Wednesday 6 August 2014

The Mumbai Pigeon Plushie

I loved everything about this soft toy: the drawing (the title of which was given by the parents), the story, and the mom, who told me the story. And I looked forward to starting sewing it so much. But big loves are not always easy... When turning kids' drawings into custom stuffed anilmals or dolls, there can be so many things to solve: now the colours were my problem, I simply couldn't find the shades I imagined. Finally I found the green for the spots, a green that had never been available in the shops here before. But the greys... First I wanted to make the spots black, later we chose some dark grey, but as I was sewing the dark grey spots on the body, I did not like them at all, they were not harmonious together with the grey of the body. So I searched through my scraps. And I found a small piece of light grey!! It looked good together with the body. So I started to remove the dark grey spots. As I was doing it, all of a sudden I realized that the best way would have been to use just a few dark grey spots with lots of light grey ones! Do you know the feeling when every little bits fall into place? That's what I was feeling then:)

Mumbai Pigeon Plushie
The artist, who created his own toy is Ptolemy, who was 4 and a half last summer, when he went on holiday to Mumbai with his parents. He drew the pigeon one morning before his parents woke up, after watching all the pigeons on the hotel window grill. I was not surprised at all that this drawing became so special for the whole family.

And this is Ptolemy actually looking out of the hotel window in Mumbai at the pigeons, the day before he drew "The Mumbai Pigeon":


A rajz Mumbai-ban (régi nevén Bombay) készült tavaly nyáron, és a firkagalamb most Tasmániába repült.