Category: Spring

#34 Kettles & Mittens

Chaz DeSimone 5 Comments

Amper­Art #34 is the sec­ond line of lyrics that contains “and” in the song My Favorite Things from the 1960 musi­cal and the 1965 film, The Sound of Music:
 

Rain­drops on ros­es & whiskers on kittens
Bright cop­per ket­tles & warm woolen mittens
Brown paper pack­ages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cream col­ored ponies & crisp apple streudels
Door­bells & sleigh bells & schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dress­es with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Sil­ver white win­ters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feel­ing sad
I sim­ply remem­ber my favorite things
& then I don’t feel so bad

 

This is a col­lec­tion of four edi­tions, each fea­tur­ing a line from the song that includes the word “and” which of course we replace with our favorite charac­ter, the ampersand.

Each edi­tion in this series will be released a week apart. You must sub­scribe to receive high-​resolution pdf files so you can cre­ate beau­ti­ful prints (11×17 or 8.5×11 inch­es). Sub­scrip­tions are free & you will receive your print down­loads by email. You’ll find sug­ges­tions on print­ing and fram­ing here.

Con­cept & design notes:

In research­ing the style to use for this art­work I found one of the orig­i­nal movie posters, sam­pled the col­ors from which I chose a lim­it­ed palette (I did not use blue as that would be your per­fect mat in a nice frame), select­ed the appro­pri­ate type­styles & hand-​drew the amper­sand, styl­iz­ing it to resem­ble the main title in the poster.

Pink & yel­low kettles?

Have you ever seen a shiny new pen­ny in the sun­shine? It alter­nates between a gold­en yel­low and a bril­liant pink. Togeth­er, or when not direct­ly reflect­ing the sun­shine, it’s a bright cop­per. That’s why this edi­tion sug­gests cop­per through pink and yellow. 
 
If that does­n’t make sense, let’s just say the left­over mit­tens right after Black Fri­day were yel­low with pink pol­ka dots.

The amper­sand not only con­nects rain­drops and kit­tens and ket­tles and ponies and door­knobs, it also links the last two lines of the song, which appear on all four lay­outs at very top and very bottom.

To fur­ther research this piece, I real­ly enjoyed watch­ing the movie! If you ever need a joy­ful lift & a lit­tle humor, this is the movie to see. It’s won­der­ful & timeless.

If you love the amper­sand sub­scribe to Amper­Art here to receive future Amper­Art edi­tions. They’re always fun & fab­u­lous & free. Sub­scribers also receive spe­cial bonus­es.

#33 Raindrops & Whiskers

Chaz DeSimone 6 Comments

 

This is the first of four pieces in the My Favorite Things col­lec­tion, inspired by the song from the 1960 musi­cal and 1965 movie The Sound of Music. Only the lyric phras­es con­tain­ing “and” were turned into Amper­Art designs. I’m glad “whiskers on kit­tens” was one of them. I love cats & kit­tens. I don’t like ros­es as much as car­na­tions, but “rain­drops on car­na­tions” prob­a­bly would not have won an Emmy.

Each edi­tion in this series will be released a week apart. You must sub­scribe to receive high-​resolution pdf files so you can cre­ate beau­ti­ful prints (11x17 or 8.5x11 inch­es). Sub­scrip­tions are free & you will receive your print down­loads by email. You’ll find sug­ges­tions on print­ing and fram­ing here.

In research­ing the style to use for this art­work I found one of the orig­i­nal movie posters, sam­pled the col­ors from which I chose a lim­it­ed palette (I did not use blue as that would be your per­fect mat in a nice frame), select­ed the appro­pri­ate type­styles & hand-​drew the amper­sand, styl­iz­ing it to resem­ble the main title in the poster:

The amper­sand not only con­nects rain­drops and kit­tens and ket­tles and ponies and door­knobs, it also links the last two lines of the song, which appear on all four lay­outs at very top and very bottom.

To fur­ther research this piece, I real­ly enjoyed watch­ing the movie! If you ever need a joy­ful lift & a lit­tle humor, this is the movie to see. It’s won­der­ful & timeless.

If you love the amper­sand sub­scribe to Amper­Art here to receive future Amper­Art edi­tions. They’re always fun & fab­u­lous & free. Sub­scribers also receive spe­cial bonus­es.

#16 Bloom & Blossom

Chaz DeSimone 1 Comment

#16 Bloom & Blossom
Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing and framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

 

Spring has sprung!

 

Pri­or to titling this piece, I want­ed to be sure that “bloom” and “blos­som” are not redun­dant. Accord­ing to the dic­tio­nary, while they can mean the same thing when used as nouns, as verbs flow­ers bloom while trees blossom.

 

The beau­ti­ful flow­ers in “Bloom & Blos­som” were pho­tographed by Jiri Hera, whose work is show­cased on foto​lia​.com.