Paper Dolls

I got my start as a costume designer coloring and drawing paper dolls and dressing my cloth dolls and Barbies. I remember being fascinated and empowered by how my paper doll images would darken and shrink to amazing detail for the reduced scale, using the resize function on the Xerox machine at the library. It is still fun to play with scale, but the options on my computer with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator have opened up whole new worlds of drawing and coloring fun. I still enjoy doing it the old fashioned way with pencils and pens, but its a lot of fun to scan the results and digitally too.

When I studied costume design at Ohio State University, I drew several sets of historically correct paper dolls, and I still enjoy them. I drew from early Egyptian to 1970’s USA, but several periods have come and gone since then. I’ll have to sit down sometime and draw some new ones!

My paper dolls are available for purchase as digital downloads through my Creative Connections shop. Print out as many copies as you like for your personal use! I also have a tutorial for coloring paper dolls digitally and for designing digital paper doll clothing . Please do enjoy coloring them–I do!

dolls