Introducing Ski Fever from American illustrator Gary Patterson! This is a puzzle image that I have admired in old catalogues and online posts for a while now, and quite recently, two copies have crossed my path! One copy was part of my amazing FB Marketplace find and the second turned up at the thrift store a couple of weeks ago.
Well, it didn’t take me too long before I pulled one of the copies out to assemble. These types of illustrations are so nostalgic and fun to me, they remind me of the likes of Robert Blair Martin, and comics like the Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes, which I absolutely adored when I was a little kid.
What’s always drawn me into this puzzle and image, is that it feels like two puzzles in one, there is an open sky with a slight gradient and falling snowflakes (as well as a skier that appear to fallen off the side of the mountain). And the second half of the puzzle has a busy line of cars all heading up a treacherous cliffside filled with warning signs that this is a fun but probably dangerous pastime.
This time around, I decided to assemble the sky outline first, some folks might think that’s the hard part but it went fairly smoothly. It was also pretty neat the see the whole blue part assembled before the mountain scene was put together. After that, it was smooth sailing, or should I say skiing?
Legend has it that in the early 80s, a little brown mouse would visit Patterson in his art studio while he was working, so Patterson named it Boo and began bringing lunch for the little guy. Not long after, Boo started making appearances in his artwork as well! See if you can spot Boo in the photo above, he’s there for sure!
As a kid, I remember when we would drive into the mountains there would be signs for chain usage and that always used to worry me. We drove to the Whistler area and some of the local Vancouver mountains, and the odd time to Banff and the surrounding areas. This was before some of those roads had a major upgrade, driving to Whistler is so much safer now, but back in the 90s it felt a whole lot riskier! I can’t say that I loved it!
Springbok’s Ski Fever was released in 1991, 1000 pieces and complete! This was such a fun puzzle and the great news is that I have a second copy 🙂
thepuzzlesivedone 