I’m very excited that the theme for the latest PHAT Quarter swap is one I can get into.  Despite how busy I am, I decided that I really wanted to participate.  Part of the challenge for me is coming up with a design I can execute within the short time-frame of the swap.

The theme of the swap is:

COMICS/CARTOON. Basically anything with text relating to an image, original or interpretation. You can interpret that as narrowly or widely as you like!

I’m a comic book geek so at first I thought I’d grab an iconic frame from something in my collection, but nothing was really speaking to me.  So I broadened my concept to the text/image but not comic book.

Concept 1

I love the Alice in Wonderland designs that Urban Threads has done, so I thought I might do something with that — which is where Concept 1 comes from.   The girl is my crappy sketch of the Urban Threads Alice,  which I would use if I did this one. This concept is kind of half-baked.  The layout isn’t even close yet.  The quote is from a book of poetry that my Great-Aunt and Uncle gave me when I was a kid.  I still have the book.

All my friends seem to like this design the best, so even if I don’t do this for the swap, I may do it and give it away!

Concept 2
Most of my work is spiritual in nature, so I wanted to at least try and come up with something I would have done anyway for the swap. I do like to mix things up and just do some fun stuff from time to time, which is what Concept 1 is all about.

This concept is a visualization of the following quote:

“The water conceived and gave birth to darkness.
The Fire conceived and gave birth to light.
The wind conceived and gave birth to wisdom.
The earth conceived and gave birth to life.” (Adapted from Genesis Rabbah 13:3 by RK’Jill Hammer)

The cool thing is I could do this piece in English or Hebrew.  Also, I didn’t want the piece to be so overtly spiritual that the recipient couldn’t enjoy it at face value.  I’m still working on the imagery options for light. I did some additional sketches that had a sunrise and lightening bolts.

I think this is clearly the stronger of the two designs, which makes sense. Mr. X Stitch, who runs the PHAT Quarter group voted for this one as my swap entry.  So did my awesome husband, Art.