The Holiday Continues

It's been several days since I was last here, mostly busy with holiday stuff.  The holidays aren't over yet, but I do have a little break in the schedule for the next few days.  Anyway, the holidays aren't really over until I get my cards printed, colored, written out, and mailed, so it's going to be the holiday season for at least another week.  So if we're going to get there, I better get going on the cards.

In the afternoon I drove up to the Studio to get started on another batch of Christmas cards.  Years ago I always printed 24, maybe getting a few lesser proofs, and having to decide who would get the remaining ones.  These days I get relatively few cards.  Maybe everyone is just texting their greetings.  I have several cards remaining from the first two batches printed (12 total), and enough usable ones to make cards for all those who have earned one this year.  But maybe some will come late, so I figured I should have some spares ready to go.  These cards are actually one of the more difficult things I regularly print- the small size doesn't leave much area for the paper to stick to, and the card stock itself doesn't stick will to the inked surface, so there are always a few that shift and smear.  At least five of six from today are usable.

The other thing I wanted to deal with today was an upcoming show in January.  In recent years the Belmar Arts Council has held a Salon show to open each calendar year- an open show, with each artist getting to put one piece in the main gallery, and at the opening, being able to present the work to the assembled crowd and take questions.  This year's theme is "You Are What You Eat", and the plan is to have the artists show work and bring the depicted food item to the reception.  No time to create a new block right now, but still do have many of the Fourth of July blocks, and a lot of that series included images of food.   I came up with two possibilities of things I can make easily that would be practical to bring to an event, and I could pull new proofs of.  One was a big tray of olives from the local Italian store in Southern Illinois, which I would likely turn into olive rolls.  Another possibility is an Italian style cheesecake from my midwestern St Joseph's Day party, which can be made the day before if necessary and would be fine to sit on a table.  Both prints were seen in their original form as part of my showing of the Fourth of July there a few years ago, so maybe this time I'll try coloring them.  After the cards I pulled one proof each of these prints, and left everything the Studio to dry for a few days.