2009-November-29

At the Ashford Senior Center's craft fair, one of my visitors asked me to draw ambigrams of the names of his child(ren), niece(s), and/or nephew(s) -- four in all -- and include a family-type phrase in the art as a gift for the grandmother of those children. The phrase I chose to work with is "Grandma's Treasures." If the art is to be displayed without photos, I would arrange the four names with one in each corner of the page and the phrase in the middle. If I were to include a photo in the art, I would suggest one group photo of the four children lying on their backs -- perhaps on the ground, a picnic blanket, a bedspread, or in a pile of autumn leaves -- with all of their heads toward the middle and their feet pointed outward, along the idea of a pinwheel or such. I would then position each name, according to their place, alongside the photo, and I would put the phrase "Grandma's Treasures" at the 'top' of the art.

Over the past week or two one of my customers has been giving me input for an anniversary gift for her daughter and son-in-law. The ideas all came together for a Family Crest. She liked the acrostic Fambigram that I had drawn which includes the names of her daughter's two sons and asked me to include some drawings in the one piece of art. She emailed me a link to a website that displayed the crests of her family name and of her son-in-law's family name, and she asked me to include some Monarch butterflies in the picture. I drew my renditions of the crests and emailed her the results. I also found some photos of Monarch butterflies on the web and used them as a basis for my butterfly drawings. The final image has 'his' family crest in the upper left, 'her' family crest in the lower right, a Monarch butterfly in each of the other two corners, and the Fambigram in the middle. The customer met me at the Baltic Fire Department's Bazaar to preview the art and go over the final details, such as size and relative proportions. The adjustments were made, and I printed it right there for her. (I bring my laptop computer and printer to craft events especially for on-the-spot art requests.) I hope her daughter's family is as pleased with it as she is.

19-November-2009: 

Just in time for the Craft Expo and Bake Sale at Fields Memorial School in Bozrah, CT, this weekend ... I have completed the artwork for my latest ambigram greeting card phrase, "Let It Snow." The card is decorated with geometric snowflake shapes and musical notes. I may even toss some glitter across the front of the card. Earlier this week I had drawn my sketch for the lettering, based on the decision that I wanted it to be an infinite chain. An infinite chain ambigram seemed appropriate, as many of us are familiar with the song "Let It Snow" wherein the phrase is repeated a few times in a row. I knew I wanted the 'L' of 'Let' and the 'S' of 'Snow' to be inversions of each other -- I really like the shape it makes. What was left was to turn 'et' and 'it' into inversions each other, and draw 'now' in a flip-able way. You can see a thumbnail-sized preview of my finished design on the Greeting Cards Page.

I have been contemplating this next thought for some time, and I have decided that I'd like to include an option to have my Scriptural Art available as Greeting Cards, too. The front of the greeting card will include a soft background image of an open Bible, and the acrostic ambigram of the scripture superimposed thereon, in landscape orientation (horizontal, or fold-on-top). You may choose from any of the scriptures listed on my Word Art Page. These Scriptural Ambigram Greeting Cards will be the same price as the others, according to which size you order, and will be blank inside. You may choose the option of having the scripture printed in 'normal' (Arial) font on the inside-left of the greeting card.

2009-November-15: 

Ambigram Calendars

I have nearly completed the artwork for the Ambigram Calendars (mentioned as 'in progress' on the Word Art Page) and am almost ready to begin printing so they will be ready in time for the Craft Expo and Bake Sale at Fields Memorial School in Bozrah, CT, this weekend (listed in the Calendar of Events on the main section of the News and Announcements Page). The calendars feature ambigrams of each month name along with original drawings of seasonal art. January, February, and December will be depicted as winter months; June, July, and August will be depicted as summer months. The art is "non-denominational." To appeal to a wider audience, I have excluded art that represents religious holidays and other traditional celebrations. The first run will be un-dated -- you can use them in any year, just fill in the dates, and you can choose to have your weeks run Sunday through Saturday or Monday through Sunday. For reference, I am including year-at-a-glance pages in the back: one each for 2010 and 2011, with the weeks running from Sunday through Saturday. When I start printing a dated version, the weeks in each month's page will also run Sunday through Saturday.

At first, I designed the art to fit within 8.5" x 11" paper folded in half; but after some consideration, I think I will make adjustments so it will fit better on 8.5" x 14" (or larger) paper folded in half. I will save both sizes of the artwork on my computer. The larger size will be part of my regular inventory, and the smaller size will be easy enough to print "on request."

I haven't yet tried to ambi-fy the names of the days of the week. If you would like to give it a try, I would love to see your sketches and/or finished work. I might even ask to use your art in my next version! (And give you credit for contributing your original art, of course.) To submit your art, please send either JPG or PNG file types to ambigramgreetings@gmail.com, and include a description of your art in the body of the email. Depending on reader response, I may post a gallery of your submissions. I look forward to hearing from you!

2009-October-28: 

I have recently had some opportunities to make some Ambigram Greetings gifts for some dear friends, and have decided to include them in this post.

On the left is a three-photo frame to which I added some name art and word art, as a gift for a baby shower. When "Mommy" opened the envelope and took out the greeting card before unwrapping the gift, she knew right away who it was from without having to read the inside -- "It's a boy!" appears on the front of the card as an ambigram -- but she read it anyways... once she figured out which end of the card was 'up.' In the top panel of the frame are the three ambigrams I drew for the baby's first, middle, and last names, with a decorative border that repeats in the other two panels. The center panel has room for the baby's photograph. The bottom panel has ambigrams of the words "date," "time," "inches," and "weight," with spaces to fill in the 'statistics' of the baby's birth. The hand holding up the frame is "Daddy's."

On the right is a three-photo frame to which I added a photo and some of my art, as a gift --one each-- for the two sons of one of my mentors who had recently passed away. In the left panel, I printed my scripture art of John 5:28 over the left half of a photograph of an open Bible. The ambi-fied phrase "In Loving Memory," as featured on the greeting card of the same title, with the woman's name and years of birth and death are printed on the right side of the Bible photograph in the center panel. And in the right panel is a recent photograph that I had taken of her. She had been battling cancer for a very long time. She was such a stubborn woman (in a good way), that it took that long for the cancer to slowly overtake her. I had gotten the chance to visit her again just over a week before she died. I made her lunch that day, before I had to leave for work. When I heard about her passing, I was saddened, but not surprised. I wore a purple dress that she had given me when I went to her funeral. Her favorite colors were purple and yellow. One of her sons placed my gift on a table right next to the video slide show of photos at the reception after the funeral. Many of the guests appreciated my work and recalled the love that "Gram" and I had for each other. It has been a few weeks since then, and I am still mourning for her. (I've had to stop typing three times already to wipe my tears and blow my nose.) I will miss her. "Ellen, may God keep you in his book of remembrance, until the hour comes when all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out. When he will wipe out every tear from our eyes, and death will be no more, neither will pain, nor mourning, nor outcry be any more; and no resident will say, 'I am sick.' " -- John 5:28; Revelation 21:4; Isaiah 33:24.

=> Gift Giving Idea <=

 

If you wish to give Psalm 139:14 as a gift for the family of a new baby, I will include the baby's name and date of birth on the design for you. (Please confirm the spelling and date before placing your order, as there are no refunds for incorrect information as provided by you.) Option A: Regular hand-written style lettering at no extra charge; Option B: Ambigram-style lettering for an extra $1 per name, whether individual ambigrams or 'symbiotic' ambigrams (example: first, middle, and last = 3 names = $3).

2009-September-20: 

The ideas just keep pouring forth... especially when I am given a good reason. Just a couple of weeks ago Ambigram.com issued a challenge -- you can read about it in this article. The theme they chose is "Resurrection." The hardest part about this challenge was selecting what words or phrases I wanted to use, so naturally I narrowed down my decision to "Scripture Art." The trouble with that is that there are so many scriptures to choose from, I almost didn't know where to begin! I figured I had better start with a scripture that almost everyone knows. I chose the last sentence of Genesis 3:19, which reads, "For dust you are and to dust you will return."

The first thought that I had in mind for turning this scripture into art was about creating my first ever "perception shift" ambigram. (See description on Word Art Page, thumbnail at right.) I started with making the shapes for "DUST" that would also resemble "YOU ARE." I then worked out the shapes for "YOU WILL" that would also resemble "RETURN." I wasn't sure what to do with "for" at the beginning or "and to dust" from the middle of the phrase, so I finally decided on leaving off the "for," drawing a simple ampersand, and making shapes for the perception shift of "TO/IT." To further clarify my drawing, I added "Genesis 3:19" and slimmed down more distinctive versions of all the letter shapes below the featured art, so the entire phrase could be read more easily.

My second thought on choosing what to ambi-fy was a 90-degree acrostic-style ambigram of a scripture, or group of scriptures, that referred to mankind's future hope of resurrection from death. I already had several scriptural acrostic ambigrams, but not enough of this theme for the way I like to display them -- in a group of three arranged on a background image of an open Bible, separated into frames as a triptych. So I started looking through some of my favorite scriptures for more candidates. I would really like to have John 5:28 as an acrostic ambigram --  "The hour is coming when those in the memorial tombs will come out and hear his voice." Some scriptures have key words that pop right out at me, with a sufficient number of letters for linking to and a suitable phrase or list of related words that ties in with the key word, but I will have to come back to John 5:28 later as I haven't yet determined how I will go about it with that one. However, Job 14:14,15 has two key words with suitable phrases for linking to them. A few days after getting this verse drawn, I examined Genesis 3:19 again, and took the time to draw it as an acrostic as well as the perception shift design that I had at first drawn, and arranged these two new acrostics with another of my favorite acrostic scripture drawings (Revelation 21:4) on a photograph that I had taken of one of my own Bibles, and added a black three-window frame around the entire image. The result looks similar to the photo I took of another triptych I made and posted on my Word Art Page in the Scriptural Word Art section.

In addition to these two verses, I have also recently sketched acrostic ambigrams for Jeremiah 10:23. Psalm 104:13, and John 15:13; and once I've drawn them into the computer, I will add thumbnails to my Word Art Page. These have all been added to the list of scriptures on my Word Art Page -- now there are 14 in my collection. One of the fourteen is listed twice -- as two different styles of ambigrams. Several of the scriptures will be available in bookmark size, depending on the proportions of the completed lettering arrangement.

In Name Art News

The Family that I referred to in my last post got to see the design on my website and Loved It!! They did have one particular request: Could I make "J.P." hyphenated instead? Of course. :) Now I just need to determine if anything else will be included in the complete design. I'm sure they will want the family name. Perhaps a street address, or city/state, or date 'established' ... or even all the above. I have this grouping arranged in two different sample outline shapes -- an ellipse, and a semi-circle -- with room for some of the aforementioned additional information. (The image at left is only a partial view of the entire ellipse design.) I think I'll make an appointment to meet the family to discuss preferences.

2009-September-06:

Just yesterday I was drawing another 90-degree rotational "fam-bi-gram." ("Uh... What-a-gram?" You'll see. Go ahead, keep reading...) My mother contributed a list of names from a family of four with an Irish-sounding last name, along with thoughts on matching the initials of their names with an "anchor" word for an acrostic -- in this case, a synonym for "family" that has four letters: "CLAN." I took that 'anchor' word and drew each letter in such a way that when the page is turned 90 degrees clockwise, each letter serves a second purpose -- that of being the initial of a family member's name. For example, the letter A could have a rounder top so that, when turned 90 degrees clockwise, it looks like a D for Dawn; the horizontal line of the letter L could be moved up a little so that, when turned, it looks like a T for Tavish; etc. I emailed the finished design to my mother last night, and she liked it. Now let's see what The Family thinks of this piece of art.

Above is a partial thumbnail image, also shown in the new section I just added to my Name Art Page. The finished art will include the Family Name, and possibly the street address or simply the town and state, perhaps the "year established," or some other suitable decoration.

2009-August-30:

While dining with my parents at a local restaurant one evening last week, a small crowd of gentlemen showed up all at once and seated themselves at a cluster of booths. From the tone of their conversations and the way they were dressed, it seemed they were firefighters that had just finished a meeting. This inspired another sketch. I had a piece of somewhat already crowded graph paper in my bag-o-stuff at my side, but I was able to find enough free space, so I got right to work at that very moment. Rather than being guilty of "profiling," it was decided that I would reveal the (thumbnail) image on my website instead of showing my sketch to this particular audience.

In Name Art News: Just today, I finished a design for a pair of names that had been requested while I was at the Renaissance Festival in Jewett City, CT, a few Saturdays ago. A woman named Melisa asked to have her name and her daughter's name, Micayla, drawn (as symbiotograms). I tried to do this as I usually draw symbiotic pairs of names, but something about the rotational sketch wasn't quite right. After looking for a better set of similarities between the names, I noticed that the Ms could reflect each other as viewed upon the surface of a lake if Melisa's M had round tops in a cursive style and Micayla's had pointy tops with round bottoms and was connected to the 'i.' The E of Melisa's name could reflect the C of Micayla's. The As could also reflect each other. After I had completed sketching all of the letter shapes, I remembered that Melisa's email address had a feature reminiscent of the style of symbiotograms that I had drawn: her email address contained the word BUTTERFLY! Yes! What could be more appropriate than outlining these two names with a Butterfly?! The two wings of a butterfly are a reflection of each other. The two names are drawn as a perfect reflection of each other. A daughter is a reflection of her mother. And on top of that, Melisa loves anything-butterfly. A sneak peak mini-preview of the finished design can be seen at the right. To see the whole design, come to my booth at any of the upcoming craft events listed on my News and Announcements Page, or wait until Melisa has the design in her hands -- that is when I will release the whole design in my Facebook or MySpace album. ;)

[ - - - Insertion 2009-September-02 - - - ]

I have updated the lists of personal and town names on my Name Art Page. There are more Eastern Connecticut and Western Rhode Island town names; and I have added nearly a dozen personal names -- some are still in sketch form, but can be drawn into the computer in less than a day.

[ - - - End Insertion 2009-September-02 - - - ]