Gift Ideas 20091129

Post date: Nov 23, 2009 4:22:27 PM

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.