Blue Empire-Waist Gown

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Taylor posted that she thought that the purple gown I put up recently seemed to her to represent “air,” with the other aimless color-centric gowns I’ve been doing recently representing other elements. I looked at the comment, then looked back at the dress, and somehow felt anxious: if that’s air, it’s certainly not a windstorm I want to be stuck in. If it is representing an elemental, I suppose it might be Shade from the Mana series… Really I had no such intentions from the start, so I’m not saying this is meant to be air, just as the others weren’t particularly meant to be earth, water, fire and so on (the orange one’s name was purely descriptive); I drew it without a narrative beyond “It’s gonna be blue. Blue, and light, and pretty.” But it is a pleasant idea that these aimless gowns have an underlying theme, unseen to me.

When I look at the five gowns of this type I’ve done, I like them well enough, but they seem to me to reveal a sort of lightly troubled unsettledness, all rough lines and emotions transferred to color. My normal focus is taking its sweet time returning to my fingers, and in the meantime I just get guilty when it’s late and I haven’t done or planned anything, so I just draw whatever comes to mind. It’s reassuring that people seem to like them anyways…

I’m happy, though. It’s good to be here. I’ve written a long post about the move, but not only does it feel more personal than what I usually write for this blog, I also don’t know what kind of paperdoll outfit should go with it. So you may or may not see that, depending on whether or not my normal creativity comes through for me!

Contest update

I’m afraid I don’t have time to do a paperdoll tonight, but I wanted to extend the contest, so I had better give you the day’s hint!

If I was going to draw an outfit from this book, I would probably do a Regency-style gown, but in the book’s original illustrations, the women were wearing styles from three decades later.

Update: Kathleen had the winning guess: my favorite book is Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Congratulations Kathleen! Let me know which dress you’d like colored and how!

Ruqun in Black with Fire Colored Sash

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Diane won my last contest, for guessing that I had 1,040 visitors on September 12th, and she wrote:
I’d like both the skirt and jacket in a shimmery black, and the trimming and belt on the jacket in a kind of “fire-colored” orange and red iridenscent type fabric. The jacket could also have some simple red-gold embroidery on it (nothing big). And the little dangly charm (I’m not sure what it’s called) could be of a gold thread/cord, with the circle ornament of green jade.

I hope you like it! I always like doing fire-colored things…

No one has won the next contest yet, so it’s still on!
What’s my favorite book?
Rules as always:
1) If you’ve already won this year, please don’t enter. (Music contest winners are OK to enter a black-and-white coloring contest though.)
2) One guess per person per day.
3) If no one gets the exact book by noon PST, September 17th, I’ll pick the closest guess.

Here’s your hint for the day: it was both written and set in the 1800s.

Gown in Pink, Green and Violet with Gold Sash

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Hannah won my contest before the last one for guessing what kind of nail polish I was wearing, and she wrote:

I was thinking about maybe the Japanese “color dress” in pinks and greens and violets with maybe some gold as an accent on the sash..?

You might have noticed I don’t do pinks all that well, but I gave it a shot. (This is actually the reason I worked on my color chart yesterday. So thanks, Hannah, I might have never got around to replacing it otherwise…) Actually the finished dress reminds me of the Barbies I played with when I was a kid in the 80s. Totally Ruffles Barbie, anyone? Anyways, I hope you like it, Hannah!

This is my color warmup week, because you know what’s coming up? Halloween! October’s always been my favorite month to paperdoll, what with the Cursed Sisters and the Good Queen and all my other beloved costumes. And I’ve got plans for this October, oh yes I do… So I need to get well reacquainted with my Prismacolors before then. I’ve got Wednesday and Thursday covered with one for Diane and one for Brian, so that means I need someone to boss me around on Friday, too… Why not — this calls for another contest!

What’s my favorite book?
Rules as always:
1) If you’ve already won this year, please don’t enter. (Music contest winners are OK to enter a black-and-white coloring contest though.)
2) One guess per person per day.
3) If no one gets the exact book by noon PST, September 17th, I’ll pick the closest guess.

I’ve certainly written about books that are among my favorites, but I don’t think I’ve ever written on this site what exactly my favorite book is. If I did and forgot about it, feel free to use my spotty memory against me, but don’t bother googling “liana kerr favorite book,” I tried that already.

New color chart!

I’m afraid I don’t have a pretty new dress for you all today — I’ve been working on this color chart, because I can’t find the original one. I’m sure it’s with my sketchbook that I was using before the move. What’s more, I’m sure I put both of them together somewhere odd and thought to myself, “I’ll be sure to remember where I put these, so I can find them immediately once we get there!” You’d think I’d know myself a little better after all these years… Still, this one is rather an improvement: Seashell Pink is in the right place, other people can read it — my handwriting still reflects early struggles with holding pencils, I’m afraid — and I blended out the edges so I can see what the colors look like both at their strongest and when they’ve been gone over with the colorless blender. (For some of them, like Spring Green and Copenhagen Blue, it makes a drastic difference.)

In other paperdoll news, I’ve added a couple of new paperdoll blogs to the blogroll: Vee’s Paper Dolls and Cutout Couture. I have a nagging feeling that someone posted a link to another new paperdoll blog while I was gone the last few months and I missed it. So if there are any other paperdoll blogs that I don’t have on my blogroll, please point me to them!

I’m going to put up another quick contest — I want to get back to drawing next week, so this week will be something of a coloring warmup. (Haven’t forgotten about you, Hannah: I’ll probably do that one tomorrow.) Here it is: How many visits did I have on September 12th, 2010?
Rules as always:
1) If you’ve already won this year, please don’t enter. (Music contest winners are OK to enter a black-and-white coloring contest though. Oh, and I haven’t forgotten about you guys either. As my penance, I’ve just been suffering crushing guilt whenever I listen to Lady Gaga. I hope to do those outfits before the end of the month.)
2) One guess per person per day.
3) If no one gets the exact color by noon PST, September 14th, I’ll pick the closest guess.

The number includes both this site and my paperdoll blog from 2004. (That link is worth a look if you haven’t noticed it already — nowhere else on the Internet will you find a genuine Star Captain Uniform, a celebration of World UFO Day and a wood duck fairy.) Since it’s such a short contest, I’ll give you a hint: the number is above 500 and below 5,000. The winner gets to pick out a black and white dress and tell me how they’d like it colored!

Update: The answer was 1,040; Diane came closest before the deadline.

Purple and Blue Gown

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I’m still not quite in the mood, as you can probably tell. But I want to be, so I’m trying. (Sufficient unto the day are the paperdolls thereof?)

I guess “paperdoll girls” isn’t inaccurate; I’m heartened, however, to see that there’s also the “paperdoll-people-my-age” contingent and beyond. Still, almost 700 votes? Wow. I’ve got a new poll for you, so don’t hold back…