tie one on - October!

The theme for this month was mixed media and my apron is done! Update: Gallery is up!

I worked my way through a ton of plans on this one, unlike the other two. Originally, I wanted to do potato prints of kitcheny icons. But, I couldn't find fabric paint in the colors I wanted, and I couldn't find fabric I thought was suitable for making the actual apron. So I had just about resigned myself to not doing it at all.

But then, on the way back from the symposium at Duke, we stopped to get gas and found this huge thrift store (where I bought a bunch of cookbooks and some baby clothes for Emily) -- and in the linen section was the perfect dishtowel for making an apron! And amazingly. still clean and white (it was from a linen service, and the others were all stained) So I brought it home and did a quick-and-easy dishtowel apron. But then, what to put on it?

The potato prints were out, I had never found the colors I wanted. At first I thought of doing a comic (maybe of someone making a recipe or something) but I realized I'd never have the time to write it, much less draw it. Then I got the idea to do a mini-version of our House of Fun classic series "Life's Great Rewards" (these strips are pages of small panels, each containing iconic things we love. Evan and I have both done them.) but I couldn't settle on which things to draw. As I was trying to make a list in my head, I realized I was mostly thinking of food. And mostly, food that started with a "C"!

So, thus was born this month's apron, "C Is For...". Drawn freehand on a dishtowel apron in marker (panels ruled with a piece of junk mail) and colored in design markers.

(photos link to larger images)