As it happened (from my Journal archives)

October 27, 2005

Thursday 6:22 pm - I mounted the image for puzzle #637, Ploughed Fields this morning instead of yesterday evening. I did some initial cutting this afternoon. Marathon cutting will begin tomorrow: I will get up early, as time is running out this month and there are quite a few dance events coming up this weekend that I want to attend. The print is a glicée print (pretty expensive at $60.00) and I was quite concerned with how it would cut. My preliminary assessment is that the print is cutting well. I'll know more when I get down to individual pieces with the attendant handling stress required to feed small sections of the puzzle board against the blade while holding the wood firmly against the saw's table surface.

I've decided that the puzzle will have plain edges (straight), no wavy border or any other kind of fancy border. The technical quality of the painting a bit of disappointment. The oil painting from which the print was derived has extensive cracking of the oil paint in the lower section of the picture (mostly in the field area), the cracks look a lot like the lines formed by puzzle cutting, and it is extremely difficult to see where I have cut while cutting. The cracked paint lines will interfere with my desire to show off my Creative style cutting in the dark areas. None-the-less, I'm going to continue with this image simply because I don't want to start over, yet again, as this puzzle has already been delayed numerous times.

October 29, 2005

Saturday 12:17 am - I was lucky if I got in four hours of work on this month's puzzle; with most of the work time spent further subdividing the board, I've cut a total of just 17 pieces!

October 30, 2005

Sunday 10:51 pm - I spent over five yours cutting #637 Ploughed Fields yesterday, and about more five hours today. Cutting is going well, and I'm now about 1/2 done. The puzzle will not be completed in time to auction it in the October time slot. So, it will be the November puzzle. I expect to complete the puzzle on Tuesday and launch the auction on Wednesday.

October 31, 2005

Monday 5:26 pm - Put in about six hours of cutting Ploughed Fields today, now about 75% completed. Cutting continues to go well. Tired. I plan to put in a similar workday tomorrow and complete the puzzle. Auction launch scheduled for late Wednesday.

November 1, 2005

Tuesday 4:28 pm - Seven hours at the shop today, the puzzle is finally done. Cutting is excellent, too bad the picture doesn't show [the cutting] off well. The puzzle is still at the shop as I need to sand the backside.

From the auction description:

This is the 48th Custom Puzzle Craft wooden jigsaw puzzle to be offered in my ongoing 100 Puzzles Project of almost-monthly auctions.

This puzzle, Ploughed Fields, features a glicée print of an 1830 painting of the same name by Caspar David Friedrich. The print was purchased at allposters.com. This puzzle is a limited edition of ONE, no other puzzles with this image will ever be made by me again. I like Caspar Friedrich's work, usually featuring one or a few people against a large landscape.

The puzzle includes one figural: a whimsical rocket; nine "egg" pieces; and my signature piece (signed, numbered and dated on the back). I also marked a second piece on the back, indicating the puzzle belongs to the 100 Puzzles Project.

This puzzles was cut in my Creative style which means some very fancy cutting, and much attention given to how the cutting lines flow from piece to piece for an overall effect. Unfortunately, the oil paint used by Caspar Friedrich in painting the ploughed field area in particular, has extensively cracked over time and thus just about completely hides the detail of the cutting. Better detail can be see in the middle sections, and to some extent in the sky.

My Creative style has evolved over time, with more and more attention given to the overall cutting effect and the cutting of some very fancy pieces. In the past few months I've had to back off a little as some of the pieces were so extreme that they were quite fragile and could break if not handling with considerable care. On average, the pieces in this puzzle are a bit sturdier, although there are some pieces which push the envelope, so to speak. I will take considerable care in packing the puzzle.

I've cut over 600 puzzles since I started cutting puzzles in early 2000, but less than 10 are what I would call "major" Creative style puzzles. This is one. This puzzle took about 27 hours to cut over a five day period and combined with all of the other time associated with this puzzle, used up all of my puzzle making time over the course of a week.