Quilt Farm by Eduard – Buffalo (Country Life) – 1000 pieces
Such a beautiful image, and it was so entertaining to assemble that it went together quite quickly. If you’re looking for a great puzzle and the image is to your liking I highly recommend this one.
The quilts were all so colorful and the patterns were so interesting. You know I can’t resist a puzzle with quilts, there’s just something about them. I can’t put my words together to properly convey how happy they make me, but I’ll keep trying. 😊
For some idiotic reason I thought this section with the vegetables would be pretty easy to assemble – boy was I wrong! It turns out that the wooden boxes were much more simple to find and put together. The veggies, well they weren’t always so easy.
Another of my loves, puzzles with dogs. 💕 Of course you were going to get a closer picture of these adorable puppies!
Great puzzle, beautiful image, gorgeous quilts – what’s not to love?
Pop Art Puzzle by Andrew Rae – Laurence King – 1000 pieces
This amazing puzzle was one of the most interesting and entertaining puzzles I’ve done in a VERY long time. I started in the morning around 8 am, and was finished by 10 pm – it was beautiful, educational, interesting, weird, and FUN!
It’s going to be an extremely long post, so buckle up!
Laurence King is a new to me brand, and I was duly impressed by the excellent quality. (The World of Frankenstein was my second LK puzzle to be assembled, but was posted last month for the Halloween holiday) These puzzles are manufactured in the Netherlands, and the puzzles seem to be exactly the same quality of a Jumbo puzzle. The fit is exquisite, the image reproduction is bright and crisp with a variety of piece shapes and the waxy-feeling finish that makes it seem like a premium quality puzzle – because it is!
*Beware though, it seems puzzles by the same brand that are made in China are not of the same quality as those made in the Netherlands. If you can’t be sure where the puzzle was manufactured proceed with caution. I would only purchase ones I was certain were made in the Netherlands.*
According to the surprisingly large (23 x 17 in.) poster in the box, “This puzzle presents illustrator Andrew Rae’s reimagined version of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, taking the glorious and surreal scene in a new, pop-art-inspired direction.” There is a wonderfully detailed and interesting section about both Bosch’s Garden and the pop art movement along with a legend of the artists and artwork represented in this image.
I loved learning about the artists and seeing the portrayals of well-known (and some not as well-known, at least to me) artists and artwork. The image isn’t something I would normally choose for puzzling, but the subject matter and the included poster with so much information was just too good to pass up. As it turns out, it was much more engrossing than expected and the assembly was truly delightful. 💛
It was so difficult to decide what pictures to take, and in the end I only took three; there is just too much to see! At the end of this post, though, I’ll be giving you the list of the 56 representations of the artists and artwork shown. It’s all just too interesting for me to give you just a regular old post about this puzzle.
Educational puzzles (which is what I consider this to be) make me so happy, and learning more about pop art and seeing the artwork reimagined or just paintings of the artists themselves was fascinating. I cannot seem to find the right words to tell you how much I loved this puzzle!
This tiny little section shows the artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, and a rabbit sculpture fabricated by Jeff Koons. I’m a big fan of Keith Haring’s work, so of course his image was the first picture I wanted to take from the completed puzzle. The 32,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with Haring’s artwork, Double Retrospect, was the first one I considered assembling seven years ago when I made the decision to complete a VERY large piece count puzzle. Unfortunately at the time it was already out of print and unavailable. Of all the puzzles of that size available at the time, his artwork was the one that stood out and really excited me; although after assembling a different enormous puzzle I realize that his image would have been extremely difficult with the limited color palette and big blocks of solid color.
🎶Here I come to save the day!🎶 This is Andy Kaufman doing his famous rendition of the Mighty Mouse theme song on Saturday Night Live. I’m a comedy nerd as well as a proud puzzle geek, so this little section jumped right out at me and made me smile.
In this small section of the image (perhaps about 11% of the puzzle) are so many things to find. Of course Botticelli’s Venus jumps right out at you, but did you catch Monet’s Water Lilies? Or Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais? Bacchus by Caravaggio? Have you heard of A Bigger Splash by David Hockney? I hadn’t. Jackson Pollock is decorating a mushroom, and the man just to the left of him is the artist who created the image for this puzzle, Andrew Rae. There are even more just in this section, there’s so much to see and find – and it was so much fun!
This was so enjoyable, not only for the great quality puzzle but the subject matter as well. I loved looking for each of the artists or the artwork and found it to be educational as well as entertaining. Laurence King has quite a few puzzles like this by different artists, each one with a different subject; Freddie Mercury, Jane Austen, James Bond, The Harlem Renaissance, Dracula, Shakespeare, Frida Kahlo, Wes Anderson, The Story of Impressionism, and many more. My PADS is kicking into overdrive!
This puzzle is very highly recommended, I absolutely adored it.💖
Stay tuned for the list of artists and artwork represented in this image…
Andy Warhol
Campbell’s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol
Yayoi Kusama
Grayson Perry
Niki de Saint Phalle
Varvara Stepanova
Venus by Botticelli
Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais
David by Michelangelo
Salvador Dalí
Rhinoceros by Albrecht Dürer
Andy Kaufman
Tracey Emin
Balloon Dogs by Jeff Koons
Rabbit sculptures by Jeff Koons
The Wounded Deer by Frida Kahlo
For the Love of God by Damien Hirst
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Pablo Picasso
Water Lilies by Claude Monet
The Son of Man by Rene Magritte
La Tauromaquia by Francisco de Goya
Little Yellow Horses and Little Blue Horse by Franz Marc
Henri Matisse
Viva la Vida, Watermelons by Frida Kahlo
John Cage
Keith Haring
Marie-Thérèse Walter
Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh
The Monarch of the Glen by Edwin Landseer
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst
Fountain by Marcel Duchamp
A Bigger Splash by David Hockney
Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe by Édouard Manet
Portrait of Pope Julius II by Raphael
The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai
Catherine the Great
Horse with Jockey: Horse Galloping on the Right Foot, the Back Left Foot Only Touching the Ground by Edgar Degas
Capricho no. 39: Hasta su abuelo by Francisco de Goya
Gilbert & George
Tiger in a Tropical Storm by Henri Rousseau
Andrew Rae
La recontre, ou “Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet” by Gustave Courbet
Burma Road by Charles Wysocki – Buffalo (Silver Edition) – 1000 pieces
Although I am very much enjoying this Wysocki image, my first impression of this Buffalo Silver Edition puzzle is one of disappointment. The only difference I can see so far is the box; it’s much fancier than a regular Buffalo puzzle and the pieces come in a resealable plastic bag – that’s it.
The fit is VERY loose, the cut is a bit odd, and I’m just not that impressed with it at all. I was hoping it would have thicker pieces, or a more snug fit, or a different cut – something to make it different from their regular puzzles. This Silver Edition puzzle is underwhelming. 😥
Still, it’s a very nice image and I’m enjoying myself even if the puzzle quality isn’t up to my snobby standards.
This collage of horror book covers was so much more entertaining to assemble than the Stephen King covers puzzle that I posted last week. The quality was much better, which made for a more satisfying experience – loved this one!
I usually tell you how many books of those shown that I’ve read; and you’ll be able to tell that horror isn’t exactly my genre when I let you know that I’ve only read 4 out of the 55 books shown. Yikes, it make me seem like an illiterate troglodyte, doesn’t it?
Whatever. Even if I am, my mom said I was adorable and my family loves me – so there! 😜
Typical Re-marks quality; random cut with a variety of piece shapes, good image reproduction, very good fit, and a slightly shiny finish. Pretty good, all around – and it made for a great assembly that went quite quickly.
I haven’t read this book, but I loved the cover – doesn’t it seem perfect for Halloween? Spooky!
Haven’t read any H.P. Lovecraft either, but I know he’s quite popular in the horror/sci-fi genre; and I’ve even seen an episode of Supernatural about him. Plus, look at that creature – yikes! I think it’s called Cthulhu. Do you think Mr. Lovecraft just banged his face onto the keyboard to come up with that name?
Now this one I HAVE read, it’s by my favorite author; it’s one of my favorites of his too – though I wouldn’t classify it as a horror novel. Suspense, sure. Thriller, yep. But not really horror in my opinion. Still, it’s a great book.
I enjoyed this puzzle from the first piece to the last, and highly recommend it if you can find it. When I purchased it the cashier told me this particular puzzle was selling out very quickly. No wonder, it was such fun!
Finally got myself out of bed and back at the puzzle board – Battleship got sorted and started yesterday, it’s looking good already!
So far this one has been more entertaining than both Clue and Scrabble (I haven’t posted about Scrabble yet, but it’s coming up in a few weeks). I’m not sure my muddled brain can express exactly why this one is more fun, but whatever the reason I’m just trying to enjoy it.
Any other oldsters out there remember the commercials for Battleship? I do. There are two old men at the opera – their wives are watching the performers and the men are behind them playing the game. Of course once one sinks the other’s battleship the loser stands up and yells “You sank my battleship!” causing everyone to stare and shush them. Those commercials from the 70s have that phrase imprinted in my brain.
Commercials were always more important to me than the actual programs when I was young. Mom always told me that I would be playing in the house, ignoring the television, but when the commercials came on I would run into the living room and stand there transfixed until the commercials were over. Once the show was back on I would leave the room and go back to whatever it was I was doing.
My parents used to love to tell the story of little 4-year-old Stacey at the grocery store walking along beside my mother, stopping at the products I recognized and reciting the commercials. Everyone in the store thought it was adorable, but for my mother it became exasperating. She had her three young girls with her, she was just trying to finish her shopping, and I was holding things up with my relentless in-person advertising. My poor momma.
I probably should have saved that story for my post about the finished puzzle, but it was right at the front of my brain this morning so why not share it, right?
Anyway, I hope whatever puzzle you’re working on right now is interesting, good quality, and most of all entertaining. Happy puzzling!
My Jigsaw Journal 