“Five more pieces and then I stop”
Sometimes, or to be honest, quite often I am in the lucky position that I “need” to do things for work a lot of people do as a spare time activity or as their hobby.
This is true when it comes to my drawing and illustrating work which I really love (but that doesn’t mean that it can’t also be hard work sometimes ;-) ) and currently I am piecing together & doing 4 new 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles, for display in our gallery-shop.
The 4 panoramic puzzles featuring my artwork of London, Paris, Sydney and Berlin were published recently by Schmidt Spiele from Germany under license, and are now available in our gallery-shop and online.
When I was a kid I used to do quite a few puzzles; my favourite one being a 500 piece political map (surprise, surprise) of Europe which I did time and again. As an adult I had lost a little bit the connection to this type of leisure time activity but now that we need to put together display jigsaws for the shop, I have the perfect reason to rediscover that passion.
It is still highly addictive! Instead of studying the news online with my morning coffee I now start my day with looking for and selecting pieces then putting them together so that the image starts emerging step by step. London is already completed and currently Berlin is my companion for the morning coffee. As all Schmidt jigsaws they come with this really lovely high quality linen structure finish and brilliant, vibrant colours.
Only problem is the aforementioned addictiveness. Very often I tell myself: ‘five more pieces and then I’ll start my day” and then, twenty or so pieces later, guess who is still puzzling…?!
London first
a frame is born...
some pieces seem to show up a lot more often than others when you bask the box...
now what can that be? ;-)
closing in....
ta-daa...
and ta-daa once more
love the finish with the linen structure
now Berlin
humble beginnings...
perfect pieces for a Saturday
work in progress
look who's there....
semi ta-daa
we're getting there :-)
next stop: Sydney
whilst Sydney is still under construction I prepared London and Berlin for framing. As I get asked the question many times about the best way to do that here is my recommendation:
- sandwich the completed puzzle between two sturdy pieces of cardboard and turn it over carefully so it's upside down
- then simply use the brown parcel tape from the post office to tape the back side strip by strip.
now the jigsaw puzzle is safe and sound, can't break any more and is ready for framing :-)
