130) Self Portrait Puzzle

One of the long standing favorite things in our house is puzzles. Like all things, they have their phases but recently we have been back into puzzles big time. A few months ago, during our last big puzzle phase, I wrote an Inspiration: Puzzles post, in which my friend Stephanie from Neuroses Galore, suggested checking out these blank puzzles. I loved the idea and next time we went to the art supply store I picked two up (they were something ridiculous like .50 cents a piece.) We have just had them hanging around our house for a while because I wasn't sure what exactly we were going to do with them. Then, while working on our stitched family portraits, I thought it would be fun to make the girls, particularly the Bee, to do a puzzle of her self.

I used the same technique as in the stitched portraits, starting with a printed photo on 8x11. I then shaded the back of the paper with pencil and taped the photo to the blank puzzle.

I carefully traced over all the lines in the portrait before peeling back the tape. I then went over the light lines in pencil directly on the puzzle to make sure I had everything.

Finally I went over the pencil lines with a black sharpie marker, before turning the puzzle over to the Bee to color however she wanted. She used lots of bright colored markers which reminded me of a Pop Art Warhol style prints.