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Monday, September 25, 2017

Happy Birthday, Izannah Walker!

Izannah Walker, born in Rhode Island in 1817, began making her dolls in the 1840's.  They are believed to be the first commercial dolls made in America.  They are made of pressed cloth, using several different dies which gave each doll a unique character.  The patent under her name was not filed until 1873, and the dolls after the patent have a different painting style.

They are beautiful dolls, stylized yet lifelike.  A group I belong to online is celebrating Izannah's birthday, and several ladies have made beautiful doll creations to celebrate Izannah's birthday.  I decided to do a drawing, trying to achieve some likeness of the doll -- it is harder to do than it looks -- that face is very simple but kind of defies being reproduced with drawing or sculpting.  I tried to get as many of the features in this drawing as possible, the childish nose, full but small lips, stylized neck, feathery eyebrows, etc.... so this is my interpretation using pencil and watercolor pencil.




             Happy Birthday to Izannah Walker!


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