Being a HUGE fan of the Lowbrow art movement and the artists at the head of it, I decided to use my love to my advantage in this challenge.
My favourite artists of the movement are Mark Ryden, Gary Baseman, Marion Peck, Josh Agle (the man behind SHAG), Elizabeth McGrath, and Tim Biskup. Even though Ryden is my favourite artist of all time (how cheesy), I chose to pick characters from Gary Baseman's different paintings and bring them together in one piece. I did this by taking a second hand, pre-embroidered baby quilt piece and sketching out some of his characters onto it.
Baseman himself is quite the character in real life, "where the line between Genius and Stupidity has been smudged beyond recognition." He is the man behind Cranium illustrations and the creator and executive producer of the TV show/movie Teacher's Pet. You can read more about the amazing man here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_BasemanThis quilt piece was perfect for his art style, which is a little on the demented side, because the piece was centered around this baby on a floating blanket who looked like he/she had just dropped something. Of course, he/she was dropping Baseman's beloved Toby! Best of all, balloons were allowing this baby to "fly," which adds the element of fantasy that is in many of Baseman's paintings.
Toby hangs on by his heartstrings. Literally!
Of course, no Baseman work of art can be complete without some.. uh.. cute little Demons!
(my personal favourite
)
BEFORE:
(right when I brought it home)
What made the quilt so ugly to begin with? Well, for one, I'm not too crazy about granny-style baby decor, myself.. or
any baby decor... Second, it had to be soaked overnight in oxyclean because of the yellow tinge and age spots on it. It was really dirty and gross.
The baby quilt piece cost $1.95 (a deal, considering it's from the 1920's to 30's and the embroidery is amazingly well done!), I had the embroidery floss, and I found the dowel in the corner of my room by the craft table.
The whole piece took me about.. 24+ hours to complete? I guess when I am watching Mythbusters, I can do anything for 6 hours straight
I even worked on it in the car on the way to Thanksgiving with the family.
I stitched his name in the bottom corner, the way it appears in his paintings, along with my nickname.
To finish it off, I starched and ironed it about 4 times, folded the edges over, sewed them, and stuck a dowel in the top to hang it on the back of my door (personally, I don't like blank white doors...).
I really wanted to show it to Baseman himself at his recent exhibit last night, but I couldn't make it. Maybe next time!
Hope you liked it
