A piece of cake? Hardly.

 

 

Sooooo, I've been working on a commission the past few weeks. Well, actually, longer than that. Much longer than that.

It grew out of a collage made for the Art of Food Exhibit in March. Someone wanted to know if they could buy a print of the piece - "Her Friends Felt That Roberta Was Overzealous About Protecting Her Recipes - which was sold.

The collage featured a vintage image of a knight wielding an oversized knife and fork, with various cakes and cookies. Vellum covered a large image of a cake that was the background. Well, I couldn't make a print because this was one of two collages from the show that I forget to scan. I offered to make a new one, and that's when the trouble began.

I was sure I knew where the knight was from. So, I hunted down and bought copies of the two vintage books I thought it was in. Wrong. Now, why didn't I write down where it was from as I usually do???

I scoured up more knights, including the amazing one above from an 1837 costume book. It was her favorite. There was paper leftover from the original collage, including the text at the bottom and another piece of the vellum with words on it.

So, I began. The client and I went back and forth on the images, with minor changes along the way. She visited the studio last weekend and the bottom right collage was her final choice.

Easy, right? Not a chance. The vellum didn't adhere as cleanly as on the original piece. She LOVES that cake, because the recipe she guards is a flourless chocolate cake. So, I spent a few hours yesterday trying to remove the vellum. Need I tell you that that didn't work?

Now, I am going to cut out the knight, text, cake, etc. and start again with a new background image. Luckily, I have more of the marbled endpaper - which came from a chocolate cookbook, and one last piece of that vellum. This time, I know how to adhere it.

But will she will like the new background. Stay tuned ...