Thursday, May 1, 2008

And now for something completely different...

I have had my loom warped since.... when?.... to do a small 14"x14" 'diversionary' tapestry. But the design I had in front of me just wasn't diverting enough. I wove for about twenty minutes one afternoon, then just lost interest. So yesterday I decided to go forward with this idea that has been forming in the back of my mind for a bit. I want to make something that makes me smile - maybe even giggle or laugh. There just is NOT enough laughter and smiles in the world right now!

That said, I have had this memory of my youngest son eating pasta, then, when he'd had enough, dumping the rest of the bowl onto the top of his head. He used to do that - with cereal, pasta, whatever. It was his way of saying, "I'm done now." I'm sure the memory was reignited by watching his own son eat pasta. While my grandson doesn't dump the unfinished remainder on his head, he DOES follow in his father's footsteps by needing a bath after eating spaghetti.

So I decided to do a smallish tapestry of the memory and call it "Pasta King." I started designing it yesterday, by just working in Painter and Photoshop, back and forth. Here's what I ended up with:

I wasn't happy with it. I showed it to my husband this morning and asked what was wrong with it, and he said it looks like a child who, if not demon-possessed, is at least a bit frantic. He hit the nail on the head! So we discussed our pasta-dumping child, both having such a strong visual memory of the behavior, that we were sure we must have a picture of it somewhere. But we've looked, and it can't be found, if it ever existed except in our memories. We did find a couple of good pictures of him in his highchair (where the food dumping took place); one of him dunking his pancakes in his milk (dunking being another favorite meal pastime of his) and one of him, with full mouth, during the saying of grace.



I do not want this tapestry to be a demon-possessed-child image. I want the innocent mischief that shows in the face of my son. So I will work with these two photos and the first digital design, and see what I come up with. It may be time to take it from the digital to the actual drawing board!

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