Christmas is Coming part 6

 Still have a few weeks to go until the big day, but I think it's time to work on those cards again.  All the ones I printed are now dry, and I wanted to go to the Studio today, so I figured it would be nice to have something to work on.  Last night I got out my watercolors and did a test coloring of the first proof I took of the card block, which happened to be an unusable print (for a card), but was usable to test some colors.  Way back as an undergrad I learned the advantage of having two computers going to work on a problem (late at night, the computer labs at college were fairly empty, so it was often possible to find two vacant terminals side by side, so I could have one to update the program and compile it, and one to run whatever changes I had made), so I did that at home, with one computer playing some appropriate holiday music, and one with the image of the painting that inspired it. I brought that test card with me today, so I would know what colors to use.

This morning I drove up to the Studio, where my table would give me some room to spread out, and put my cards and paints out where I could get to them.  Upon looking at all the printed cards,  I decided that some of them were printed better than others, and maybe I need to do another print run.  Luckily, I still have plenty of time.  Meanwhile, I would color all the ones I had with me, which was 8 cards.   I set it up assembly line style, adding one color at a time to all of them, then moving on to the next color.  As is my custom, I stared with darks and red and brown colors, which in this case also made up most of image.  

Despite having spent two hours on the process, I still didn't finish all the colors on all eight I had brought with me today. What's left are mostly cool colors and a few spots of brights.  Maybe I'll do them at home the next few days, and save my next Studio visit for cutting and printing.  You don't get to see the card today, but here's a view of some to the colors I used to paint today.

For music I had two things from the past and my jazz/blues book of discs- the Mod Jazz that my friend Doug sent me a few years ago, which I associate with Christmas even if none of the songs are particularly about Christmas. (read about it in December of 2021 if you want to know more) and later Kirsty MacColl's tropical brainstorm album, a posthumous release, written about in March of 2020 if you want details.  Information about her death can be found all over the internet if you want that.