More bits and pieces.

It's that time of year again, for me at least.  There's a kind of fractured reality in the run-up to Christmas, on through to the New Year.  It's when I think about what I might do next year.  This happens every year and these thoughts seldom make much difference, I need to draw all the time and paint some of the time.  The results of these efforts end up looking pretty much the same. I suppose it's because mid-December each year I have a photo-book made up of most of the pics I thought OK.   That's done and dusted, and due for delivery tomorrow.  I do it because I can't possibly keep all the arty stuff I make, I keep a digital record but that's not 100% reliable.  Nothing beats a printed version in book form.  So 2022 is officially over for me...artwise, at least. Here are the first and last pages of the 2022 book...they sum up my thoughts in a way. This week I've been fiddling with Christmassy bits and pieces.  My son wants us all to make Christmas crackers for one another.  On past experience they'll end up a bit bulky and definitely won't go 'BANG!!!'  Now everyone is grown up, he likes cheeky stuff, if not outright rude.  I won't be trying to outrude him, but I've ventured a little way along that path. They'll include cracker jokes... No...I didn't fancy drawing a mince pie, or spy for that matter.  No doubt this very joke will be in all your crackers. I've included one more joke...a bit rude...which is why I haven't posted it in the gallery..... Compiling my book this year has shown me I haven't done that many full paintings...mostly drawings, some coloured, mostly in my sketchbooks.  Must try to make more 'complete' paintings...you know what I mean. I'm getting new sketchbooks for Christmas, unless my carefully laid plans, hints, suggestions and outright demands, prove fruitless.  This year I've renewed my aquaintance with dip-pens and I'm loving it.  Somehow it seems more 'arty' than the disposable pens.  I've reserve at these one sketchbook for dip-pen drawings. Strange really, it's just dates of the callender, but to me my own little personal art scene has changed.

I usually have about six sketchbooks on the go Dixie, most are full.  As I need to work larger these days, I asked for A3 books in various paper thicknesses.  Last year I kept one for drawings with blue pencils, for some odd reason I like that.  Another was to be for sci-fi.  I'm lowbrow enough to enjoy sci-fi art (or ultra Highbrow, not sure which it is).  I managed to keep to the blue-drawings, but the sci-fi one fell by the wayside, everything but the kicthen sink in that. What a great idea for sharing your 'horse' book with your grand-daughters.  What a keepsake that'll be.  The one for trees is great too...maybe that's why you draw trees so well.  We've done something like that each year Sylvia.  One year is was a present costing no more than 50p, as tacky as possible seemed to be the idea.  My grandson bought me a joke book at a car-boot.  It cost 10p, was yellowed and falling apart, and full of old, OLD, jokes.  Most I vaguely remembered, more than most were cringeworthy, but despite all this I enjoyed reading it.   All text, no cartoons.  So now you know where I get my jokes from. 

Your Christmas Eve ritual sounds charming, I suspect most families have little quirky things they do to add to the joy of Xmas.   I have rarely sketched outdoors.  My en plein aire has only taken place in hospital waiting rooms, and we've had a lot of that these past few years...which reminds me...I use a A5 sketchbook for that (I can hardly whip out an A3 sketchbook in a waiting room).  So I need an A5 book as well.

Ahh..New Year's resolutions Sylvia...never had much success with that.  Last year I promised myself I'd try some POP ART (a genre I like....some anyway), and I did a few.  Must try a few more. I suspect, like me, you produce images that you don't like but feel the ideas might be worth a second attempt.  These duffers get stuck in a seperate folder so I know where to find them without trolling through all my pictures.  Here's a few from this year.  I've bunged them into one picture in photoshop... Top left...I've been wanting to do a pic based on Ravel's Bolero (a favorite piece of music) for a long time, but can't decide on how to show it.  This was part of an idea.  Didn't like it. Top middle...idea from my Men in Sheds series...went all the way with this...posted it on POL...then removed it after about 10 minutes...just don't like it. Top right...there MUST be a picture based on the CLUEDO game...did this...poorly done...must try again. I won't go through the lot, most are just poorly done like the Cluedo pic, but I like the ideas and hope to revisit some of them next year.  They've been kept in my ideas folder on my computer...the actual pics have something painted/drawn on the back, or have been trashed. Mostly when I don't like something I've done there's a clear reason why...in others it's simply because I don't like them...wierd. I suppose there's nothing that odd in any of this, it's all part of the art game.