Rob is home today. I pick him up at the airport around noon. Then we have the trip to Corning at 3:30 for the team to get their teeth cleaned/observed. So, its an out and about day. I really finished up the export stuff for Christmas yesterday. Got it all boxed up with some odds and ends outstanding, but thats it. Hurray. Worked on today's advent calendar picture, a donkey with gifts that often accompanies St.Nicholas in Europe. I should have tucked St. Nicholas into the picture, but just dashed this off for fun. Maybe one with the old man is in order later. I have how many more days? Let me think...25 minus 7 is 18. Eighteen more illustrations.
Speaking of Christmas, I was just musing out loud about the Sound of Music and the Von Trapp Family. For my generation, the Von Trapp Family Austrian Antics were ingrained in our thinking and consciousness. Boiled wool, Austrian Hats with "shaving brush" decorations, dirdls, cuckoo clocks and the perky singing of all those matching children was something to aspire to, and for me, something that was distinctly very "holiday". It surprises me that the Von Trapps have lived their lives running their hotel in the east without really being grabbed by a huge marketing machine and having the Disney Von Trapp Xmas, or Von Trapp authorized perfect holiday stuff. The Martha Stewarts of Christmas. There is an opportunity there, but somehow, I think that the Von Trapps perhaps are too smart for those sorts of shenanigans. I still think there is a huge opportunity there. Their wonderful website points up that no, they do not need Disney to market them. They are doing just fine, thankyou. Von Trapp Family Lodge>>
I just saw a bunch of illustrations done by Maxfield Parrish, the advertising work he had done for Jello, and was comforted and amused by their assymetrical qualities and how this flippy work I have been doing is part of that family. Now, I do not even begin to stand in the shadow of this amazing illustrator, but knowing that he lives in this space is reassuring for me. I have been just toodling along on this stuff writing it off as "illegitimate" and "sketches". To know that this Parrish fiddled around with the same stuff is remarkable and reassuring.
Work abounds. More from the Hangar. More with a fashion designer mark. More with Quest Diagnostics, and more with the Museum. And, the artisan bread logotype for their farm. It goes and goes. But this is happy work. Looks like more snow.