I bought Sophia The Wheel Of The Year

[andrewducker]

Sophia has a bunch of posters up in her bedroom, with numbers, letters, colours, and animals on them. I like all of them, and they've all been really useful.

Except for the months and seasons. Where they don't actually match up to what the year looks like. The months one is all text, and the seasons has Summer and Autumn opposite each other, which makes no sense to me, let alone Sophia.

What I really wanted was a wheel of the year. The months arranged in a circle, with a quadrant for each season, and (if possible) a few important dates picked out. You'd think this would be something that existed, but a bunch of searching found me nothing.

So, when a talented artist friend mentioned that she was between commissions and happy to take on a one-off piece, I immediately messaged her. Obviously, I was going to pay her for her time, and even at minimum wage it takes a fair few hours to produce a decent work of art. So I wasn't 100% sure that I wanted to go through with it - and came to the agreement that I'd pay her to produce the initial sketch, and if I loved it then she'd go ahead to the finished work.

And I did. She was very happy to take on a few suggestions, and asked questions about the things that Sophia would love to see (Halloween, a robin, Santa - and I asked for a zombie for Gideon, who loves them). And then she produced the sketch, and it made me very happy, so she made me the finished version.

And then I got it printed, and this evening I showed it to Sophia, who insisted that we take down the poster by her head in bed and replace it with her new favourite.



If you like it, and you have some spare cash to spend on some personal art, then I highly recommend that you take a look at https://www.seobhanhope.com/

*I fully expect one of you to come back to me with 15 examples in the comments. But none of them will be as lovely as this.

Comments

[misbegotten]

That is so cool!

[angelofthenorth]

That is gorgeous

[bearshorty]

That is gorgeous!

[azurelunatic]

Beautiful!

I cannot find on the internet a picture of the Alaskan one that's probably still on the wall back home. It's beautiful, but it's not personal to these exact kids.

[andrewducker]

If you do track it down I'd still love to see it!

[ckd]

That is lovely!

[ninetydegrees]

Beautiful, what a nice idea! No matter where you look there's something interesting to look at :) Kudos to you and the artist.

[altamira16]

That turned out so lovely. I love the bunnies hiding under the snow.

[threemeninaboat]

I LOVE it. and super interesting that in my head July goes at the top. We should draw these tomorrow in art class.

[andrewducker]

Someone else told me that in their head the months go anticlockwise. Clearly there's a lot of variation and you should see what people come up with!

[yalovetz]

Yes, this is gorgeous, but also breaks my brain, because the wheel of the year goes anti-clockwise in my head.

[fub]

For me it goes counter-clockwise too, and I don't know why. I can't recall seeing or hearing anything that would cause it to be that way.

[movingfinger]

That is truly beautiful! And useful!

Wonderful

[lsanderson]

Great picture

[channelpenguin]

Lovely

[agoodwinsmith]

I would never have thought of having a Wheel of the Year made with things important just to me, or just to someone to whom I wanted to give a gift. This is a super idea, and a beautiful execution of it. If I had one, it would also be the wallpaper on my phone, yuh.

[andrewducker]

Well, it was only after I spent a couple of hours looking for one online that I started to think I was going to have to have one made!

[simont]

It's taken me a while to work out why that particular slightly skewed orientation of the wheel – if I'd been designing anything like this at all, then my natural instinct would have been to make one of the dividing lines vertical. I wondered if it was just for art purposes (on the general principle that putting things at a jaunty angle makes them look more handmade and vibrant and less like a boringly precise technical diagram).

But now I've realised that it centres each month around the position of the corresponding number on the 12-hour clock face, so that December is centred on 12:00, March on 3:00, etc. which makes it an additional subtle mnemonic for which month goes with which number. On purpose?

[andrewducker]

An excellent question! I shall ask Seobhan!

Edit: she was following my original wobbly sketch I'd sent her, and says "At first my intuition was definitely to straighten out the grid, but ended up preferring the more wonky option"

[simont]

I see – so it was basically at a jaunty angle for art purposes, and the mnemonic effect of neatly matching up months to clock positions is serendipitous. Well, once a good thing has happened by accident, it's just as good as having the same thing on purpose :-)

[andrewducker]

Maybe it will start a trend :⁠-⁠)

[melchar]

It's lovely! There's something about the implied motion & direction of the wheel 'spin' that just makes me happy.

[andrewducker]

It's got a lovely feel to it.

[darkoshi]

It's lovely, as is the rest of the art on her website!

[andrewducker]

I agree!

[anef]

How lovely!

[doubtingmichael]

That is an absolutely lovely thing, particularly the witch. Great job. (December is at the bottom of my wheel of the year. It has a little square for every day of the year, and the days are white during the week and grey at weekends and holidays. It's always been that way since I was a child, but it's a bit drab in conparison to this one.)

I would have thought a version with the family birthdays omitted would be very saleable.