“Happy Hallothanksmas” ~ “Rings Around the Sun”

During this season I often hear comments about how Christmas seems to come earlier and earlier every year ​even starting as early as Halloween time.  I guess that is why the word “Hallothanksmas” was created and continues to grow more and more popular. The expression “Happy Hallothanksmas” of course suggests that the Christmas season and its theming and marketing is now wrapped in with all the end of the year holidays starting in the early fall making Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas one big *Hallo-Thanks-Mas* feast.


In some certain ways, “Happy Hollothanksmas” may be a fitting expression for me this year because though it is just nearing All Hallow’s Eve, Christmas is where my mind is.  …And before I start seeing and hearing exclamations like “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” as the holiday season rolls in fast with accumulating *To Do* lists, parties and travel plans, I’m finding a little patch of space & time now to do one more piece in my art project that I explained here:

Is It Bigger Than A Breadbox? ~ "TV Land", "Saturn", "December", and "Parrot Wallpaper".

Of my ongoing collection of numbered canvases, this Canvas #15 is only the second one that I have done this year with the other one ( ​Canvas #14 ​) painted back in the beginning of the year in January 2023. 


I note the timing of these canvas additions to this project because this piece is partly inspired by past reflections on 2023 and thoughts of a new year coming after the series of holidays on the horizon.  In terms of calendars of all kinds and considering the holiday season that will mark the transition from the days growing in darkness to the pivotal point where the light of the day returns to be on the rise as the earth’s “new trip around the sun” begins again ( as well as my own personal​ “New Trip Around the Sun” that comes on my Christmas Day birthday ), it seemed fitting to make the animal in this picture a goat.  A goat seemed fitting to me being that the goat is the symbol of the sun sign Capricorn that aligns with the celestial positioning where and when Christmas is celebrated along with other celebrations marking the season of light and the dawning of the birth of a new year.


Reflections on this year 2023 so far and its history brought to mind many of the joyful memories I continue to collect as I am grateful that all years bring much for which to be thankful.  On the less positive side, it also brought to mind various happenings in this world including far too many devastating events on this earth with the wildfires in Hawaii being one of them.  It was with thoughts and memories of beautiful Hawaii that I proceeded with my fashion magazine project as I looked through my collection of them to see if I could find some styles of the tropics or maybe even a Hawaiian girl as a model.  Though I did not have any luck finding a model figure looking or posing like I was imagining, it really didn’t matter to me because I had decided to make this canvas more of an abstract painting that I could mostly just create out of my head without referencing a fashion magazine.  Nevertheless, I remained interested in coloring the figure with some distinct Hawaiian Island flair because I thought that style could fit with the hula hoop I was intent on giving the girl to represent a mineral element in this “Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral ~ Is It Bigger Than A Breadbox” piece.


As another mineral element for this themed *Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral* artwork, I thought that while the girl balances on a goat, the goat could be balancing on top of a floating ball - - so a big blue and green marbled ball serves as another mineral element for this composition. ( …As a unicycle rider in my youth, I have always loved balancing tricks. ) 


Finally, for the vegetable element, I figured the figure could naturally be suited-up in a bounty of botanicals including a ring of bright flowers the color of the sun around her head.


Canvas #15: “Rings Around the Sun”​
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Below are some process pictures. - - Because I improvised on creating the figure and her posture from my imagination instead of referencing a picture of a fashion model from a fashion magazine, I sketched the subjects before painting and creating the rest of the piece.  Sometimes I sketch a little before I paint and sometimes I do not do any preliminary sketching.  The goat is also from my own imaginings - - a composite of various goat features.  This time I did the composition on a large canvas board that I measured down to 8”x 10” to be consistent in size with the other canvases in this numbered series of paintings.  ( I also do not usually sign my paintings before I paint, but that is how it went down this time as I was just creating and naming it all as I went. )

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