Making Christmas

Now that Christmas has come and gone I can finally share some of the gifts I made for my family with you. 

This painting of Anderson Paak just happens to be my favorite, for no other reason than I love painting portraits (and that smile was irresistible!). I painted it for my son Mason to hang in his new tiny home, so the painting itself is also tiny at 10"x10".

My oldest son, Raine, and I decided to collaborate on some book making projects for my parents. My dad, and Raine's Poppy, has spent our lives regaling us with delightfully grim stories. We love it! The three of us read, watch, and write tales of horror. Together, Raine and I created a custom made and painted box set of horror writing prompts for my dad. And they are pretty grim so I won't share the story starters with you (take my word for it) but I will show you the artwork.

Raine drew the tentacle design for our box and I painted it to match the booklets we made.

First, we had to make the book jacket covers. Here are two of the ones I drew and painted.

My final set of books and hand painted covers.

These are Raine's book covers 

(minus one that he was still working on).

Next, we continued our book binding efforts to make an art prompt book for my mom. We made and hand painted the front and back covers and then I created 10 signatures from hand batiked Japanese papers.

Here is my foxy front cover.

The covers and signatures are ready to assemble. I chose to bind them coptically with black waxed linen thread.

I loved making these two projects with my son Raine, as he is an incredible artist. He travels to and from art college everyday, spending 5 hours a day on public transit to do so. This is pretty miserable in the winter. I knit him an extra thick, squishy, long, art wool scarf to keep him warm. It's all about that fringe!

And let's not forget about keeping his art pens warm too, in the belly of a shark ( linen pencil case).

I even made my own cards this year, during a lino block printing class I took from a friend of mine. The octopus and manta ray card was hand painted for my brother and his wife.

Lastly, I teamed up with my dad to make two couch side tables for my husband and I. They are coming in pretty handy so far. Notice my stack of horror novels and comics I am currently reading?

I have one last thing to share with you. My favorite gifts are always the home made ones. This is the third Christmas in a row my son Raine has made me a comic book page. I treasure them! This is the one I received this year.

So MUCH love!