XMAS CARDS: MY SIGNATURE SANTA EXPRESS

THE VERY FIRST XMAS CARD

First, dear reader, my employment of X …. Or rather the utility of my X:

X comes from the Greek letter Chi, the first letter of the Greek word for Christ.  The mas is from our Old English word for mass.  A common (Christian) belief is that Xmas originated as a secular attempt to take the Christ out of Christmas; whereas in fact, this practice dates back to the 16^th Century.  As for me, neither exclamation rings seasonally true.  I am just a short-cut secular snappy-title guy (note my repetition as the literary device employed in XMAS and EXPRESS within my blog title).

Every Xmas I make up a dozen or so personalized cards to present to my favorite people.  And each Xmas I design a new card.  Last year I drew Santa doing a selfie in his IPhone; the year before that I drew Santa playing a guitar; and the year before that I do not remember.  (I never keep any of my past cards; the supply is always depleted before New Year’s; I’m that generous!)

Not so strangely with these cards, I do not like to call myself a craft person.  With regard to my Xmas cards, they are crafty but not commercial -- I don’t sell my Xmas cards.  I’m quirky that way.  And not so strangely, too, I do not refer to myself as a portrait artist.  My preference is to be recognized as a portrait busker.  Give me ten minutes and I can draw your visage, and that’s that.  The longer I linger on a countenance, the more my customers expect. The more minutes it takes to draw someone, the more that someone expects a photo-like print.  

Today my blog entry is a how-to on how I do … Xmas cards.

The very first Xmas card (shown atop this blog entry) was created by Englishmen, Sir Henry Cole, and his artist friend, John Horsley, in 1843.  Two batches of that original were printed (2050 cards) and they were sold for a shilling apiece.  

For this year’s card, I started by drawing my own hand.

Like this.

Then I draw Santa.

And then I create my Santa card express line.

After all is drawn I start adding color.

When the coloring is completed I personalize the greeting and closing on each card.  This, by the way, is the only time of year that my longhand is legible.

For my signature greeting or salutation on each card I write “MERRY XMAS, ______!” Usually I write MERRY in red and XMAS in green.  For the valediction I write, “From your favorite busker!”  Or sometimes, depending on the recipient, the complimentary close will be “From the Child family!”  This is usually written just in pencil black or grey.

There you have it.  These Xmas cards have been on my mind all week and finally they are close to finis.  I just have to color and address them, and then dole them out.   

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas …

 

VIEW FROM MY BALCONY

ALL ABOARD THE SANTA EXPRESS!

TRIPLE BILL AT THE BUSK OFFICE: A SKETCHY REVIEW

My claim to busker fame is usually attributed to my guitar or my didge.  When it is summer in the city, slinging my guitar or didge on some street corner is an awesome, awesome sense of freedom.  I love it, love it!  However, after thousands of summertide strums and drones it does, admittedly, become a rather perfunctory performance.  Crunching brown leaves under foot underneath a gray sky while en route to my next buskspot, I have an autumn reflection:

FALL la la la la la la la la la. 

‘Tis the season to be sketching!

AUTUMN LEAVE UNDERFOOT

Perfunctory is my word for guitar and didge busking; concentration is my word descriptor for portrait sketching.  Attempting to quick-draw my patrons within a ten minute time frame demands a very professional-like focus.  Though a load of chinwag is normative betwixt my client and self, I rarely veer from my intrusive staring straight into the faces of strangers.

 

MY WINTERTIME BUSK OFFICE

The big difference between summertime and wintertime busking is the portability of my instruments.  Slinging a sketchpad and mechanical pencil is far simpler than slugging a guitar or a quiver of didges.  Mind you, sometimes I do busk with my pencil in the summer, but from a mercenary perspective, the money flow is just too slow, even though the line-up for portraits can be long.

This is because of my lack of quick-draw capability.  Though I often brag I can draw anyone within ten minutes (and I can), to shade and finish a portrait to my particular liking and habit is usually a fifteen minute endeavor.  Guitar and didge busking I can easily make at least fifty dollars in an hour; portrait busking I make only forty dollars in a most perfect hour.

I need to draw faster.  And this is precisely the reason I set up at the Centennial Market every Saturday between 11:30 A.M. and 4 P.M.

PAT IN FIFTEEN MINUTES

RON IN FIFTEEN MINUTES

Each of the above portraits took me fifteen minutes to sketch.

QUICK DRAW

This is not my Quick Draw, but I’m sure it took only a minute or two for the artist to draw this.

And while googling, I stumbled upon Quick Draw with a guitar!  Imagine that, Quick Draw somehow anthropomorphically representing me!

Meanwhile back at the busk office ... here is my scoop on the perceptual comparisons of guitar busking, didge busking, and portrait busking:

• Guitar Busking

For me the quintessential busker is that messy-haired guy in a white t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and hiking boots.  When I’m slinging my guitar I’m that guy who is just passing through town.  I’m that guy who people wonder what my story is and isn’t it a pity that I’m reduced to this; yet at the same time envy me because they imagine that tomorrow I’ll be gone and down that lonesome highway singing songs in another town or city.

• Didge Busking

Didge busking has a certain mystique.  Even though it originates in Australia, the didge does connote earthy yet celestial appeal, the earth’s heartbeat resonating into deep space sort of feeling.  To me, people playing didgeridoos exude almost out-of-body experience.

• Portrait Busking

I cannot draw a house or a tree or a person (as in the Goodenough Draw-A-House/Tree/Person projective test) but I can draw a face.  People do not believe me when I express this simple truth.  Most of the artists within my social circle have stated that portrait drawing is the most difficult of art forms, yet to me it is the easiest.  Passers-by often stop to watch my pencil that never lies in action.  Passers-by are always impressed with my product.

And so my skinny review of my above mentioned alterities:  When I’m slinging my guitar people think of me as that free spirited stranger-come-to-town.  When I’m blowing my didge people think I’ve a social membership in some cerebral and beatnik-like sub-culture.  When I’m drawing I imagine people think I’ve a revered adroitness with a pencil that few humans possess.

Rather than my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week I feel obligated to offer instead some clowns marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARODY.  This is certainly not a political blog but sometimes I do feel obligated to express some things I find to be laughable yet offensive.

REALLY?

USA Treasury Secretary, STEVEN MNUCHIN, and his wife, LOUISE LINTON, are posing in typical TRUMPIAN fashion.  These clowns are just two of the many quintessential representatives feeding in the president's AUGEAN STABLE!

A PASSIONATE EYE ON THE PASSIONATE "I": (IT'S ALL ABOUT ME, ME, ME.)

"MELANIE AT THE MALL"

"STACEY AT THE MALL"

"DAVID AT THE MALL"

Reading psychology blogs as is my morning custom while sipping Americano coffees, Barton Goldsmith’s, “Five Ways to Help You Find Your Passion,”(November 11, 2017), jumped out at me.  

I must mention that I normally do not read Barton’s blog simply because of the picture of him snuggling his dog which is atop every one of his blog entries.  Time after time over the years this picture of Barton has turned me off from his worth of a thousand words.  (Google Barton Goldsmith and Psychology Today and you’ll see my shallow reason for customarily ignoring Barton.)

Anyway, here is the grit of Barton’s essay (his five points paraphrased and selfishly annotated, in me, me, me fashion):

• Do more than one thing. 

Ha!  My problem is there are never enough hours in the day or enough years in my life to embark on all the things I am wanton to do (wanton being as in play, not promiscuous).  I love studying and practicing hypnotherapy; I love writing songs; I love practicing didgeridoo; I love drawing fifteen minute portraits; I love going to the gym; I love going to work.  Factoid:  I do not excel in any of these wanton activities, but I think I rank in the 90^th percentile in most my activities.

• Be good at what you do. 

I rank myself in the 90^th percentile because it is “me” who decides to become good at something, and it is “me” who decides whether to stay engaged in an activity or not.   If it (whatever “it” is) can be fixed with a knife and fork or a hammer, I’m the guy to call.  I’m not handy and so the women better find me handsome (an oft heard heterosexual and sexist joke).

• What did you want to be when you grow up? 

As long as I remember I’ve always wanted to be an artist and a writer.  I am slowly getting there.  Right now I’m a street portrait artist (I always post my latest drawings somewhere in this blog) and I’ve been published a few times (a couple examples: A Wishbone Epistolary, 1985 University of Toronto, and The Creek, 2012, America Star Books.)  And I’ve yet to grow up.

• Do a mind map to see what points to your passion. 

This exercise of Barton’s is rather elementary.  He suggests you draw a circle in the middle of a blank page (representing your passion) and draw some lines from the margin toward that circle of passion, with some explanatory lines of direction.  However, I’m too sophisticated for such an Adlerian exercise. Practice, practice, and more practice is the key for both guitar playing and portrait sketching, or to express it in another way, write, write, and write even more for literary publication.

• If money were not an issue, what passion/s would you pursue?

I do know and I do agree with Barton is this particular regard.  I would not be stretched on some sandy beach with an umbrella drink in hand.  (I do confess I could hang out on that imaginary beach for an hour or two, but I would not be drinking alcohol.)   

I long to be:  a planetary portrait busker (see my blog entry, SKETCHES OF MARRAKESH:  A BILLET-DOUX FROM THE PLANETARY BUSKER, April 29^th, 2017, where I reached my zenith in Marrakesh).  To keep my pencil-never-lies skill, during wintertime I draw portraits at the Centennial Mall in Regina every Saturday.  As always, some of these portraits are shown at the beginning of my blog entry.

To draw to a close (lifestyle pun intended), hobbies and recreate activities are considered to be forms of self-expression, as are most lifestyle choices.  Preferred foods and beverages, self-adornments in style and costume and all the accoutrements thereof, grooming and physique are all examples of such personal choices.  

Of the forms of self-expression that are easily attainable, I dare say that one’s physical health is fundamental to one’s personal function.  This, to me, is a simple premise.  I have only the one body and that’s the only place I have to reside, and therefore, I ought to take care of it. 

Looking back now on my route 66, I know that life is but a fillip.  In existential dread I know that to live is to suffer (the skinny of Zen).  I know I ought to steer clear of the ever present pettifog that can cloud my highway to personal contentment.  We never know what’s coming, and I do not want to be that woebegone wannabee who filled a life with regret rather than risk.  

Whatever it is that's coming, I do hope to suffer my passions until I'm finis.

CHAUCERIAN PARADE:

Yesterday morning I thoroughly enjoyed having a coffee with my cousin, HOLLY PRESTON, who happens to be the only marcher in my Chaucerian Parade this week.  HOLLY is important to me for a couple of reasons:  First, Holly is family, and second, Holly, too, is a serious hockey fan.