Happy Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving to-day.
I have long been fascinated by the Pilgrims and their extraordinary story.
Here’s a picture that I happen to be working on at the moment. I've just started adding the first colour washes.
It shows the moment when a landing party of Pilgrims first set foot on American soil at Cape Cod. They fell to their knees to give thanks to God for bringing them safely across a vast and furious ocean. In fact their worst trials lay ahead of them.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner here in Dublin on Sunday ( I know we were early!)
The menu, inspired by a fair amount of Pilgrim research, and with vital contributions from our guests, included savory butternut squash soup, roast turkey of course, sweet potato topped with marsh mallows, various nutty stuffings, venison casserole, followed by pecan pie and various goats' cheeses (the first Pilgrims had no cows).
We did drink wine although the Pilgrims, and their Wampanoag guests would most likely have been downing beer.
Among our thanks-givers were my very dear friends who modelled as Jonathan Toomey and the Widow McDowell, who are now happily married with a lovely daughter. Mrs Toomey makes a mean pecan pie.
My wife Barbara did most of the cooking whilst I opened the wine and, using up two leftover pumpkins, carved a grumpy Wampanoag warrior and a Pilgrim who looks a lot like Guy Fawkes.
May I wish a very happy Thanksgiving to you all, especially to my American friends.