The Holiday Season is upon us....

Every year I have a tradition.

Some people bake cookies or make their own presents.

I sit down and create the annual family Christmas card.

     I have been designing a new holiday card each and every year for over 20 years. Sometimes these works of art have been painted with transparent watercolors or acrylics. I have even used collage as part of my annual tradition. 

     Most people think the word " collage" refers to the art of cutting out and applying papers to another surface.  But with the advent of computer graphic programs "collage" can be much more than just torn objects. As much as I enjoy working with paint and paper, I also love working in a graphic design program. Many year's ago I learned that I could use a digital program like Adobe Photoshop to create unique "collages" of images for my art  and cards.



"Holiday Dreams"

Each card is a humerous, visual expression that is sometimes based upon a "traditional" Christmas imagery such as my 1999 greetings,"Holiday Dreams". Other illustrations were "inspired" by occurrences that my husband or I experienced during the year. Such as in my  2008 card "Santa and the Breakettes". That year, I broke my leg, and had to design the annual card from a wheel chair with a cast on my foot!

This card I called "Santa and the Breakettes"

  Sometimes I will chose to create a unique interpretation about a subject that is dear to my heart. There are cards that illustrate my family and the work we do. There are designs that pay homage to art history and artwork of other artist's that I admire. As you can see in the following picture my husband and I are inspired by the holidays.

This year's card was motivated by a self portrait by Norman Rockwell and a second portrait by the 16th century Dutch artist Judith Leyster.

    After many seasons of painterly and digital creation, I decided that this year, I would do something a little different.

My gift to you is this video to make you smile & get you in the mood for a happy holiday. I made this video using my holiday artwork created during the last two decades and set my art to music .

You can double click on the screen below or watch my video which is now posted on YouTube.

 

To all my friends and fans of Beattie Artworks thank you for your support during 2014.

 I wish you Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Noel, Mele Kalkimaka, Happy Hanukkah, A Joyous Season and a Happy and Healthy 2015!

Sincerely yours,
Elise
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