Joe Average : Jigsaw Puzzle Art Assembly
...more than a puzzle!
Jigsaw puzzles are fun, diverting, and—when you’re in the “the zone”—oh so relaxing.
When the purchase of those same puzzles also support extremely worthy causes, we call that a win-win!
Joe Average
Brock David Tebbutt, better known as Joe Average, is a Canadian artist celebrated for his bright, colorful, and stylized take on people, animals, flowers, and insects.
The image used for the puzzle RainyDayMagazine received was commissioned and designed for the 11th international conference on AIDS.
“What I wanted to express in this image with the stained-glass feeling is that we are all fragile in the face of AIDS but working together with love (the heart in the center) is what we need to do,” said Average at the time.
Assembly
In putting the Joe Average together, we went through the various stages:
- Sorting: First by color, then by features (shape, distinctive markings, etc)
- Border: Completing the 25″x25″ bounding box (edges and corners)
- Patterns: Starting to give “name” to the single color, multiple colors, shades, etc
- Surge: The point in assembling a section when the “right” pieces were falling into place
- Last Push: When the end was in sight…and no sleep until we were done!
If you’re gonna do a puzzle like this, you too may need an eight-foot table to do it.
The most obvious way to start the puzzle is to begin at the edge and work inward. That’s pretty much Jigsaw Puzzle 101. Of course, we had to find all the edge pieces first (did we mention that this puzzle had FOUR twenty-five-inch sides? AKA alot of edge pieces?). Still, we knew it was the most logical way to tackle the puzzle…
So many pieces…
Since we had to “touch” almost the pieces in our search for the edge ones, we decided to group them into piles of similar colors. The sorting took about 10 minutes and wasn’t super strict…it was more a side-effect of looking for the edge pieces rather than as a goal in itself.
This is not a puzzle for those with green-blue color issues
With most of the edge pieces located, we sorted the rest based on color before starting to connect them. While not fool-proof, it did end up being a decent approach in getting things started. It wasn’t long before a few “patches” were established. Once we found all four corners, the boundary really took shape. The 25″x25″ bounding square was complete in a total of about 60 minutes (of non-contiguous work).
Easier than herding cats, I suppose…
After completing the boundary, we looked at the image and decided the next logical patches were the signature, the eyes, and the reddish section on the right.
The pieces for the signature were fairly obvious… anything with thin swirly lines were probably part of that section. The eyes were more difficult—because there were four of them—but many had the white and pale blue combo. Still, they were a lot harder than the signature. As for the reddish section…we had no particular reason to start with that. We could have just as easily chosen the yellow patch.
“I always feel like/somebody’s watching me…”
Cactus plant – our cheerleader in all this jigsaw-ery
After a while, we started giving the shapes “names” so we could more easily identify and categorize them. It made searching for a particular shape/color combo easier… looking for a “green head, black right arm, black leg.”
They all look different, until you start looking at them. Then they all look the same…
Weird as it was, looking at the same color after a long time actually made it harder find the piece we were looking for. So, to give our eyes something new to look at, we started work on the yellow section after some progress was made on the red patch,
Yellowy-yellow, orangey-yellow, yellowy-orangey yellow…so many yellows…
True to our hypothesis, switching back and forth did enable us to make better progress. It took a few days of sporadic work, but three of the four eyes, a big patch of red, and the complete patch (aka face) of yellow were assembled.
At this point, we started feeling the “ebb and flow” of the assembly process. When venturing into a new section, the going was kind of slow. To FIND that right piece, we had to go through and test a lot of very similar pieces. But, a point came in the process that we called “the surge:” each piece we picked up could be placed because a significant amount of the section had been put together. This was very satisfying, as each fitted piece always gave us a little adrenaline kick, and the kicks were coming closer together!
Of course, the feeling ebbed when we had to start a new part of the puzzle, but it picked up again as we got closer to completing that area.
“We come in peace”
The reds proved trickier, as there were multiple patches. Eventually, orderliness was imposed on the heart, lip, and hair, followed by the green areas of the upper corners. The next sections we completed were the two purples. By this time, we had easily invested well in excess of 10 hours distributed over the course of a week. However, we could see that the end was in sight!
It really DOES look like stained glass.
Once had completed the remaining eye and the pale green section, we knew we would not be going to sleep until the rest of the puzzle was done. Good thing it was Friday night 🙂
“You are all being put to bed tonight, my fine bluey-green friends!”
One piece left and two holes….hmmm. The proverbial “LAST PIECE” of the puzzle was found on the floor underneath the table. How and when it ended up there, we have no idea, but we were REALLY glad we found it!!!
A place for every piece, and FINALLY a piece in every place!
1,000-piece puzzle…done! However, not without a bit of drama, AND it took us MUCH longer than the stated 6-10 hours on the side of the can LOL!!!
What is next? After we get some sleep, we’ll glue it up, mount it in a frame, and hang it up!!!
We were extraordinarily delighted with ourselves that we completed this puzzle. Tenacity was the key (mostly), as well as curiosity.
Link to items mentioned:
Leave a comment