Finally ......

Finally Kalimbas! Another interesting journey involving art, production, music, thoughts of charity and of course TAPIRS.

The blue group is ready

Happy World Tapir Day.  The blue group is ready today and by Monday when the Ottawa branch of the Tapir Appreciation Society will be gathering, the rest of the kalimbas will be ready too.

Putting the tapirs in ..

Putting the tapirs into the kalimba project. There are four different sizes and so there will be four different tapir images. I've started with the 'blue' kalimbas. The images below are created with watercolour and pencil crayon ..... seems to be my materials of choice these days. I wanted to keep a line (white) around the subject as a reference/reflection to the edge (indian fabric print) design. I know they're not anatomically correct but hopefully they have a cheerfulness that I would want for the whole project. Oh yes ..... I'll put in the eyes too!

Colour options

Four different shapes/sizes ... four different colour options. The red stripe across the top is constant for all four types. If there's time, I'd like to add more colour ..... we'll see, just 20days left .... Gulp!

Indian fabric printing block

For the edges, I'm going to reproduce something that caught my attention while doing the Taprons (Tapir Caper 3) - Indian fabric printing blocks. Thank you Holly and Larry for the block. I really like it and am still amazed as these blocks were hand carved! Such craft, such dexterity. I'm producing ribbons of the pattern and then wrap them around the boxes. Pencil crayon seems to add a bit of 'soft antiquity'.

Priming

Before I get down to decoration I'll prime the boxes. One coat for now - I'll sand later, maybe add another, better coat of paint. Hope this paint doesn't muffle the sound ..... guess I should have tested this first, but the train's rolling and I can't stop it now. Just 28 days to go!

From boxes to kalimbas

Kalimbas ready for decoration. Now for the fun part!