new cards for Christmas, or possibly Winterval *cough*

 

I picked up the first batch of this year's Christmas cards from Minuteman Press yesterday. They've turned out nicely, I think!

This one is inspired by Thomas Hardy's poem The Oxen

...and this one is called Christmas on the Cut. Because it's been quite a canal-orientated year for me...

I've got them up for sale in packs of five, on my Etsy shop. If you would like lots, do get in touch and we can try to sort something out! ...I'm learning about selling as I go along, of course....

"The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft"

The Rule of Threes kicked in yesterday. When three different people mention an unlikely subject, it probably means that Something Must Be Done. In this case, it was Christmas.

Yes, I know. Sorry, me too.

But then I thought that it'd probably be a good idea to get cards printed, ready for when people (those wise folk who don't leave this sort of thing until three days after the last posting day for Christmas, as I do) need them.

So I did this picture. Obviously all this goofing about on narrowboats has been affecting me.

I'll also be printing some cards of this painting, which I did to go with Thomas Hardy's poem The Oxen.

The Oxen

 The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
   "Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
   By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
   They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
   To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
   In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
   "Come; see the oxen kneel,

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
   Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
   Hoping it might be so.

Thomas Hardy

I love this poem; it fits my own feelings at Christmas quite well. I remember the sense of magic about the Christmas story, and feel its absence now I am both older and a lapsed Anglican (ex-Anglican? post-Anglican?); magic, for me, is now far more elusive, though still there sometimes in the corner of my eye.

So I wanted to do a picture to go with it. It was a bit of a rush to get it finished in time for Christmas Eve! We had a good day; House Teenager was busily either painting at her desk or learning Fairytale Of New York on the ukulele, and I was doing this.  The gold paint for the detailing on the dressing gown was a bit of an experiment, and I quite like it- you can't see the glow of the paint on this image, but it's there! House Teenager posed for the picture, as did Ted, Deborah's lively galoot of a collie.