Art for Babies

Twin Art: Detail

Earlier this year I was commissioned to do two pieces of work for baby twins born in our family. The idea was that each baby would have a piece of work that marked their birth and that they could take with them through their lives. I think this is such a lovely idea and so personal. I spent a long time deciding what to do, working with the babies mum to make sure what I created fulfilled her ideas. It was a great project to work on and I'm happy to say that the person who commissioned the pieces is really pleased with the results. I haven't posted about it before as I wanted to wait till I knew I'd done a good job!

One of the pieces

The other piece

Detail of purple bird

These pictures are of the almost finished pieces, I also embroidered the babies names and birthdays but I didn't want to post that bit. The pieces are designed so that they work together but also alone so as the twins grow up they can take the pieces with them. I used vaguely mirror images and reversed the colours so that the background of one was the bird colour of the other. I tried to be quite loose with this though as I wanted each piece to be truly unique, just as the twins will be different from each other. They are made from handmade felt (some of which I'd dyed myself) which I then embroidered with both hand and machine stitch. I layered the felts on top of two texts as they come from a well read family. The top layer of text features words and phrases that I hope will be inspirational for them, such as hope, beauty, truth and dreams. I chose birds on a tree as I felt this encapsulated the idea of being able to spread your wings and fly but also of having somewhere to return to.

The finished pieces