So. The window: it’s all done! I finished at about 6pm yesterday and had all intention to post pics for you as soon as I got home but when I sat on the couch I promptly fell asleep instead, it so happens I was pretty exhausted…
But now I’m refreshed and ready to get on with the rest of the week’s plans, starting with the last post in the series, the window display “in the making“ (if you’ve missed the first 5 posts, just scroll down this page to find them). Are you ready? The first photo in this post is a little sneak peek of the finished display, but for now I want to take you all back with me to the beginning of yesterday, when I gathered all the little display items in my basket and headed to the american book center by foot. French Boy carried the large cardboard cutouts. It was a rather grey day and about half way there I thought it might rain but it didn’t, thank goodness, because if it did well, let’s not think about it! Anyway, below is my basket of goodies…
As soon as we arrived I began attaching the banners overhead, and then began assembling the main display…
French Boy assisted me the whole afternoon, handing me tape, scissors, string, and taking pics of each stage – what a treasure. Then, we had two lovely visitors stop by to say hello: Marie and Yvette! That was quite a treat…
It didn’t take long to assemble the whole display, probably about an hour/hour and a half – with lots of chit chatting in between…
Then came the window painting…
In my sketch I was thinking of painting a tree but on the day I decided a tree would visually cut into the display so I decided to paint vines and flowers coming in from the sides instead. The painting was a lot of fun. I could have happily whiled away the entire afternoon doing this… oh, right, I did…
And that was that! Suddenly it was 6pm and I had to pull myself away from the window painting. While I was painting the window a number of passers-by remarked “mooi mooi” or “lekker” or “leuk”… which all translate as “nice!” so that was lovely to hear. Now, would you like to see some of the final result? Okay, first here are some close up details…
Each canal house has cut out windows and in the windows I taped some pages from the book. But not so you could read the pages in full – just enough with the hope to entice and inspire.
And overhead I attached word banners with taglines like “a little book of enchanting wanders” – Rani supplied me with a number of catchy taglines to use and this is one of them, thank you Rani! I also liked her flatmate’s suggestion which was “Amsterdam: Made by Hand – handier than your iphone”. Clever! I didn’t use that one though (sorry Rani’s flatmate, but I very much appreciate your input 🙂 ).
At first I was thinking that I’d write a tagline on the window but then I decided not to in the end as I felt it would be a bit messy. So at the last minute – yesterday morning in fact – I made these word banners and I’m really happy I did!
Also at the last minute – late Monday evening in fact – I decided to make little origami boats for under the bridges. I used left over bits of paper and tape.
On one of the canal houses I layered it with two different papers and then cut out butterfly shapes to expose the paper below. I wanted to make the window as layered as possible. Which wasn’t an easy feat since the window is actually only 26 cm deep. But with the painted window, the banners, and the colourful canal houses and bridges I think it does the trick. So would you like to see the window in full? Of course I’m going to tell you that it’s much better to go and visit it in person but for those of you who will not be in Amsterdam over the coming few weeks, here it is below. All you have to do is click on the image and a large version of it will open in another window…
I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of “in the making” posts showing my creative process from concept to realisation. Thanks for all your wonderful comments over the past week – you’ve made this project extra fun, your encouragement along each step has helped my creativity tremendously. Now I have to get cracking on the rest of the book launch plans for this Saturday – anyone know a musician who would like to play a little something at the launch? I’m still looking for someone so if you know of anyone, please let me know. I’m thinking violinist, or accordionist, or acoustic guitar – anything acoustic, and anything simple, soft and melodic.
In my next post I’ll be letting you know the other book events happening in June, so stay tuned…
xx
