Leo's Road Rug- from back in July'10...




I can't believe I hadn't posted this yet! Must be the turmoil I've been through in the late times, 'cause such a big project shouldn't be easy to forget... It took many hours of June to be done, and the whole of the huge dinner table to be displayed- see how Olga looks with despair at the lousy pieces of paper that are replacing the grub! He he.
The process was as follows: once that I had the average measures of Leo's toy cars collection, I pencil-scketched, accordingly, the lines of the funny & terribly winding roads, houses, river, sea, mountains (with a volcano to remind him of his year in Quito!), farm, shops, school, park, circus, carparks, hospital, harbour, town hall, beach, zoo, and firestation, of course....... in short, all the things he may like in his road rug-- the surface being six A3 watercolour cardboards.
Then, I outlined it with full detail- the size of the whole thing allowed quite a lot of detail! That was fun. Afterwards I re-drew everything with sepia china ink, and erased the pencil lines. That was dull. Then it came the watercolouring, and finally it was over... well, almost. Each piece of paper is covered with 'Ironfix' and all of them are held together with lines and lines of Gaffa tape in their back part... after all, it IS a rug and it has to resist a kid's use! So it is fairly water/stain proof, smooth and quite difficult to bend or break. Proud of it, I am..... and really happy 'cos Leo was pleased!
Here, some pictures I took during the process and once the colours were done. Sorry for the poor quality, I only have a small basic camera and there was but natural lighting.... hope they're ok to give you an idea.


3 comments:

  1. oh, no te había comentado las carreteras, perdóoooooooon! Bueno, ahí siguen, lo resisten todo, son bárbaras; las pegué al suelo con bolitas de bluetack en las eskinas. Cada vez que saca los cochecitos, ahí van, los "brrrrrrrr" y "maintenant tu m'attends là et je vais faire ...", es un mandón, como su mazre, claro...

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  2. Absolutely amazing! You are so talented. I saw this while looking to make a similar project--yet I haven't the skill to make such a detailed map. Wonderful!

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  3. This is absolutely amazing!
    You could digitize that and sell copies on Etsy. I know my little boy would love it!

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