Scrooge Abridged

This was my Christmas card from 2009, before I started my blog. I created it with the panels lined up horizontally, and folded accordion style.  But it's fun to stack the panels vertically and scroll down through the story. I should say my memories of A Christmas Carol are from the 1951 movie, with Alistair Sim as Scrooge. I think the problem with many filmed versions of A Christmas Carol is that they cast a grouchy, gruff actor to play Scrooge. I think the key to the character is finding an actor who can be convincingly giddy after his transformation. Grumpy, cranky and mean is easy; sincerely joyful and ecstatic is hard.

2013 Holiday Card

Here's my 2013 Holiday Card

 This image of the caroling snowmen was originally painted as an assignment for Wowindows (www.wowindows.com) a company that makes holiday posters for windows that glow at night as they are backlit from the lights inside the house. The posters are most effective if there are large opaque areas of black, to contrast with the translucent color areas. The image also needs to be vertical, to fit a variety of windows.

For my card I de-verticalized the image to give the snowmen a nice roundedness. I added a blue nighttime sky with snowflakes, but I toyed with the idea of keeping the black background with snowflakes. My daughter was the only other person in the house when I was playing around with the backgrounds. She nixed the black sky, so I went with the blue. But I'm not sure, I kind of think the black is cool and graphic.

This is the original version as a holiday window poster

This is the alternate card.