fairy paper doll

I think I might be a little obsessed with paper dolls lately. Here's another one! This is a fairy I painted with watercolors and egg tempera on paper.
I love how they can be posed! Azalea and I played with her for awhile, rearranging her petals and leaves, placing her in front of different backdrops and coming up with ideas for her name. She thought of 'Lyra', while I said 'Grunty' or even better, 'Wingding'. I find it amusing to come up with really weird names and see Azalea's face. Its so cute how she tries to be nice about my horrible choice of names.
Here are a few samples I made before finishing the doll. The one on the left is the first draft that I used to make the pattern. The strangely colored version is one I printed on our printer (the black ran out) to use as a test to make sure the limbs looked natural when assembled.
This is the finished painting, with the pencil lines still on it. I like this girl. Her palette was inspired by Jack-in-the-Pulpits (a bizarre woodland flower that grows in our backyard) and a lovely butterfly called a Blue Pansy.

I have to admit I find making these pretty relaxing. I work on them between projects, or when I start getting stressed out. Of course, I am getting pretty frazzled with Art Fest just a couple of weeks away! I'm not worried about teaching, or having enough materials, or if folks will get their monies worth - I know the projects and am not stingy with information, so I think it will be good. I worry about things like sending the materials, which are sensitive, that could leak, or be ruined by some over enthusiastic person checking packages. I just need to have faith that things will arrive safely. Anyway, I've been working non-stop on the classes to make sure they are amazing.