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! 

Happy Christmas Everybody!

Here's a preparatory sketch from my version of Dicken's A Christmas Carol.

I'd like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas time!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog in 2013

Love and best wishes 

PJ 

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.

A little bit of media news.

I hear there might be some coverage of The Gift of the Magi in the Irish Times and the Irish Independent tomorrow, Saturday.
I hope they will be kind.

Also I have just done a very brief Vox Pop for the BBC Radio 4 programme, Making History.
They are doing an investigation into where Dickens might have taken his inspiration for his character of Ebenezar Scrooge.
The programme is usually very interesting, so it might be worth a listen.
It goes out at 3pm next Tuesday.