Not long ago, I was asked by some Brooklyn musician pals to make some artwork for their album of children's music: "El Baile Del Sombrero". Charles Mister and Fatima Sfiligoi are the musician pair behind Abbasubi. Their new album is a collection of songs in Espanol, written by Fati, a native of Argentina. Charles composed the music, and together they have an album that is full of very sweet lyrics and festive tunes.
I was very happy to be asked to illustrate this album, as the lyrics are full of imagery and characters. After I created a collection of characters, the talented designer Mariana Canale did her magic with them, and composed the entire cd package:
The title comes from the Fati/Charles musical phenomenon which they originated with their kids, that one must dance wearing crazy hats. The hats are made of felt, and come from a hatmaker in Lujan, Argentina.
Here is a photo of some of these hats, modeled by our friend Flynn and the kids:
Motivated by the fact that they do live shows, Charles and Fati asked me to make them a puppet based on the rabbit, El Conejito Teo, from their album. This was a leap for me, to make a 3D puppet from a 2D design, as I consider myself somewhat spatially challenged. Thanks to this great Internet, I found this page which taught me how to make a mouth board. Many hours of trial and error later, emerged a large, yellow, felt version of Teo.
And he has a carrot:
