The Perfect Pandemic Activity
A few days into covid lockdown I experienced a rare regret around my past decluttering efforts: I had given away all of my jigwaw puzzles!
Oh no! It’s the perfect “this world is crazy, I can’t focus” activity.
As I kid I loved loved doing jigsaw puzzles. I have fond memories of doing puzzles with my sister. We both wanted to be the one to put in the last piece so we would each hide away 1 piece of the puzzle. We did the same puzzles over and over and over again.
We also had the impossible puzzle – a close up of The Three Bears.
We never completed it (this is an image from the internet). Closest I ever got was to get the edge pieces together. My sister still has the puzzle so maybe some day we will master it!
So back to lockdown – I had no puzzles. There was no where I could buy a puzzle – all the shops in New Zealand that sold them were closed – even for mail order.
What to do? I turned to digital puzzles.
Puzzles of my Own Artwork
After a while I decided to try a puzzle of my own artwork (see top image).
I uploaded the photo and I was set for hours of staring at a screen and clicking that didn’t involve reading anxiety laden news. Perfect.
Very quickly I discovered there is magic in doing puzzles of my own artwork.
I could look at my work more objectively when it was cut into little parts and scattered across the screen.
I noticed things I hadn’t noticed before. I could see the repetition and variety in new ways. I play around with my use of color by sorting the pieces.
And I could see how poorly lit some of my images are. I need to get better lights for my studio photography.
In addition to helping me cope, the activity taught me something about my artwork.
At the bottom of this post I share some links to puzzles of my artwork for you to enjoy.
Real Puzzles
As much fun and educational as the digital puzzles were, nothing beats that soft click of a real puzzle piece locking into the right place. So satisfying.
The day shops were open for mail order sales, I bought myself 2 puzzles. We rearranged our lounge (aka living room) and set up one of currently unused studio tables so I could work on them.
Kiwi guy said he liked puzzles but I didn’t really believe him. My son is not a fan, he finds them pointless and boring. I kinda figured Kiwi guy would be the same way. Not quite as extreme as my son but he has little patience for the activity.
I’m currently working on a 5000 piece puzzle of New York City. Sorting through 5000 little pieces of cardboard to find the edge pieces was not ever going to be on Kiwi Guy’s todo list.
The puzzle is ginormous – I’ve never done a puzzle this big – we even had to add a bit of an extension to the table to make it fit. ๐
My Artistic Temperament
I think my interest and enjoyment of this activity points to why I love doing the type of artwork I do.
I cut apart perfectly good fabric into little pieces and then sew it back together for hours on end. Repetition. It’s soothing.
Building something slowly, a little bit at a time. Sign me up! I love the process.
This is was the state of the puzzle over the weekend. It’s taken about a month to get to this point as I’ve been in the studio a bit more and working on the puzzles a lot less.
Digital Puzzles for You to Try
Below are 5 jigsaw puzzles of my artwork. Click on the image it will take you to the website where you can put the puzzle together.
The first thing you will see is this control in the middle of the screen:
- The first icon allows you to select the number of pieces you’d like in your puzzle. Want it harder or easier – change the number of pieces. It will redraw it to fit on your screen.
- The second icon allows to go set it so the pieces rotate. It defaults to no rotation.
- The third icon allows you to select the background behind the puzzle if you don’t like what I’ve chosen.
The help menu is in the upper right hand corner and there is menu in the upper left. You can also make puzzles of your own images.
