June Book Review: 'Mixed Media Dollhouses' by Tally Oliveau and Julie Molina

When I started thinking about of branching out my doll art, doll dioramas seemed daunting and expensive. But after downloading this book, this art form seems a lot less intimidating.

Here Oliveau and Molina bring together a variety of artists to create dollhouses from altered art assemblage (art thats a combo of 2D and 3D works). The featured dollhouses have insane themes, like the Wonderland House, the Under the Sea and my favorite the Treehouse. Through assembling different shaped boxes, collage pasting and a little tool work, what’s amazing is that the houses have no real pattern, yet the different rooms mesh together beautifully! Of all the dollhouses in existence, you’ll never find one equal to these.

The book covers wide ground, from design concept to construction. For example, the chapter on box structure shows how to widen a box room, and how to manipulate the box frame just to add a little depth and twist. But the authors really emphasize the amazing collision of 2D to 3D features throughout the dollhouses, from using wire to make features spring and stick out to using different wallpapers for contrasting background to make even the most bland room wall seem alive! 

Just flipping through this book again and again gives me new ideas for dollhouse making. I wish the kindle edition had made the pictures bigger so the reader can see all the amazing detail that was put into each room! There are up to seven rooms in each house, so why do the work suggest and show them! There’s always some new technique or design that would be a delight to create a beautiful home for my growing doll collection. 

Final Score: 3/5 (for layout)