This piece was finished on Sunday morning, just in time for my sister's baby shower (in true Karen fashion, I completed my work on time, though JUST in time!).
I'm very happy with the results! The idea came to me back in November I think, when I was thinking about making a special from-the-heart shower present for my sister, but it took a little longer to decide on the size & arrangement of the squares. You wouldn't believe how frustrating it was, for someone like me who likes things to be "just so", to be working with an alphabet that has 26 letters! Somehow, miraculously, it came to me at the last minute that, yes, the "y" & "z" could be combined on one square, making it a perfect 5 x 5 arrangement. Really, you have no idea how much I agonized over this! And the solution was SO SIMPLE!
My second challenge was working out the colours for the background. I had originally thought to mix the colours (having prepared an whole wack of oranges, corals, pinks, and greens)...but when put them together, began to fuss...finally resolving on the 3 shades of green...ironically enough, just like some of my more visually simplistic jewellery pieces. I guess sometimes lessons do need to be learned more than once!
The third & final challenge was picking out fun animals, food, instruments, plants, WHATEVER seemed appropriate for a child's room ABC art. I must add here that I got some help from various images found on-line (in all forms of media), and even from other artists work, as I found myself wondering what an owl looked like!
After all this was settled, the piece came along quite nicely...but the design did take some prep work.
Now I find myself brainstorming and even scanning through dictionaries to find other THINGS that may be represented in clay & become representatives for the letters of the alphabet...the follow-up to this design will be letter squares personalized to children's names...so I need all the THINGS I or YOU can think of...I welcome your strokes of genius!
Visit & join my Facebook Fan Page (link on the right side of your screen) for more photos...I will be adding a new folder to include the image above & individual images of each letter.
4 comments:
should add that this piece is in a 19.75" x 19.75" white shadow box frame, with about 5" border of white mat space surrounding the clay tiles...I had some trouble photographing such a large piece!
when are you selling these?
well, I have one batch of colour squares almost ready for letters & "things" (leftovers from the original rejects, but they're working together well as a new & different colour scheme!)...and as far as the custom orders, I am ready to take them right away!
Wow, this piece is gorgeous!
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