Now that Halloween is over, the holidays are coming at us like that round bolder in Raiders of the Lost Ark! I have been making cards and gifts for Christmas since late summer, but I feel constantly behind. I finished the painting I told you about last time and am pleased with how it came out. It was originally supposed to have fog, but you can't have everything. I made it into a card, and maybe I'll make a second one out of it. I sold a print of St. Hildegard (Thank you!) so now I'm offering more prints of my paintings.
I am also offering t-shirts with my block prints on them. I'm really happy with how they look, and hope that people will get them as gifts. The images I make are meant to be iconic so they really work well on shirts. I have tried to solve the problem I would have with overhead and storage by making shirts to model but stating that they can be any size and will be made to order. I would like to offer long sleeved shirts and sweatshirts, but I also have to spend $ on presents so I can't just buy a bunch of sweatshirts hoping someone will buy something. I know Ihave to spend money to make money, but I have to be realistic also.
That doesn't mean I can't still make more stuff for Christmas. Going with the icon theme I've been trying to come up with an iconic Christmas image for a block print. I've already done a Christmas tree which came out great, but I'm looking for something that will have more of an impact; is bolder or more "dramatic". My girlfriend suggested Santa, which I initially rejected as too cliche to register with viewers but I like the idea that icons originally were saints portraits and Santa Clause is just how little kids pronounce Saint Nicholas. This probably won't go on a shirt, but I'm just thinking about Christmas cards. It makes sense that in order to catch anyone's attention whether it's cards shirts or anything else, my job as an illustrator is to create an image that is bold, iconic, arresting, and all the other synonyms for "eye catching" I've used so far.
Religious Icons generally hold something in their hands to make it easy for viewers to recognize them. I'm haveing a hard time figuring out what to have Santa hold. First it was his list of naughty and nice, but I thought people might not know that's what the scroll was meant to be. I thought maybe coal in one hand and a toy in the other, but I really think Im going to stick to red and white for colors, so that wont work. let me know if you have any ideas!
Oh! Maybe a thumbs up with one hand and thumbs down with the other!
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