In May, I completed my first collaboration, and it was with the theater company, “Only Make Believe”.
My project was to decorate a huge trunk in the most cheerful way possible. The trunk will be traveling from show to show, mainly at children’s hospitals where the OMB theater produces performances for kids.
I was eager to participate – making children happy is what every adult probably wants. I dove into this project with joy and passion. The OMB’s mission is to empower children through interactive performances, and my trunk would be a tool, a prop, a participant, if you will.
I selected green and blue hues to create the joyful and playful designs on each side of the trunk. As a professional psychologist, I also created so called blobs – ambiguous characters used in psychology for people to easily associate themselves with any character. On this trunk, my blobs are sliding from the rainbow, riding a bike, jumping, playing, and enjoying their world.
As an artist, I also faced some challenges: the background material and the shape of the trunk – its lid and latches. As you can imagine, wood is very different from the canvas that artists normally use for painting. I had to prime this rough yellowish texture several times – five, to be precise. Drying takes time. So if you ever need to paint on the rough wood, include this time to your project timeframe.
One more big challenge was to paint the internal part of the lid. The angle would not allow me a full access, the way I wanted and needed. It was almost impossible to paint small objects and details. So I came up with the design that was based on bigger abstract shapes.
Overall, I’m happy about the outcome. Very looking forward to seeing our new trunk at shows.
