Winter Holidays Are Here Again

Time sure does fly when you're busy. Seems like no time at all since Halloween came and went, then Thanksgiving did the same. Here we are just a few short weeks until Christmas arrives. Haven't had any time at all to draw, sketch or paint any new holiday greetings so I'll re-post one of my old favorites.

This is from a black and white pen and ink rendering I did in 1989. I later inked it with color and used it as a Christmas card. Five years later, I digitized it, added snowflakes, shrunk the image, printed multiple copies and used them as name-cards on holiday presents. The image eventually made it onto a poster advertising my holiday art displays and is part of The Cotner Collection Poster series. Here’s a version once again as a holiday greeting. Have a safe, warm and joyous Winter Season and a very Merry Christmas.

Día de los Muertos

October 31, 2010 has come and gone marking both my beautiful daughter’s birthday and Halloween. It’s a great time of the year. November 1st and 2nd marks the Mexican Day of the Dead – Día de los Muertos —a colorful, festive and celebrative time. “It is a holiday with a complex history and fusion of old traditions. This view of death started with Meso-American cultures such as the Olmecs more than 3,000 years ago. Meso-Americans believed that during this time of the year, the boundaries that separate the living and the dead weaken and that the deceased could visit the living. Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life, as a blend together cycle. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake.”

Here’s a Cotner Collection Art poster I did in 1998 commemorating the holiday.