Christmas Nativity Nesting Doll Set

 

To celebrate Christmas this year I painted this 7 piece Nativity nesting doll set. This set featured a special design which I had never attempted before - a 'three-headed' doll with three characters on one doll! Instead of using up nearly half the set on Magi, I painted them all on the same single doll. This was tricky and time-consuming to paint but I like the result and will be experimenting more with my nesting doll designs in future.

My favourite doll to paint was the largest - the Angel Gabriel. This set features a lot of 'dotting' details as I felt they simulated the look of jewels and intricate embroidery. I always find wings to take a very long time to paint due to the amount of individual feathers, but they are a challenge that I enjoy and I am very happy with how the Angel's wings turned out. I also included hands in this set, this is a recent permanent change to my nesting doll designs - I will continue including hands from now on as I love the extra narrative elements they bring to the designs. I do need to work on getting the correct proportion between the hands and face though.

I started designing this set 2 years ago, but only found the time to paint it this year - and happily I finished it just in time for Christmas 2021! It took me around 50 hours to paint all 7 dolls - and over 15 hours each for the largest two dolls. 

I started this set in the same way I usually do - by creating 2D designs in my sketchbook. I then scanned and coloured these designs digitally. I also researched the Nativity story as I wanted to include some symbolic details such as the lilies and staff held by Joseph, and the crown of roses on Mary. You can see from above that my original order for the dolls was Angel > Magi > Joseph > Mary > Shepherd > Ox > Jesus. This was changed for the painted set as I wanted Mary to be closer in size to Jesus, however I do feel that perhaps I should have left the original order and it's a bit weird for the shepherd boy to be larger than Mary. 

Above: My original design for the three-sided Magi nesting doll. I had to improvise the seams between the three designs as I was painting the actual doll.

I only decided what to write on the Angel's scroll after I'd finished painting everything else. I went with an Italian bible verse relating to the Nativity. Seeing my original designs above, it's always interesting to compare how far deviated the final painted dolls are from the designs. As I design a flat 2D drawing, it's never going to replicate exactly on to the doll - I have to work out whilst painting how the front and back will flow together, plus the curve of the 3D surface can distort features. Thus, I consider the designs to be guidelines only and don't worry too much about matching them.

As a special bonus, this was my first time recording myself painting a set of nesting dolls! I took 50 hours of footage and edited it down into a 30 minute video showing my process. I didn't find filming as difficult as I thought it would be - I was limited to painting only during daylight hours, which in the winter was 10 am - 3 pm. So I couldn't pull any late-nighters to get the set finished quicker.

I didn't do any fancy shots, but a simple overhead camera. I also didn't add any narration, but for future videos I would like to add subtitles. Technically I went to Film School, so I did my best with the editing - there is definitely a lot of room for improvement!

I plan to keep recording my painting process, for a first try I am quite pleased with how this video turned out. I certainly learnt a lot and will try a few things differently next time. 

Above: Opening the completed set!