“To you and all your family, your neighbors and your friends, may all your days be happy with the joy that never ends. May peace and love and surround you at Christmastime and all the whole year through.” Those are some of the lyrics to a song called, “My Christmas Card to You” by the Partridge Family; and during this time of year it was played, sung, and danced to pretty much non-stop in my house when I was little. Though my sentiments have continually matched the lyrics to The Partridge Family’s “My Christmas Card to You”, my actual Christmas Cards have not come through the form of top pop-chart hits. They have however included original artwork which has been presented in the more traditional form of the visual arts on cardstock paper ensealed in an envelope and patted with a stamp. It has been since the time I got married, got a new house & home and a little later had little babies to add to my family, that I have enjoyed designing, painting and crafting my own Christmas cards. Here is a collection of a few of my favorites including this year’s painted holiday greeting... “HOLIDAY CHEERS AND HAPPY 2020!” My holiday card this year is an illustration of me, my husband and our two twenty-something, young adult sons in our new home in Kentucky whose big windows overlook layers of rolling hills and a wonderfully picturesque close view of our hometown of Cincinnati across the river. We are loving things in our new house and treasure all our times together celebrating the peace and joy life brings. I had so much fun painting this card. Not only was it such a joy to reflect of the wonderful features and animated love captured in it, but it also brought me joy in that it reminded me of artwork when I was little. Being born on Christmas Day in 1966, the “Mid-Century Modern” aesthetic and vibe surrounded me as a little kid and, aside from music, nothing impressed me more than the hand drawn cartoon illustration style that was so popular in commercial advertising and other graphics during those middle years of the 1900’s. Another term to describe the type of retro style I am imagining could be understood as the “Atomic Age” of design ( which was influenced by the “Space Age” that began the middle of last century). To me, it is uniquely distinctive of the years around my birthday and brings to mind the things that were coloring the world back then and inspiring me as a little person. It is that mid-century era style that I was reimaging for this year’s painted card design. ( …In this painted current day Christmas cartoon scene of my family, I am imagining maybe a classic 1960’s vinyl record spinning on a turntable in the background that includes the relatively all-new hit “It’s a Marshmallow World” in the latest *stereo-sound*. :) While spinning a variety of tunes from many decades and painting this year’s Christmas Card, I came to reflect how it is/was not just in reimagining the colorful style of the “Atomic/Space Age” that brought me joy, but it was also in remembering me as a little person interpreting my world in my young years through my artwork. As a little kid, I regularly spent time creating and repeatedly drawing my own signature cartoon-like characters which my mom & dad and my three big brothers & three big sisters in our large household of nine had coined in admiration as “Chrissy’s Little People”. With features a little different than the mid-century commercial stereotype cartoon people I mimicked to represent me, my husband and our boys in this 2019 Christmas Card, my “Little People” were distinctive of my art with a style all their own and were drawn doing all kinds of activities and experiencing all kind of events and encounters. I remember my favorite “Little People” series of drawings ( colored pencil or crayon I think ) were included in a little book I wrote called “My Trip to the Moon” where I get separated from my parents at the airport and accidently board a rocket that lands on the moon where I take a walk to the dark side and meet a green alien with two pointy heads - - an alien that, like the encircled drawn head I drew of me, also had one big circle around both of his heads. ( Large global fishbowl helmet type circles …Any spacewalkers secure source for oxygen I presume. ) Haha, it was pretty wonderful… Creatively inclined early childhood meets early 1970’s moon exploration inspiration. Looking back, it’s fun to reflect how those mid last century years in America found way to excite my artistry ever since my first spin on this planet which began many Christmas Days ago. ( Later in this blog, I will mention “My Trip Around the Sun” which is some artwork I created decades later shortly after my sons were born. ) "PEACE & JOY IN EDEN PARK" This is a painting I did ten Christmases ago for a local holiday greeting card design competition. It’s the only contest I’ve ever found interest in entering for my artwork. Shortly after I began using social media in 2009, I discovered an ad about my town's City Art Holiday Card Contest and decided to submit a painting since my whole life I have loved creating my own Christmas cards. The painting I submitted is of Eden Park and includes childhood memories of ice-skating on its frozen “Mirror Lake” in the center of the park. Eden Park in Mount Adams is known for being a particularly beautiful spot in my hometown of Cincinnati; and as a young kid, ice-skating was my absolute favorite thing to do. So, for me, the subject and composition came to mind easily. As it turned out, my young dreams of investing in my ice-skating skills did not go that far for me, but my artistic endeavor was realized when I won the art competition and my design was produced, sold, and distributed throughout town and beyond for Christmas 2009. I called that ice-skating in the park holiday greeting card painting “Peace & Joy in Eden Park”. Below is a picture of me with my art that was taken as a promotional photo for the holiday cards and was published in a variety of local newspapers and magazines. As I was going through my photo files to find pictures of my 2009 holiday painting and other Christmas cards, I came across this picture of my process work in that “Peace & Joy in Eden Park” art and was reminded that not only did I start the painting out with many more carved skating strokes that I loved to swirl around on the ice; but I also included the painted figures of my 2007 Christmas Card in the background. Those figures in the background, one in a red hoodie and one in a gold hoodie, walking through Eden Park are a repainting of the same figures I painted walking on a snowy mountaintop a couple years earlier for my 2007 Christmas card. "ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOLIDAYS" For Christmas 2007, I painted my growing grade school/junior high school aged sons, Sam and Joey, at our place in the Colorado Rockies where they grew up celebrating the holidays with family ( my Colorado in-laws ) and where we continue to visit and enjoy Rocky Mountain climbing, snow skiing, and gathering by the fire in the wintertime. “JOEY & SAM: 2005 TRIP TO YELLOWSTONE” In 2005, my family of four took an extended vacation exploring as much of the beautiful wilderness in the American West as we possibly could including taking many amazing journeys through our country’s treasured National Parks. The incredible majesty of the landscapes we crossed are simply impossible to capture in words or pictures. However, for my Christmas card that year, I did attempt to compose a painting to celebrate the awesome wonder and beauty we experienced as a family by piecing together a snapshot recalling those wonderful memories. This Christmas Card painting from 2005 includes a picture of my sons, Sam and Joey, in Yellowstone National Park. Though it does not show in digital images, each individual card was hand decorated with additional layers of texture hand-crafted on each print. For example, in the waterfall and the river stream, I added an additional layer of dimension with touches of fine, reflective crystal sparkle. I also crafted additional dimension and texture to each of the painted boarder flowers and pinecones as well as hand tied each card with sparkly red ribbon. “AWAY IN A MANGER” Looking back on this Christmas card, I am remembering how those sweet little babies once so peaceful when asleep in a crib quickly turn into toddlers that keep a parent running from day to night. ~ Such was the age for my little ones around the years that I somehow found time to make this Christmas card. For my holiday greeting that year, I don’t believe that I even got out paints but just quickly drew the simple artwork in colored pencil ( …which appears to have faded a bit. ) Still, this remains one of my favorite old Christmas cards recognizing the expressions of my sons’ thoughtful, loving and reflective hearts that continue to bring light to my world today. "SAM E. CLAUS" As any family probably knows, the addition of a new baby makes any thought of all the joy and all the excitement Santa Claus may bring pale in comparison to the joy, excitement and enchantment a baby brings. That was certainly the case with our baby boys… Here is a painting I created as a Christmas card of our first born, Sam, for his first Christmas ( ...and for me and my husband's first Christmas as parents. ) Inside the card I wrote Merry Christmas from “Sam E. Claus” ( Sam’s middle initial is “E” ) and on the front of the card circling the moon I wrote, “His eyes how the sparkle, his dimples how merry, his cheeks like roses, his nose a little cherry." ) 😊 “TRICKS AND TREATS” For our next year’s Christmas card, before Sammy’s brother Joey was born, I painted a picture of our first little trick-or-treater. “MY NEW TRIP AROUND THE SUN” Earlier in this blog I wrote that I would mention “My New Trip Around the Sun”. - - “My New Trip Around the Sun” is a blog I wrote. It includes a description of the Christmas card tree ornament pictured above that I made to send to family & friends for Christmas 2000. Various times I have written about or shown various versions of that 2000 Christmas card of mine. ~ Here are some links to some of those reflections including a link to my blog about “My New Trip Around the Sun”. * In “My New Trip Around the Sun” blog, I noted how my December 25th birthday aligns with Christmas Day. Here is a Link: "My New Trip Around the Sun ~ Wishing the Whole World Peace, Hope, Joy and Love" * In the next link I noted the timing of this 2000 Christmas card creation of mine and how it became relative to the passing of both my parents in the early 2000’s. ~ I also described how I crafted a special crystal bead trimmed version for my mom the December she passed away. Here is a Link: "May The Road Rise To Meet You" A picture of my mom & me when I was little. { My mom, Mimi Fox Breslin, passed away on December 21st, the Winter's Solstice, sixteen years ago. } ** A link to a blog about My Mom: My Mom * This next link notes that this Christmas card is based on and inspired by my own original “Tides of Eternity” clock creation which I made just after my sons were born, and around the time of both of my parents' passing, and in anticipation of a whole new and different century on this earth. Here is a Link: About - Chrissy Breslin Schroeder * This other link shows a picture of a variation of my Christmas Card 2000 artwork that I created the following fall after 9/11/2001. Here is a Link: https://www.facebook.com/148099118621581/photos/a.316796038418554.65280.148099118621581/316802725084552/?type=3&theater Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from my family to yours …and Cheers to 2020! ~ In the new decade, may we find that all the styles and signs of the times that come before us including the people we encounter, the events and environments we experience, the things that we see and hear, and all that we admire, play with, interact with, and reach out to love, whether through the forms of modern day mediums & media or in real life connections, inspire us to find what brings peace and joy to this earth we all call home.
Cheers!
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A seasonal subject found me filling my sketchbook with doodles about this weekend’s All Hallows' Eve and Día de los Muertos ( Day of the Dead ) celebrations; and for my Irish roots I'll add the celebration of the Celtic New Year { Samhain }.
A sketchbook on the coffee table and a catalog picked from the pile of mail = weekend relax time with some fashion models to sketch as subjects and whatever doodles come to mind... Some slides: “Sandor Boatly had never guessed that, properly played, baseball consisted of mathematics, geometry, art, philosophy, ballet, and carnival, all intertwined like the mystical ribbons of color in a rainbow.” ~ W.P. Kinsella { ...from Butterfly Winter } When I close my eyes I see stars. ...stars and fireworks. ~ That is probably because since winter I have been spending hours upon hours digging, layering, carving, and coloring hand-painted mosaic tile designs forming the shapes of radiating stars in a firework sparked sky while piecing together memories of the 1990 Major League Baseball World Series. I did this by using a collection of 12 bobbleheads surrounded by my remembrances of the rows of rainbow seats that at one time encircled Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium / Cinergy Field. The result is my painting pictured in the slide show below. Its kaleidoscope of colors is a celebration of a time when all the pieces came together and the stars appeared to align for baseball fans in my hometown as their team held a wire-to-wire season ending in a World Series Sweep. - - I will always remember that historic 1990 Major League Baseball World Championship since my first date with my husband was to Cincinnati's Opening Night game that year. Needless to say, from beginning to end, it was one Red hot summer and soon after, like the ball playing champs, I also came to sport a diamond ring ( a wedding ring for me ) which I got after a proposal from my same date that Reds Opening Night of 1990. I still wear it. And now these days, safe and happy at home base, I look back on my life’s journey in this world and on that baseball season’s historic finish with a perspective that helps me find countless reasons and endless inspiration to reflect on what someone like “Sandor Boatly” may understand as the “mathematics, geometry, art, philosophy, ballet, and carnival” of that record-breaking wire-to-wire summer. I created the 1990 Reds Championship “Painted Bobblehead Mosaic” art as a companion collectors piece to my Great Eight ( plus Sparky ) Big Red Machine Art. Like my artwork for the Big Red Machine team, it also features the Reds Riverfront Stadium, later called Cinergy Field - - only this time the field is showcased from the inside of the stadium and the mosaic highlights the high-tech digital scoreboard of its day. More about this artwork can be found in the blog: "Opening Day Delay" The old Riverfront/Cinergy Field scoreboard in action: My Great Eight ( plus Sparky ) *Painted Bobblehead Mosaic Big Red Machine Art*: ( Find more about this artwork here in the blogs: “Colorful Success” and “Pieces in The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum” This *Painted Bobblehead Mosaic* art concept of mine is something that I originally created years ago when Great American Ballpark housed a collection of stellar pitchers and all-stars who helped lead the Reds to claim the title of National League Central Champions in both 2010 and 2012. ( My first Reds themed painting was of the Reds new Great American Ballpark that came after Riverfront/Cinergy Field… I did the painting back in 2010 and called it “Diamond on the River”. ) In my hometown of Cincinnati, where I was born and raised by my Reds loving parents, and where my husband and I Iive and raised our 2 sons, the history of baseball runs deep since it is here in this old American town that history marks as the place where baseball began. One-hundred and fifty years ago, this city along the river came to be the birthplace of major league baseball when the Reds established themselves as the very first professional baseball team beginning in 1869. For baseball fans and teams now well established throughout the United States, lineups like these sweeping 1990 World Series Champs are what dreams are made of. To help commemorate the 150th anniversary of this game of the American spirit and join in the celebration of the great history of baseball in Cincinnati, I am adding to my series of signature Painted Bobblehead Mosaic Collectors Pieces by creating art prints of this 1990 dream team as well as some other relatively new artwork that reflects on more historic baseball at Riverfront. * Read about more historic baseball at Riverfront in the following blogs about my artwork: "Opening Day Delay" “The Timeless Charlie Hustle and the Geometry of a Rose” "Bench Number Five ~ The Earth is a Baseball" "Number Eleven and the Four Elements featuring Barry Larkin" ** Follow my Reds themed artwork on the facebook page linked below and when I get back from my 4th of July holiday vacationing on the beach with my family, I will get busy restocking some baseball art in my Etsy shop { …it has been sold-out for some time. } Facebook page for Baseball Art: "Cincinnati Reds and Bengals Art by Chrissy Breslin Schroeder" …Sometimes I also use Instagram ( @tidesofeternity ) and occasionally the old "Tides of Eternity Art by Chrissy Breslin Schroeder" facebook page or Twitter (@tidesart ). { <-- where you may find my "social media" - "self-promotion" game is pretty lame... ; ) Some paintings shared on my social media last week for Eastertide and the celebration of Earth Day. #tidesofeternityart #chrissybreslinschroeder "Birds, Fish, and Three Men in a Boat" Happy Earth Day Greetings of the season and Merry Christmas wishes that during this time especially, may we all find peace on earth and love and joy in our hearts.
“Lacing Skates” { oil on 16 x 20 canvas } Years ago, I went to find a collection of vintage Halloween costumes & created a painting of some of those old-fashioned thin plastic face masks that came w/ them. ~ This album is some of the process work I recently found in an old photo file. A few photos where I began with some sketches and created a layout: Some samples from my vintage plastic mask research including: *The Creature From the Black Lagoon* { ...I love 1950's era Sci-Fi } Starting to add color to my layout... After I finished the painting, I decided the piece belonged wrapped around a tall candle pillar. A picture of the art with a candle lit behind it... My current facebook profile picture crop { *Waiting for the fall… 2018* } This summer brought fun and adventure for our family including most recently a trip to explore various parts of Montana's Big Sky Country. Here is a painting I did based on memories and impressions of some of our vacation time exploring the incredible beauty of Glacier National Park. In the painting I remembered the majesty of the mountains against the big sky, the crystal-clear glacier mountain lakes which are literally bright turquoise in color, the gorgeous wild flowers and tall pines, and the highly favored huckleberries that grow on the plants that surrounded us everywhere in the park. In all the park's awesomeness, we discovered that many views like this one I remembered can only be found by hiking the mountain on foot. The quaint and cozy Belton Chalet, a designated National Historic Landmark Hotel, is where we stayed during our time visiting Glacier National Park, and I would give it 5 stars for charm, history, setting, friendliness and comfort. Being able to keep our windows wide open in the old-fashioned luxury felt like the dream place to be for cool fresh mountain breezes and a relief from the summertime’s continued record-breaking heat waves. Fortunately for us, our chalet was angled away from the winds of the wildfires that have been ravaging devastation all over America's wild West. Sadly though, the presence of the continued overwhelming wildfires were clearly obvious in the skies veiling the views and mountains with thick layers of every shade of smoky grey. It was at The Belton Chalet, and then pretty much everywhere else on our travels, that we discovered the flavor of huckleberries. Huckleberries are where it's at up there! Most every restaurant and shop we crossed on our vacation advertised that they had huckleberries or huckleberry flavored or scented something or other; and as we were told, it was something to boldly advertise because huckleberries are hard to come by since they only grow in the wild at certain elevations. Before this trip we were not really aware of the distinctive and sweet huckleberry, but later we learned that we were at the very right place at the very right time for them. We were told that huckleberries are native to the northwestern United States and grow in the wild requiring the high elevations of 2,000 to 11,000 feet to thrive in the mountain soil. Their peak season is mid-August - - just the time we were there. This local refreshment was a favorite huckleberry treat of ours after a long day of hiking… As the Wild Huckleberry Larger can illustrates, another big fan of huckleberries are Wild Black Bears and 300-1200 pound Grizzly Bears that live in that habitat where huckleberries grow. The bears love the huckleberries and spend their late summer days eating them to help fill themselves up before taking at least a 5-month nap. However, huckleberries are hardly the only thing bears will bite into and if a hungry bear is startled and feels threatened by humans, they can attack. The signs and warnings similar to the one pictured below about the seriousness of encountering bears were everywhere. Maybe the wildfires had something to do with it or maybe just the time of year, but we were notified frequently about bears on the mountains and even had to take alternative trails because some were completely closed due to high 'bear activity' { ...insert wide-eyed emoji. } Hiking miles and climbing mountains, while constantly being ‘bear aware’ and constantly making noise as directed to keep from a dangerous surprise bear encounter, left me so winded at points that the only noise making energy I had was to repeatedly give a quick yell-out of 'Who-Dey' . ( "Who-Dey" = a conditioned seasonal hometown NFL inspired expression of sorts. ) Fortunately all the *Who-Deys and noise making worked through all our outback journeys past the “Warning: You Are Entering Grizzly Country” signs, and up all of the high winding mountain trails, and through all the lush huckleberry patches... Thankfully we didn’t come across a bear until our last day there when one crossed the street a little in front of our car leaving us with only great memories of our taste of adventure hiking to discover the amazing Big Sky Country views and awesome beauty in the majestic mountains of Montana's Glacier National Park.
"Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain. For purple mountain majesties, Above the fruited plain." ~ Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) This September my sweet niece Madeleine is getting married and as a surprise gift I created a painting of her and her fiancé, Wade, based on a selfie photo they posted of themselves together on their recent travels to France. Remembering how as a young girl Madeleine loved the “Madeline“ children’s book series, I incorporated the background of her and Wade’s *selfie* in Paris by impersonating the illustrations of Ludwig Bemelman’s enchanted artwork of scenes in Paris along with his distinctively unique tree shapes found in all the “Madeline” books. I made the painting with the intent of creating a cake/pastry stand featuring my artwork which I put under a glass plate; and then I put a crystal candlestick under that which worked as a pedestal. { A pastry stand just impressed me as something fancy and French, so I decided to create one as a wedding gift. } First I did a drawing of Madeleine & Wade's selfie from their trip to Paris along with the imaginative storybook interpreted background which looked like this black & white picture before I added color keeping in mind the pallet of Ludwig Bemelmans' artistry. The artwork with painted color: The bride with her gift at her wedding shower this past weekend: Je veux vous féliciter Madeleine & Wade! I have a variety of projects & gifts that I have been enjoying working on lately. This canvas, however, is just a crafted hobby piece that I have been picking on for about a month this mid-summer to help create some relaxation, peace, and perspective aside from the stress of the constant chaos in the daily news cycles about the world's current affairs that I am too often finding hard to ignore these days. I call the painting "High Summer (2018)" "High Summer (2018)" painting on an 18" x 24" canvas: Slides of Process Pictures |
AuthorI am a 'self-taught' artist who can hardly remember a day when I wasn't in the process of creating something... Thanks for visiting my site where I can share some of my work. Archives
January 2024
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