When I was working on my blog post on large dollhouses, I came across this great artist called Kevin Jackson, who creates the most astonishing projects in the Tudor doll house style.
And I knew that I had to write a blog post on him and his work, so I contacted him.
But most of all: he responded and I'm grateful that he wanted to give me some more information about his journey to creating these amazing houses and I'm sure that you will too!
So let's dive straight into things!
A Little History On The Artist and his Tudor dollhouses
Kevin Jackson had a very successful and interesting career in building full-size show houses at exhibitions in the UK for 20 years.
After he retired, he started building unique and one-of-a-kind 12th-scale Tudor doll houses.
Building these doll houses started out as a hobby, but it has now turned into a full-time occupation.
After building and selling his first Tudor doll house, Kevin decided to visit a dollhouse and miniature show and was surprised to find a lack of interesting, character doll houses available.
After doing more research, Kevin found out that the majority of the dollhouses for sale had mostly the same designs.
Most of them were made from precision-cut panels, with mass-produced windows, walls, doors, etc, and there were very few people who specialized in a Tudor doll house.
At that exact moment, he decided to develop his own range and style of Tudor houses, incorporating as much detail as possible, and thus "KJ Dolls Houses" was born!
How Does Kevin Jackson Work - The Process on the Tudor doll houses
As Kevin does not follow any detailed plans but instead relies on his own imagination to create each house, no 2 houses are ever the same, the designs evolve as he works.
Each house is on a scale of 1:12 and takes approximately 2 to 6 months to build, and prices range from £2000.00 to in excess of £12000.00 plus.
He pays a lot of attention to detail and the use of good quality materials, which makes them valuable as collector items for the quality-seekers for dollhouse enthusiasts.
All the wood for the beams, posts, floor boards, bargeboards, and brackets is solid timber as the grain of real wood gives a more realistic finish, yet in miniature size.
All the steps to do in his work:
- The wood is wire brushed to bring the grain of the timber out.
And the edges are then carefully distressed to give an aged appearance, before receiving at least 3 coats of stain.
- The leaded windows are handmade with a special finish on the ‘glass effect’ which gives it a