When life gives you lemons, draw them, 11 x 14 inches dry pastels, graphite on paper

"When life gives you lemons, draw them." (Nikki)

"Color! What a deep and mysterious language." (Paul Gauguin)

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Colours For Cameron

October 12, 2012


 

Colours For Cameron_24L x 6H x 6D inches cotton fabrics and mixed media Colours For Cameron Colours For Cameron, mixed media on muslin pages

Colours For Cameron, yellow textured rubber ball Colours For Cameron, $1 store green cotton washing mitt Colours For Cameron, purple sequin fabric

Colours For Cameron, 24L x 8H x 6D inches, mixed media on quilted muslin over cardboard pages

“Colours For Cameron” (Canadian spelling!) is composed over five deconstructed heavy-duty cardboard children’s books bought at a dollar store. The Monte head-templates were covered with inexpensive everyday items, so I splurged on unique notions like the $10 monkey button sewn on the ‘Brown’ page, and the cute little cars and tractors that Cameron loves. Some of the fabrics were fairly expensive, but there are enough remnants to make other similar-style projects in the future.

Each page is a quilted muslin sleeve pulled over the cardboard, and colored fabrics divide each page at the base, where they are all sewn and glued together. Rubber letters were covered with various fabrics, and each page has stuffed colored pockets on the outer edge, inviting chubby little fingers to open them..

Colours For Cameron, felt, waxed blue string, buttons Colours For Cameron, soft, cuddly orange fabric Colours For Cameron, silk flowers, felt

 Colours For Cameron, silver fabric Colours For Cameron, red feathers, felt and pom-poms Colours For Cameron, heavy-weight gold paper, circles cut from a dish-cleaning scratchpad, felt, pom-poms

Since I only had a vague plan; just resolving the design as it developed, I’m glad the cover was last, because it was much trickier and took three tries. I went the extra mile to use nice, seamless thick cardboard for the final layer of binding, which looked great, but upon trying to open the book, it would not! That beautiful, straight piece ended up being bent over a table edge at every page. It’s always worth the effort to make useful things beautiful, but if the beauty impedes on the practically, then it’s not so beautiful after all, is it?!

I found a perfect black, 100% cotton with white dots embroidered on it, planning to paint each dot different colors, but when the whole thing was assembled, edited that out. Enough is enough with all the buttons and textures sticking out. Velcro-ed handles keep the book closed, and also makes it comfortably portable.

Colours For Cameron, pink plastic on plastic drawing game, sewn on so fingernails can make marks Colours For Cameron, white fun fur Colours For Cameron, black fun-fur, felt

 

Other details: I saved more $ by making my own piping by sewing black stretch-velvet over piping rope, which can be purchased in bags of 12 foot lengths or more. Piping was carefully glued around each plastic googly-eye — not hot glue; crazy glue or equivalent. The googly eyes were $1 store items; much more expensive at craft/sewing stores. Eyes with piping were gently inserted then hot-glued into holes of the Monte face template, then after hot-gluing the face onto the muslin page, each was also lined with black piping to tidy. The final page has three squeakers (removed from dollar store dog toys) placed under the face.

Colours For Cameron, last page: pom-poms, button, squeakers inserted from dog toys

Categories: 3D, children, design, experimental, innovation, mixed media, Smile | Comments Off on Colours For Cameron

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