Lounge of Tomorrow - Christmas Card

It's for a homeless rescue mission or something, so it needed the religious overtones, and it had to be appropriate for a homeless person to send out, and hopefully speak to them as well, to some extent.

So basically all the "material" signs of Christmas weren't going to cut it.

W's original concept with all the people hanging out in front of a church didn't sit with me right in that it wasn't really saying much. I mean, besides "Hi we're homeless and hanging out".

Had it been a specific church, such as the one responsible for the event, it may have been different. You know, then it would have been "Here's this church we went to who made sure I got a warm meal on Christmas," which would have been a comforting message to send family. But he didn't have a specific church in mind. And then there was that whole homeless crowd thing. What does that say about Christmas? I enjoy drawing buildings, and have had some moderate success with painting them in an idealized fashion. But regardless, I'm not all that comfortable painting people. I mean, I've done a couple decent portraits but always on a larger scale, and on a small scale I'm very uncomfortable with how cartoony my "people" look. So the idea of painting a crowd, and worse, a specific crowd that has to actually resemble a particular set of society, and doing so on a small scale where I have less brush control, that wasn't going to work.

I originally cringed when he asked me to paint Jesus. It's one of those things where... I wouldn't have been able to stand painting him poorly. I know that sounds silly but it's just how I feel about it. Plus, when you paint someone's face, by definition you have to give them an expression, which gives away what they're thinking/feeling/doing at the moment. Screw that up and you say something entirely different from what you intended. Imagine trying to paint a peaceful or loving Jesus and getting the eyes just slightly out of proportion. Now you have goofy Jesus, which would be okay for a comedy card but not for a heartfelt card likely to be sent by someone with strong emotions around/about the holiday to people who probably have strong emotions about the person sending it and their situation. But this worked out, because my original concept for the hugging couple was also from behind (directs focus to the star and also keeps me from having to paint facial details). This meant I could have Jesus there, and his only "expression" would be achieved through his body language.

But beyond that... I think I just like simplified Christmas images. I think minimalist art is kind of like jazz music - it's the notes you don't play that define the piece. One of my favorite Christmas doodles that I do (on things like desk calendars and the like) is a bunch of blank space on the right, and half a Christmas tree peeking out from the left hand border of the image. You get the idea, it's a Christmas tree, with presents, but you leave that whole blank area for people to mentally fit themselves or their homes into the picture. I really don't do enough minimalist stuff, because my tendency is to keep filling in the frame. But I'm often pleased when I can pull it off.

Okay, now I'm getting artsy enough to annoy myself, so I'm going to shut up ;)