There are so many times I am completely floored by the artwork Peanutman creates. Not necessarily b/c of any wildly prodigious talent - just b/c it's so darn cool, and I can totally envision it hanging on the wall looking equally as cool. I saved all of his first mottled fingerpaintings where everything turned into big swirls of dark purple - I thought it'd be so fabulous to make 200 copies and tile a wall with them! Never got to that, but I did get to this one! These mod mirror-image cutouts he did with black & white construction paper in 3rd grade have been floating around my studio for a few years, waiting for me to give them their props.
[This is one of 2 artwork "preservation" projects I did this weekend. The other one is much smaller, but I'll share that another day this week.]
I scanned the very faded original artwork (shown below), vectorized it in Illustrator and smoothed it out a bit. I have a gargantuan stack of unused frames in a box; these two 11" x 14" frames were just perfect. I simply printed one, then reversed the colors and printed another. So it's like a mirror image of mirror images...or something like that. I even had him sign his work...cute cursive.
You could easily take a portion of your kids' artwork that you like and do something similar - it doesn't have to be the entire piece. For me, the purpose of preserving the work is to remember that moment in time. Snippets of various art that you cut and frame in a collage of frames would look wonderful - and will really make a nice statement and a sweet tribute to your kiddo! Try it out.
I may offer this and other color variations of this artwork in my shop - with proceeds going partially to charity and partially to Peanutman....I'll let you know.
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I N S P I R A T I O N
I was hooked on the simple, modern look of his mirror-image artwork from the millisecond I saw it - and it quickly became the inspiration for my Lulu fabric in 2007. Lulu looks great in so many applications, and she's available in my etsy shop on organic canvas.
To see another element of inspiration that became a design pattern, visit Inklore. Sam posted about my snowflake cutout today. Thanks for including me, Sam!
