An Addition

One the gifts I received for Christmas this year was another beautiful book illustrated by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone to add to my collection.  This one is an ABC book of rhymes and verse.  Their illustrations are one of my biggest inspirations. 

Post Festivities Post

Here in our household we just finished up the last of the scheduled holiday gatherings.  It has been a very deep and wonderful Christmas. 

Christmas morning before the kids woke up

I'm excited to have added Prisma color markers to my tools of the trade.  Since the colors correspond with my pencils, I'm discovering how beautifully the ink sharpens the look of the colored pencil.  Looking forward to many happy hours of coloring in the upcoming year!

A Christmas Pageant

Here is the preface to a wildly beautiful Christmas pageant written and illustrated in 1937 by Mary Lane McMillan.

Night Full of Stars

If you are looking for something truly magical to enjoy in celebration of Christmas,  I highly recommend visiting the beautiful bridge at Old Salem after dark.  They have filled the ceiling of  that amazing bridge with all sizes and shapes of Moravian Stars.  It has it's own kind of quiet in there and the wood and star canopy is really magical. 

Another View

Here are two pieces done by Conrad Pickel taken from the 1974, forty-forth Christmas Annual.  I really love this artist's boldness in stylizing and using black lines.  I think these pieces speak loud and clear!

1948

Volume 18, printed in 1948 is one of my favorite issues.  This first piece is illustrated by Stryker Ingerman.  He is one of my favorite Christmas illustrators.

This is work by Sada Jones.  It is part of a collection of illustrated Christmas Carols. 

Open Skies

1944 cover by Lee Mero

Nativity

This beautiful illustration was done by Sada Jones in the 1964 Volume 34 Christmas Annual. 

Oddly Me

I had the privilege of meeting an amazing artist last Saturday.  His name is Mark Bowman and he is gifted with the ability to do caricatures.  I have always been amazed by this art form.  He not only captured me and my bottom lip quite well, but he even fit in part of a conversation about a giraffe we were having. 

Mark is available for corporate events, weddings, birthdays and illustrations.  You can contact him at
                                                               kartoons4u@yahoo.com. 

Christmas Treasures

I have a highly treasured collection of antique Christmas annuals.  They are called "American Annuals of Christmas Literature and Art".  Augsburg Publishing House began putting them out in 1932.  They are beautiful on so many levels.  They have become one of the highlights of how I celebrate Christmas.  They are full of art, poems, scriptures, illustrated hymns, stories, articles and meditations on Christmas.  I'm getting a late start, but I will do my best to share bits and pieces of them for the month of December.

1945 cover illustrated by Lee Mero

illustration by Elizabeth Martin

1938 photograph