I’d taken a number of medium-sized Wild Gears patterns, scanned them at high resolution, cleaned them up in Photohsop and shrunk them. Then I arranged them on a page in a triangular shape like a Christmas tree. When I printed it off, I thought, “It’s too fine, too small. Who’s going to want to color that?”

But then I put on my mother’s old reading glasses and started coloring it. I tried my fine-tip felt pens and some gel pens, and decided it was OK after all.

I’m a long way from done, however. It’s kind of like a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. We do one a year, over the Christmas holidays. I may not be doing a jigsaw puzzle this year; I’ll be too busy coloring.

You can too. The page is available to buy as a printable instant download.

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It took 2½ hours to complete the intricate colouring page, which you can buy here if you want to try it yourself.

I had planned to speed up the video, because no one wants to watch me colour that long. My software (Adobe Premiere Elements) can speed up my footage 8 times. It made me look like a colouring whiz, but it was still 20 minutes long. It needed to be under 5 minutes. What to do, what to do?

So I cut out bits – lots of bits – and replaced them with a “clock wipe” transition to indicate the passage of time.

I used glitter gel pens for the foreground patterns, to make them pop, some metallic gel pens for highlights (the silver can actually cover the black lines), and dollar-store markers for the rest. At the end, I shot some footage at an angle to see the glitter catching the light. We didn’t have glitter or metallic pens when I was a kid.

Such frenzied activity required a fast, jazzy soundtrack, so that’s what I gave it. Sorry it isn’t very relaxing! But I’m getting over the cold, and at least I have something to show for it.

Shop Wild Gears at this link.

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She writes:

For the pens I used Stabilo Point 88 Pen Set.

I made each Spirograph with either a spirotot or Spirograph set, and then cut them out individually with an exacto knife.This part was very time consuming because of all the ridges and corners of the designs.

Then I separated them by color so I could find a layout that I liked. Once I did this, I glued them on to a thick piece of paper with a regular glue stick.

When I had made the Spirographs, I made them on regular sketchbook paper. What my art teacher later told me was that I should have used acid-free paper, so the colors wouldn’t fade or the paper turn yellow.

Hopefully that won’t happen any time soon!

Here are some more pictures Ariella sent. You can see how carefully she cut out each design with the exacto knife. I can only imagine how painstaking a job that was, but it really works in the finished collage, which is luminous. Great job, Ariella, and thanks so much for sending your story and photos!

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