Review: 9 PM

9 PM by Karla Gerard – Art Puzzle – 1000 pieces

This beauty was obtained in a swap with fellow puzzle blogger Nicola at Puzzler1909. I was keen to try puzzle brands that aren’t readily available here in the states, and so we did a little international puzzle trading. The artwork of Karla Gerard makes for such great puzzles – the colors and textures she uses make the assembly quite entertaining – so it was one of the ones I chose for the long trip to America. It’s been a few years since this puzzle made it’s way to little ol’ me, and thankfully I finally got myself around to working on it.

Art Puzzle is a Turkish brand, and according to my overseas puzzle dealer 😉 they are inexpensive as well. I found the quality to be pretty good – my one problem was the extremely shiny finish. There is only artificial light in my puzzle room, and with the dark sky and trees at the top of the image – the glare was too much for these aging eyes. With all the dark areas it was difficult to see slight variations in color, and it made the top portion of the puzzle a challenge for me.

There isn’t usually an in process picture, they’re not ones I normally stop to take. Most times my puzzle brain takes over and any thoughts of stopping to document my progress are lost in the ether. This time though, while texting with my puzzle pal, I sent a pic of how things were going. Please excuse the extra stuff on the board, this was originally meant for a text so I didn’t move everything out of the way.

The only help there was for the very dark top of the puzzle was these small streaks of color. The purple was easy enough to find, as were the lighter tan colors – otherwise, the top was a bit difficult for these old eyes. If only it had been about 3 PM in this image – that would have helped me out a LOT. Alas, it seems it was 9 PM. I really need to figure out a better system of lighting in my puzzle room.

This puzzle was truly enjoyable from start to…..almost finished. The shine on the pieces made the last third of the puzzle a bit tedious for me, but it all worked out in the end. And Karla Gerard’s artwork will always be special to me, as it was what I chose when I bought myself my very first wooden puzzle. Her images really do make for great puzzles!

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