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| Helmi-Pippuri -print |
Helmi-Pippuri is one of my moms four cats. Helmi means pearl and Pippuri means pepper. Helmi got her extra nick name because of her funny pepper - beauty spot next to her nose. Helmi-Pippuri also has black pads when usually black/white cats have pink pads. Helmi is maybe not the prettiest cat and she looks a bit angry and sneaky but for sure she is the kindest and funniest and cutest of them all! My mom adopted her from the cat shelter about six years ago.
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| This is the printed sketch where I have used pictures from the internet and photographs of Helmi |
My mom is a crazy cat lady just like me. In my family cats have always been equal members of the family and they are called and treated as kids. That means that Helmi amongst the others are my little sisters and brothers.
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| Painting is really slow but it is worth it. I could have done this much faster with Photoshop but the result would have been more flat |
My mom turned 50 few months ago but I wasn´t able to make her gift in time. Now finally it´s almost ready. I made a cat-strawberry print using my little sister Helmi-Pippuri as an inspiration. Helmi is playing in the strawberry bushes and spending a lazy summer day laying under the shades.
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| A lot of candy is needed during the creative process!!! |
I have worked with this print over one week and still it looks a bit that Helmi made it herself. It has a child -made feeling with bright primary colors.
I started working by gathering images from Helmi-Pippuri and strawberries. I composed the images into a repeat in Photosop and I printed it out. With graphite paper I copied the print to aquarelle paper.
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| Skype -hanging with Sasu while working. I think he might be asleep.. |
Four evenings I painted the leafs, strawberries and cats with acrylic colors. Making the print into a hand made sketch took me all together about 16h. After that I photographed it and moved it into the computer. I prefer using scanner to avoid shades but my scanner was too small for this 64cm x 53cm repeat. I erased the dirty looking back ground and fixed the repeat seams. That took me three more hours. The print still needs to be color separated if someone want´s to use it in rotation printing. However my meaning is to use it as a digi-print so color separation is not needed.
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| This is how the print looks on duvet covers |
My plan is to find a company who can digi-print Helmi-Pippuri into a cotton fabric. Then I will sew duvet covers and pillow cases and my mum will have her final birthday present. Hopefully before she turns 60..
