DATE: Sunday, November 16, 1997             TAG: 9711140247

SECTION: CAROLINA COAST          PAGE: 18   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: CREATIVE LICENSE 

SOURCE: Mary Ellen Riddle 

                                            LENGTH:   74 lines

YOUNG ARTIST CREATES FASHION FOR A PAPER DOLL DRESS SHOP VISIT SPARKS INTEREST IN CLOTHING

RAMIE SANDERLIN can't say when she began drawing.

``It's too far back - I don't remember,'' said the Manteo middle schooler.

Her mother, Louise, recalls though. ``On the walls,'' she said with a laugh. ``It's still there. Her father said it's all right because you wouldn't want to stifle her creativity.''

At age 11, rosy-cheeked Ramie is going strong in the creativity department. The sixth-grader loves to draw and has been entering school art contests since first grade. She's won awards every year (except for one when she chose not to enter).

Ramie brought out a stack of pictures she's been working on. The white papers are covered with illustrations of clothing. She makes them for her paper doll Ariel that she cut out of a Walt Disney coloring book. But the clothing designs are Ramie originals.

Ramie designed Ariel a checkerboard Christmas dress and a midnight blue silver-lined date dress, a wild nightgown and robe with a matching bedspread. She has red, white and blue Olympic-style exercise clothes and a frilly Bavarian outfit that she wears when she's at work. There's an Easter dress accented at the wrist, waist and hem with flowers, a sleek mall dress and a black and purple mini dress adorned with multi-colored daisies.

She even has a fin bracelet. Oh, that's right. Ariel is a mermaid. And the fact that she has a tail hasn't thwarted Ramie in the least.

``I know it looks weird, but I tried to contrast the colors to the tail,'' she said. Her orange mall dress works well. ``It's a very bright color. It would stand out under the water, and it goes with Ariel's red hair and the green of the fin.''

Why make clothes for a mermaid?

``I love to swim, and I'm always tired of Ariel swimming along wearing the same old thing,'' Ramie said.

Except for the mall dress, Ariel is entirely button-less. Ramie won't wear any clothes that have buttons, and she's fashioned Ariel after her own tastes. Clad in loose fitting pants and a sweatshirt, Ramie screams, ``I hate buttons.''

``I had a nightmare, and there was this little thing swirling around and coming at me and it was a button,'' she said firmly. Despite her dislike of buttons, Ramie's design sense took the upper hand because the mall dress has three on the bodice. ``It just needed something,'' she said.

Her mom thinks a trip to a Williamsburg hat and dress shop two summers ago sparked Ramie's interest in clothing.

``There was this gorgeous satin dress in there, and I wanted it so much,'' Ramie said. She felt the same way about a dress she found in a doll catalog. So Ramie designed a similar one for herself and asked for it for Christmas. Santa must have been listening, because Ramie came down Christmas morning and found a bright blue taffeta dress of her own design draped over a chair.

It seems like it would be easier to just buy clothes for her paper dolls and herself at the store. But that wouldn't satisfy the strong-minded adolescent. ``Because I don't think you can find what's in your mind,'' she said.

Ramie hasn't had any art lessons to date. Or as she puts it, ``I taught my dang self how to draw.''

She's not sold on being a professional artist someday, because she doesn't want to draw under deadline. ``It takes at least a week to perfect it, to get it the way I like it,'' she said. ``Right now it doesn't matter when I finish. I could finish when I'm 80.''

When asked how she felt about having artistic talent, Ramie scoffed: ``Everybody can draw, even a little baby scribble scrabbles on the wall and it's art.'' Imagine that. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by DREW WILSON

Ramie Sanderlin of Manteo, winner of numerous art contest awards,

creates clothing for her paper doll Ariel. She has elaborate

fashions for Christmas, dates, mall shopping, the Olympics and

Easter.

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