It's no secret that I love to up-cycle my children's art into all manner of new things; I'm so proud of the pretty things they draw, but they just draw so much that I can't possibly keep it all. The same goes for photos. When the girls recently had their preschool photo done, I was thrilled; it was gorgeous. The rainbow painting on the easel in the background was great fun and really captured the nature of preschool and made a sweet halo over their touching heads. However, when I popped the photo in the frame I had, the easel disappeared and I was left with two dark lines down both sides of the photo, a cropped rainbow and a distracting dark smudge across the bottom of the picture. Please note - the photo remains gorgeous - it was the frame and it's matting that was the problem. "Buy a better frame" you're all saying. Or; "it doesn't matter; the focus of the photo is two happy kids." Sure, but anyone who reads this blog should know me well enough by now to know that I can't leave well enough alone... so...
I grabbed a recent 'happy' drawing that had come home from preschool and cut it into strips. (I've blogged before about how you should always do this behind closed doors, never in front of the artist!) I shuffled the pieces around on the sides and eventually decided that it might be fun to go the whole way around. I know that I ultimately lost much of the original photo (the rainbow and the girls' shoulders) but the end result is really bright and colourful, and there are a couple of points where a blue curved line marries up with the rainbow curve and the curve of a shoulder; it's subtle, but I like it.
(You can always click on my 'postage-stamp' blog-images to enlarge them to see what I'm talking about.)
When I compare the pictures in the top left and bottom right I've come along way from 'pretty' studio-shot to a much more to 'chaotic' image. I'm content however that the essence of preschool fun and the identity of my girls is still there, maybe more so... besides; I can always rip the drawing strips out and re-frame the photo when I get a new frame with bigger matting.
So go on - next time you go to frame a photo with your children in it - be a little crafty - try something a little different:
- use strips of drawing to surround the photo as I did,
- mount the photo on a drawing done by the person in the photo,
- use a frame that has two spaces, and place a photo in one and a drawing in the other, or
- be brave and let the child draw on the photo with markers graffiti-style!
The options are endless - so have fun and make it you-nique!
Linda.
