Happy New Year! Many blessings to all.  Good bye 2010.

Eddie Peña

… Because some trees are still up, and not all cookies have been eaten yet… This drawing of a Christmas tree cookie is from the same series as the drawing of the “snowy clock” at Grand Central. It’s a study for a children’s book I am currently working on.

Just thought I’d post something festive for the holidays. This was done at the kids parade at Animal Kingdom in Disney World, Orlando. You can’t get more festive than that! Looking forward to celebrating and seeing the New Year in with friends and family this week. Happy New Year, and a happy 2011! Posted by Veronica.

As 2011 nears I think of the old year ending and the new year approaching – what will it bring?!  Janus is the Roman god of gates, doorways, beginnings, endings, and time.  That’s a lot!  Janus, of course, January, the first new month of the new year.  Janus has two heads looking in opposite directions – past, future – transitional movement!   I am so looking forward to the new year and what the future will bring.  So here’s wishing everyone an incredible, productive and passionate new 2011!  Maybe I should pull Ganesha, Destroyer of Obstacles, in on the wishes for the new year.  Hey, a few removed obstacles never hurt anyone!

Here’s to 2011!

Woke up to more snow than I was prepared for! My first thought was food. What will we eat today? Then I thought of posting a drawing. I thought it would be nice to share a frame from a storyboard I made about snow and gloves. Here’s more of that storyboard -Despina

…you all had a wonderful holiday.

Below is a drawing of an angel from the Metropolitan Museum’s Christmas tree.

-Greg Betza

quote by – Elie Weisel

Drawing by Michele in the Medieval Sculpture Hall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art • 12/2010

Thought this fitting for today. Merry Christmas to all.—Dominick

My Christmas Angel.

Eddie Peña

This is one of about two thousand drawings I’ve done of my beloved fellow-New Yorkers. I love drawing people, especially extreme ones, and nowhere are folks more who they are than in the big apple! This couple was shopping at Rockefeller Center, if I recall correctly.

-Kati

Wishing you all peace and joy during this holiday season. Merry Christmas! Posted by Veronica

In the spirit of the Holidays I am posting my Holiday card, which is a gold and black silkscreened hibiscus. The hibiscus is a very beautiful flower seen all over St. Thomas, so I thought it would be nice to use it for my card.  In the spirit of the Holidays this card is also available for purchase.

A lovely, happy, joyous and peaceful holiday to all!

Margaret Hurst

Although I attended the annual Dalvero Academy Holiday gathering at the Met last night, I wasn’t able to make too many drawings of the beautiful Christmas tree as I usually do. This drawing of one of the Neopolitan Baroque Crèche angels that adorn the tree is from the archives. AKA an old sketchpad. more…

While drawing, I was inspired by the tapestries on the walls of the medieval section that flank the tree with their intricate weaves and classic stories. I am always drawn to those tapestries every time I pass through. And every time I stop to look I discover something I never saw before. It’s really something when a piece of art continues to reveal. Lives and breathes and changes. Just as miraculous as the event that is depicted under the tree! - Despina

is the name of a great band that I went to see late last Saturday night at the Mercury Lounge in New York City. I don’t know where their name comes from officially, but before “Crooked Fingers”, I followed lead singer Eric Bachmann as front man of the Archers of Loaf, and I was always looking at his “crooked fingers”as he played the guitar. Perhaps I was not the only one?

For more about Crooked Fingers, click here. For a few more drawings from the evening, visit my blog www.gregbetza.com.

Above is a study for a painting I was asked to do by the New York Kabbalah Center as a birthday gift for Karen Berg, the leading female kabbalist of our generation.

It was late in September when teachers and students living in New York were asked to think about Karen and express (along with a wish) what color she felt like to them. My job? … was to collect those colors and harmonize them into a piece that would illuminate a conversation on canvas, soul to soul. As time evolved, so did the painting, the balance changing gradually as the wishes came in.

In the end, it was complete..a manifestation of the love, respect and appreciation for Karen’s way. And me? … I simply held the brush.

Note: Kabbalah teaches that each color in the spectrum reflects a specific symbolic characteristic, also called “angels”. This commission was really unique and one I’ll never forget.

Study by Michele Bedigian

Last week I received an email from my cousin that included an article proposing the idea that we all put a little more thought and a little less money into our season of giving. Of course, when I need it, the email is nestled away on another computer, but as I scrambled yet again to find a drawing to post (I don’t make resolutions but if I did, this blog would be first on the list), I thought about why the email kept rattling in my head like the chains at Jacob Marley’s feet. I have already purchased two gifts this morning and I will likely find something else to help finish off the list by the end of the day, however I couldn’t help ponder the thought, what does Christmas mean to me? While I by no means hang my hat on the idea that I have to give or get a gift for Christmas, it just happens to be a standard of behavior. This year seems different as the general tightening of belts makes it easier to either a, get something useful and needed for friends and family, or b, get something that they would not get themselves. For me, it’s cookies. Christmas is all about the cookies. The more the better. That sounded greedy, but really I will share. And they must be home made. Preferably without nuts. My father hates nuts and passed that along to me. Put them in a tin can (preferably last years corporate popcorn gift tub—YES, TUB!), and I am the most jolly man south of the North Pole. So as I was drooling on my way down the street I wondered if it was for some childish need to relive the past that I hungered for some date raison cookies. The fact is though, it’s not. I have my moments that I know will one day not be there, a little jingle here and a little jingle there, and it makes me sad to think about, but the one thing that will always be there, is that Christmas only comes once a year. I had to have a very personal talk with my dearest Jewish friend to realize why that is important. You want it more, you long for it more, and you appreciate it more. In a few weeks it will all be over and the stockings will be put away and we will forget that we forgot to look up what sugarplums are once again, and slowly fading out of our I-can’t-wait-until-next-year state of mind, and get right back into daily responsibilities that do not include tinsel of any kind. Until then though, I will look at every powdered, dated, raisoned, chocolate chipped, and gingered cookie as a reminder that each bite is precious, will not last forever, and, if baked with love, warms the heart every December. Stay warm all. And if you can’t find them the right gift, just stay up late and bake them some cookies, even if you are the worst baker on the planet. Write them a little note while the cookies are in the oven and put a bow on it all. If they are not impressed, then send them to me, we’ll put them on the naughty list.

Christmas or Christmas Day is a holiday observed generally on December 25 to commemorate the birth of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity. The date is not known to be the actual birthday of Jesus, and may have initially been chosen to correspond with either the day exactly nine months after some early Christians believed Jesus had been conceived, the date of the winter solstice on the ancient Roman calendar, or one of various ancient winter festivals. Christmas is central to the Christmas and holiday season, and in Christianity marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days.   -Wikipedia

I decided to post this just in case we forgot Christmas in America.  It seems each year the actual word disappears a little more and we become more afraid to say Merry Christmas in our very own country.

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!

Eddie Peña

Drawing by Kati

Here is another pastel drawing I made while visiting Sedona with fellow 1482-er Margaret Hurst a few years ago. What a gorgeous place – the landscape is so beautiful you almost can’t believe it’s real! There are supposedly areas in Sedona called ‘vortexes’ where you can feel some kind of gravitational pull of the Earth. All over the mountains, you can see people standing around, waiting to feel the pull of the vortex. I don’t know about that, I never felt it, but the pull of the gorgeous landscape is trying to draw me back to Arizona. So I can do more drawing. ; ) Posted by Veronica.

I was in the South Pacific section at The Metropolitan Museum of Art making some drawings of the wooden tree that supports the roof of the house.  It was a beautiful shape, arched out at the top like open hands with a beautiful patterning of the grain of the tree.  I went home and drew this angel, not realizing at first how much I had been inspired by the tree’s patterning.  Inspiration comes in many forms and when you least expect it!

Oh, and I forgot, this drawing was made with a small, hand carved, wooden dowel.

Margaret Hurst