Eric Carle Inspired

Isaak is going on a field trip this week to The Rose Theater. He's going to see The Very Hungry Caterpillar & Other Eric Carle Favorites. He is so excited! This summer when he went to the Omaha Community Playhouse for camp he and his camp buddies acted out The Very Hungry Caterpillar. 

Source

I saw that Gymboree has a whole line of Eric Carle shirts, and pjs right now. I knew Isaak would love to wear one of Eric Carle's designs on his trip to the theater. The trouble is, is that the shirts go up to a size 6. Isaak's 6, but he wears size 7 shirts. Mica's just turned 9, but he wears a size 10, and I'm buying a size 14 for him for next year. Our boys are tall. Every time I look at them it seems as though they grew a little more overnight.

I had some plain t-shirts I bought for a rainy day, and decided to make Isaak a caterpillar shirt myself. I would never sell this due to copyright issues. It's not exactly like Eric Carle's work - I made sure of that. Isaak wanted to wear it today, but his field trip is later this week. I'm having him hold out. He did try it on for a few pictures.

Front of the Shirt:

 Close-Up

Here's Eric Carle's illustration:

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Isaak's shirt has yellow going all the way around. The caterpillar sections are different to. Eric Carle draws with colored pencil different colored lines on the top of his caterpillar. Isaak wanted red lines. 

The part I was unhappy with are the caterpillar's feet. I decided to use fabric markers. Man, they bleed! It was the first time I used them. 

The back of the shirt:

Close-Up

It goes around more than what I captured on camera. There's an ice cream cone, pickle, Swiss cheese sausage, lollypop, pie, more sausage, a muffin, and a slice of watermelon.

This to is different from Eric Carle's work. He has a piece of cake in there somewhere. Isaak doesn't like cake, so I left that out. The lollypop was originally blue and yellow in Eric Carle's image. I didn't have blue, so I made it green and yellow. The pie had blue berries in the original, and I made it a cherry pie.

I'm debating on painting the sliver of fabric up by his neck a color. Like maybe a darker green. What do you think? Should I, or should I leave it be?  

Do you like Eric Carle's work?

The best part of doing the t-shirt is hearing Mica say, "Wow Mom this is cool!" and Isaak saying, "Thank you Mom! I just don't know how you did this."

Just a secondary thing: My post about the Faux Terrarium was featured on Clairejustine's Creative Monday post. YAY!