Kids’ Doodles Plus Dad’s Coloring Equals The Most Amazing Artwork You’ll See Today
For many of us an overabundance of kid art means a crowded refrigerator and possibly an unfortunate trip to the recycling bin after bedtime, but one talented dad is putting all of us to shame by helping turn his kids’ drawings into colorful and unique works of art. Fred Giovannitti is a renowned artist and inventor who spends a good portion of the year traveling all over the globe for his work. According to the Mirror, Giovannitti uses the long hours he spends on airplanes each month to stay connected to his kids by coloring their drawings, creating beautiful collaborative masterpieces.
For the past several years he’s taken pencil drawings by his children – Freddie (aged 9), Sofia (aged 8) and Jaxton (aged 5) – every time he goes away.
He says that his children are always excited to see the finished pictures and give him free choice over which colours to use – apart from one time, when Sofia insisted that the t-shirt he character was wearing wasn’t supposed to be red.
Giovannitti has been colorizing his kids’ art for over four years, and the drawings have grown so popular they led to the creation of an Etsy shop called Coolaborations where Fred sells prints of the artwork. The finished pieces are stunning:
So, how do Giovannitti’s kids feel about all the attention their artwork is getting? In a brief exchange this morning, they told Mommyish they couldn’t be more thrilled with responses.
“It’s amazing,” says Sofia, whose latest drawings will be posted later today.
Her brother, Freddie, threw a fist in the air while adding, “I love it!”
In addition to selling prints of his own kids’ art, the Coolaborations shop also features the option to have Fred work his unique brand of magic on your children’s drawings. He writes in the shop info:
I use scans of your child’s drawings and colorize them on heavy stock 8.5″x11″ acid-free paper, suitable for framing. You will receive the finished product within 2-3 weeks! Sometimes much earlier!
Everything about this makes me completely giddy. The kids’ artwork is already charming and otherworldly, but the life Fred gives to these drawings through his use of color is absolutely awe-inspiring. I would love to have any and all of these hanging in my home.
There are a lot of ways to memorialize childhood. Some people keep detailed scrapbooks, some make quilts, some take a million photos and home videos. Taking a child’s artwork and turning it into a keepsake for the whole family to treasure forever is by far one of the coolest ideas I’ve seen. I can’t think of a better way to capture the inherent whimsy and imagination that comes with being a kid.
(Photos: Fred Giovannitti / Coolaborations)
