Wishing You All A Very Happy Christmas

It's that time of year again so a nice seasonal image for you. 

It's the cover art from my version of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Wishing a very Happy Christmas to all my readers!

From A Christmas Carol

A few images from my version of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.  I keep coming back to this story. In my opinion it is unequalled as a Christmas tale.

And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One! 

"Two Centuries After"

If you are in Bologna this week at the international Book Fair, you might consider visiting the Dickens exhibition, "Two Centuries After", at the beautiful Palazzo Saraceni in the center of the city.
The exhibition is organized by Cooperativa Culturale Giannino Stoppani for BolognaFiere.
I have five pictures in the group show, including a few of the grimmer pictures from A Christmas Carol that I haven't exhibited before.

Dickens Exhibition in Bologna

Happy Birthday Charles Dickens!
OK it was yesterday, but I don't think he'll notice, he's two hundred after all.
This is a picture from the only Dickens book
I have illustrated, A Christmas Carol.
I am just packing the original of this and a bunch of others to send to Bologna for the big Dickens exhibition they are having during the Book Fair this year.
The exhibition is in the Casa Saraceni.
Sorry this post is sort of about Christmas again, but I have selected a very un-Christmassy image.

A Little Christmas Window Movie

Here is a little movie of me at work in the window of Hodges Figgis.
I have transferred this from FaceBook so I hope it will work here.
Happy Christmas everybody.

The Ghost of Christmas Present: Blocking In

I got a lot done on my Christmas painting yesterday, which is a good thing because I have no idea if the conditions in Hodges Figgis window will be conducive to doing decent work.
At least it's a nice typical Irish overcast day, so the lighting should be OK until 4.30 at least.
Anyway, we will be shipping the painting (very wet!) over in the next half an hour if we can get it down three sets of stairs here.
I’m looking forward to getting to work in a bookshop.

The Ghost of Christmas Present: The First Steps

I got a good start on my big Christmas picture last night.
I got the whole thing scaled up on the 7’ by 4’ canvas, and I got a few hours of painting in.
It would be great if I could paint the whole thing in situ in Hodges Figgis bookshop, but there is going to be so much to do that I just have to get a start in the studio.
Also the light in the window is going to be very unpredictable and I will only have a four foot space to step back in, so I want to have my tonal values well established.
I am remembering too that the last picture I did of this size took four months and I am supposed to finish this one on Saturday.
Fingers crossed!

The Ghost of Christmas Present... in Dawson Street, Dublin 2

Here's the rough I have created for the picture I will be painting "live" in the window of Hodges Figgis bookshop in Dublin.
I thought you might be interested to see how I have constructed this from a mixture of mostly drawn elements with a few Photoshop images dropped in.
So much for my idea to have a scene with large expanses of sky that I might be able to fill in quickly.
This is a pretty busy scene and the canvas is seven foot wide........I'm going to be very busy until the weekend.
If you have a copy of my version of A Christmas Carol, you will know that this picture is based on my illustration of the Ghost of Christmas Present.
I always loved the design for that spread but perhaps I painted it a bit too dark or the paper in the book is overly absorbent, but anyway, I was never entirely happy with how it printed.
So I'm taking this chance to have another go.

From "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens

Much as I adore the way Walker Books designed my version of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol", I hope one day they will do a larger format version of it.
The pictures are pretty small in the book and you do have to look very closely to see all the detail.
This scene is from Stave Two.
I hope it will work with the slightly feeble snow effect I have added to the blog.
I took a liberty including the street light as they hadn't been invented in 1842 when the book is set. In those days they had flaming torches at street corners which I felt would have looked inappropriately medieval.

"When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.
To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!"