes with sewing for Daisy, that this dress would have been a snap, but no way.  It took me several tries and alot of pulling at my tail to push myself to actually finish it.

The first problem was with hand-sewing scallops for the collar and cuffs.  When I'd finally decided on the best method for making the scallops, the collar was either too big or too long (crossing in the front).  When you do this intricate hand-stitching and the final product doesn't fit, you have to do the entire thing over again.  No amount of pattern drafting seemed to dimish the collar in size, so I just kept redoing the original.

A friend of mine sent me a redrafted pattern to try, but when I cut a paper towel version of it, the collar was too small and the the dress too tight.  What information she did offer, which was excellent and worked beautifully, was to make buttonhole stitches in the dress to loop the belt through.  There again, I had to practice on my new machine with these as I couldn't get the attachment foot to work, so these had to be done manually.  It scared the pie out of me when sewing them, for if they didn't come out well, the entire dress would be ruined.  Rather akin to gluing and nailing latches on a hand-painted wooden trunk.  

Lastly, the hat would be made to complete this ensemble and since I'd made two of these in the past, it went rather quickly.  The dress is made of a tea-dyed yellow linen and the collar and cuffs from a cotton twill.  The belt, shank buttons and bow are black velveteen, as is the straw hat's band.  It was necessary for me to pursue this to the end as Lettie Lane seems to have many outfits with scalloped collars!  Mercy!

I will call this Daisy's Birthday Dress since March 15 marks her 101th birthday.

Love,

Miss E. Mouse 



The mess of patterns and failed efforts!



This Bud's For You

The rain came back this afternoon quite unexpected, and now it is simply grey, drizzly and cold.  Is there a better way, then, to spend the afternoon than on reflection of a project finally realized? 

 Last summer I acquired a reproduction of the Lettie Lane Doll House doll.  It was ever the intention to work on a kit to dress the doll with a respected doll artist.  She'd develop the dress pieces, and I would make the hats to go into the kit.  This, of course, did not come to fruition, so I was left with a hat mold I was not truly happy with, although the hat it made was lovely.  So when I was asked to make the dress and hat for a customer and friend a few months ago, I agree to do it.  But, finding a good match to the blue on white print from 100 years ago was impossible.  Many have said they would make it on the computer, but I have tried such a thing long ago when dressing doll house dolls and the ink is never a deep enough color.  So almost having given up, my friend gave me the green light to make it in a fabric of my choosing.  I chose a tiny yellow rose bud Lawn. 

The design of the dress is true to the original as well as the size of the straw hat.  The little skirt piece was pleated, pressed with a craft iron, and hand sewn onto the one piece bodice.  The dress on this 3" doll is completely hand stitched, and the lace was hand sewn on as well.  While the original dress was sewn onto the doll, I couldn't follow suit since I did not have my friend's doll.  I added two tiny shank buttons and made equally tiny thread loops.  The result is a dress that can be removed, and a dolly that just might get more clothing in the future. 

The new mold for the hat was made with a button and a round box.  It actually worked quite well, and this one I'll keep for future hats should there be any requests.  I'm pleased with the outcome and so is my customer.  My Lettie was proud to show off the little dressed doll, even though she has yet to receive a new dress herself.  One thing at a time.

I just discovered something about the blogsite.  You can click on the photos and they will enlarge for you!  Also, you'll notice that the last three posts are more evenly layed out.  I think I have an old computer and some upgrade must have occurred to correct the problems I was having earlier.  The wide spaces, etc., were never an intention. 

Here's to yellow rose buds!  This one is for you.

Love,

Miss E. Mouse

Pail Memories of Summer

"Wherever it is likely that you grew up in America between 1880 and 1950 and played along a shoreline during balmy summer days, you owned a beach pail."  (Theriaults)  And, today these beautifully lithographed beach pails from long ago, the ones that managed to survive, sun, sand and rust, are highly prized by collectors. They were often thematic with nursery scenes, anthropomorphic animals, and naturally, children playing by the shore. 

Back last summer a customer commissioned me to paint her a little beach pail for the 1911 Daisy doll.  As with all my projects I carefully reseach and dream until the vision is clear between my little mouse ears as to how I wish to approach the piece.  Finding a suitable little pail the correct size, and not some cheaply made wedding favor, was quite a task.  What I eventually found was a set of Hallmark votive candles melted into three little vintage-type pails.  I was delighted, and of course bought them.  Preparing them for the hand-painted scene I wished to do was another matter.  Getting the wax out was the first matter to solve.  What I discovered was that hitting the metal with a hair dyrer would loosen the wax until you could pop out the candle.  Thinking this was the end of the story, I tried to enamel spray paint the pail thinking it would cover the existing paint such as you see on the green pail.  This was not to be the case as the enamel ran into a sticky mess.  The problem?  Wax had dispersed somehow on the exterior as well as thinly coating the interior.  To solve this problem I took a bottle of Pure Acetone and scrubbed away at the little pail for hours removing any existing wax and paint, such as you see in the black pail.

Next was to mask off the interior, the edges and the handle at separate times to enamel spray the pail red and the handle gold, leaving the edges the original black of the pail.  I had a very good idea of how I wished to pail to look as I was trying to emulate a pail from around the same time Daisy was "born", which had been lithographed with Art Nouveau borders around a serene Victorian display of children playing in the sand.   This pail was shown in the Theriault's book Life's a Beach.  The wonderous pails and tin beach toys within those pages were enchanting and highly inspiring.  Yet after several days of base paint preparations, time and tide saw me working on a variety of other projects appropriate to the seasons before I could once again pick up the pail and begin the task of painting the beach scene and border.

By the time the first of January rolled around, I'd been mocked for several months by this little pail, and I seriously doubted whether or not I could actually paint it.  Out of practice painting in miniature, I began very slowly once again selecting an appropriate scene that would be size appropriate for the pail.  I chose one of a little girl and her brother startled by a little crab racing along the shore that I found on the Internet.  The little girl takes her shovel and tries to shoo the pinching shell creature back into the water...or perchance into her own little beach pail.  The color scheme I chose closely resembles the original, although altered to blend with a shiny red pepper pail.  The Nouveau gold enamel work, purple pansies and scroll corners at the top were inspired by the pail in Life's a Beach.

The last and nerve wracking thing to do, once the painting was complete, was to spray it with a high gloss finish to protect the artwork and enamel.  I knew the gloss would adhere nicely to acrylic paint, enamel and to metal, but would this work on the combination?  I took a deep breath and gently sprayed the gloss back and forth wetting it thoroughly.  It took two coats and the result is what you see. 

As you can see there are two more pails to do something with.  Perhaps I'll do another.  One for my own Daisy.  Perhaps two, and sell the other.   When the winter winds whip hard and snow blankets the ground, it is the memories of summer that keep us warm.

Love,

Miss E. Mouse 

Surely we love sewing beautiful dresses and coats for our dollies, but how often do we remember that they, too, need a little more than panties? So with Lettie, I decided to start from the bottom, up, dressing her. I used the original pattern set from 1911 for her underwaist, half slip and drawers. Working with a fine batiste and a pretty lace, I managed to stitch her up some underclothing.

I noticed when cutting out the drawers that they would have been mighty tight, making sitting comfortably, impossible. So I widened the pattern piece giving her enough room that when wearing the drawers they wouldn't pull around her waist or thighs. I also had a second opportunity to perfect stitching lace on with a sewing machine. By using a tiny zig-zag and placing the edge of the fabric next to the edge of the lace, it attaches like a whip-stitch, only tighter and more permanently. Any areas missed by the machine can be easily hand stitched into place. Lettie also needed socks and slip-ons, so I made those up as well. She'll need brown boots, pink slip-ons and white beach shoes as well, but those will come in time.

Along with making her undergarments, I decided it was high time to learn the proper way of making thread loops for button closures. People kept telling me to use a button hole stitch and it was confounding! "Two threads and a buttonhole stitch", they kept insisting. It came to mind as I was researching such stitches that the term buttonhole stitch was being used most likely because we were attempting to use the loop as a button closure. In actuality, its a blanket stitch over two strands of thread. If you begin your loop from the right by inserting your needle into the cloth, come up a 1/4" to the left (or however large you need the loop to be), and come back over to the right to make a little loop, you can begin the process of making blanket stitches over the thread. I felt like I was earning a mousy merit badge in knot tying doing this, but the results were great. Here are some photos to help you make one.

Nowhere on the Internet could I find examples of how to make one, so I honestly hope these help. My gift to you! They make the outfit so much nicer as an heirloom piece.

Currently I'm working on a dress for Daisy, now that Lettie is "decent". I'm attempting a scalloped collar and cuffs for the yellow coat dress. After much frustration with this and three collars later, I discovered that the original pattern had to be redrawn as a Peter Pan collar, then scalloped. I'm doing this by hand and not machine, and will share with you how I did it in my next post.

Back to the task!

Love,
Miss E. Mouse

Welcome 2012, The Year of Lettie Lane

Just as promised, I am typing one pawed to bring you the last post of 2011. And, there I am! Being tenderly upheld by my new little muse, Lettie Lane. She will be the star of 2012 as her doll house was introduced in The Ladies' Home Journal 100 years ago in the year 1912.

I have long loved the Lettie Lane paper dolls illustrated by Sheila Young, and this particular one, "Pictures of a Little American Girl", just spoke to my heart and I decided she must come to life as a friend for Daisy.

This beautiful antique reproduction was made by the stellar doll artist, Connie Zink, of Land of Oz Dolls, to my exacting specification. Unlike Daisy, she is a German Kestner 174 mold. My intention, and you know I'm good to my word, is to bring to life her clothing from her paper doll page. Just yesterday I ventured out of my little hole in the wall and joined a friend of mine on a journey to San Francisco's Britex Fabrics store on Maiden Lane in Union Square. I bought so many beautiful fabrics in cotton silks, cotton sateens, and cotton velveteens to make these lovely outfits. Ribbons, threads, laces and trims joined the shopping bag and I'm ready to begin 2012 sewing for Lettie Lane.

Is she truly Lettie? We like to believe that the Lettie Lane Paper Dolls depict "Lettie" in all her forms. And, because my Daisy is a blonde and blue eyed little lass, my Lettie had to be her own girl and thusly a brunette with brown eyes. She is wearing a "Lettie" wig purchased from Dollspart Supply, and she will have all the stockings, shoes and hats to go with her lavish wardrobe.

2011 has been an incredible year overall, and it saw Miss E. Mouse add a new dimension to her work as an heirloom doll accessorist, in the form of sewing doll clothing.

So ring in the bells and settle into a gentle winter embracing the beloved pasttimes of reading good books, playing dolls and keeping those little paws busy creating beauty in every corner of your life.

Love,

Miss E. Mouse

A Daisy Christmas or Merry Christmouse

It hardly seems another year has come and gone. Its been a very dry and chilly winter solstice, but for a mouse, the dry leaves remain a joy to scurry through. With so much behind us, and so very much ahead, I remain inspired and never tire from one project to the next. Certainly November was a month of very hard work, and sometimes into the night, but Miss E. Mouse is pleased with what came out of it. The December 1911 issue of The Ladie's Home Journal is truly the most outstanding and lovely of the five Daisy issues offered. There were so many pages of gorgeous illustrations of items a girl could make for Christmas, and pages of cut-out paper toys for dolls. One of them was A Christmas Tree For the Dolls, and of this, I made a peg wooden affair in the exact size from the issue.

There were two pages that enchanted me as well, and these were Christmas gifts made in Cretonne, a cabbage rose design. I chose to make the Sewing Chair, The Colonial Work Bag, and the doilly boxes from these pages. But, one of the most enchanting, was the Snow Baby Cake from the "dainties" page. Before I'd even begun making this cake, I had to find tiny snow babies and was very lucky to find a miniature doll shoppe that carried them, made by a lady in England.

The Snow Baby Cake was quite an undertaking as it was made of air drying clay and took a week and a half to completely "bake". The frosting was made from modeling gel, and I made the tiny mistletoe, myself, from scrapbooking leaves and milk glass beads from Prague.

The Colonial Work Bag was yet another intricate challenge. Nada Christensen made the tiny porcelain head on a shoulder plate and even attached it with elastic stringing so the head would turn. The tiny arms are about 1/2" long or smaller! And, just what is a Colonial Work Bag? Nowhere could I find a true definition, so Miss E. Mouse claims it to be a Dolly Work Bag. Much study of the illustration brought me to design the bag "dress" as a drawstring bag opening up under the apron. If you asked me how I did all this, I could barely tell you today as I just fiddled with it all until it came together. Her hair is tiny bits of curled mohair under a silk bonnet. One photo I never took a good one of, details that there is a covered "button" at the bottom of the bag. Girls could use the bag to decorate their dressers or door knobs, too.

The Sewing Chair is a novelty that I think has transcended time. If you look in fabric stores, I believe Mary Englebreit made similar notions. This little chair's base is wood, of course, and I covered in it Cretonne. It even has "stuffing" to feel like a real chair and could be used as Dolly's pin cushion. The chair seat lifts on Shaker style pegging. I included two tiny threaded spools, a needle, and a tiny pair of working scissors.

Two Dolly Varden costumes were made for Daisy. I kept one for my own doll. The one you see in the photo was the first one The Ruffle Queen made. So very many more ruffles than the Pumpkin Costume. This was an original Daisy pattern from the Christmas page of patterns for her. And, who is Dolly Varden? I never found out. So much for Google. I'd like to think she was a lady from the stories and illustrations of Kate Greenaway. The dress pattern and hat is certainly reminiscent of that era. This dress was made from a beautiful new Japanese cloth call Yuwa. Its a delicate cotton with a lovely drape printed from vintage inspired patterns. Pink velveteen bands the hat and makes up the cumberbund and drawstring bag. I even added a little silk embroidery to the hat band. I really love the way the Dolly Varden outfit came out. It was for "a Christmas party" for Daisy.

Finally, I just finished this little apron from Daisy's School Page of patterns. Its the perfect little touch to keep her Christmas finery neat and tidy while she bakes cookies. This pattern was particularly difficult for me since the apron is completely lined. Even the pockets are lined, and 1/2" covered buttons are used on the side tabs, and to close the back. As I teach myself how to sew and put these patterns together, I'm gaining as much useful knowledge as any of the accessories and toys have given me in the past. I've added a new dimension to my work!

One of the nicest gifts I got this year was from a dear friend who sent me a set of tiny Hallmark ornaments of mini sewing mice! The acknowledgment was loving and encouraging.

I promise this will not be my last blog of the year. I have so much to share about where my work is headed in 2012. Daisy's 100th birthday year has been fabulous. She has really stolen my heart, and yet the horizon is bright for someone new and equally wonderful.

Wishing you all a holiday filled with warmth, joy, and definitely a little cheese!

Love,

Miss E. Mouse