post 999 - Christmas cards

My favorite of the Christmas cards

and three socks....

Saturday Mary and i talked all our friends into signing up for Jim Gensheers Christmas card class... we had great fun with Jim as one of his jobs is to entertain us... we learned how to paint his Christmas cards...fast and quick...he does the background washes on some in 20 seconds...and entertained us with a stop watch and not looking as he did it...even the newbees left with cards they were proud of...and they should be ..their cards were lovely

BYTW he sells these for $5 each...a steal of a deal...we all left with at least one or two of his originals...they are 5x7, include an envelope...on 140# Kilimanjaro paper

after a fast lunch at River Club near our friend Illes house and where EVERY golfer in North Augusta had decided to sit down and watch the British open...drink beer and talk LOUDLY....we went to illes to paint some more cards...i made 13...no idea how many everyone made all together but Jim was gracious enough to lend Sue and Ille a watercolor palette and he lent us all stamps, sponges and the wine cork wheely invention...it really does great trunks...tired but happy i got home about 7:30...i know my puppies have forgotten who i am this summer!

oh how were they made? generally the skys were washed, big trees swished in quickly with ultramarine, a touch of raw sienna and indigo, a swosh swoshed across the foreground for shadow, trees were scratched and then salt added using the hula technique...put the board on the floor and sprinkle salt from the hip as you do the hula:> Then we let them dry while we did the next one...small trees were added with rigger brush...posts with the wheely...and some brush with the fan brush...and last but not least a toothbrush to splatter snow on our winter scenes...course i am NOT telling his special techniques that make it easier to do...its all in the details of how you handle the equipment...such as holding the rigger brush at at 90 degree angle...and hold it close to the top while you paint all the trees in...the small ones that is

another winter dawn...opps four trees...should do odd numbers...posts are all done with the wheely thing

not bad but perhaps too many trees done with the rigger brush?


this was done entirely with indigo with a touch of ultramarine...the trees were done with a stamp
wish i had made the post into a tree...but i like it ...

love the sunrise on this one...although i used too much salt...oh well...


this is one of my favorites...would you believe the tree is stamped? made in class

I made this one at home...late at nite...i am going to go back in and make the trees longer with the wine cork wheely thing...slices of wine cork impaled and glued on toothpicks that make stripes of color...you can go back over it again....use heavy undiluted wc


Okay so i thought it would look Christmasy to do one of the freeform cards in red and green...should NOT have used thalo blue with it too...who ever heard of a red green and BLUE christmas card:>

a fall scene...
this is the one with the 20 second wash...slap slap with the water and then slap slap with the color- trees done with the wine cork wheely thing... A purple and orange one done the same way...i like this one although i think TOO many branches...less is better with these...and faster!!

My son Drews size 12 and a half sock...he picked the yarn out himself after much careful consideration of the catalog and its color way swatches...checking to see which ones the store had and what colors they knitted up into..