Missing Pieces

A revived project for me is this altered puzzle. It's a perfect canvas for a heritage project I've been allowing my subconscious to create. For this, I started with a large child's puzzle for my base.

I assembled the puzzle and then carefully marked on the reverse side a number and an arrow indicating the order, direction and sequence of each piece. The idea is to alter the pieces and then be able to "assemble" the puzzle and actually have all the pieces going in the right direction. Basically I didn't want Grandma to be upright and Grandpa to be upside down. Although that would be definitely "altered" it didn't serve my purpose and intention.

Some of the pieces were left plain with a large purple dinosaur exposed. They'll be lightly sanded so they have "tooth" and I'll collage various heritage papers to the pieces for background.

Some pieces were gessoed. The white background will be perfect for rubberstamping or free-hand (yeah, right) drawing to created an interesting background before the photos or other ephemera are collaged in place.



My personal faves are those with alcohol ink backgrounds. For those I selected two or three alcohol inks, including a metallic and tapped the inks in place until I was pleased with the result. The inks dry quickly and the pieces are ready to collage.

For this heritage collage project I've printed on a good quality cardstock some photos of my grandmother, grandfather, great-aunts and their spouses.

Also, I'm searching for a photo of the old church they were all married in and I have a color map of the area in the Ukraine they immigrated from . . . my vision (in this somewhat cloudy head of mine) is to incorporate the various photos and clip art into a collage that tells a story. . . . thus altered from a puzzle to a story board!

On the left is my maternal Grandmother Mathilda Mensinger Rock and on the right is her youngest sister Hannah Mensinger Raeder . . . classy ladies!

Well, back to everyday life . . . maybe there will be some time tonight to work on this project and move it forward.

That's it for now folks!