Chardin and...

This morning I saw a few summer flowers had survived the first frost.

Hardy snapdragons

A touch of summer in the snow

Snow blanket.

So I brought them in for a last remembrance of the rapidly closing year and the final days before the holidays.

In the Wood Man's domain.

Today I got another birthday gift - this from Sigmund's parents. Hanni always has it beautifully wrapped.

Hand made paper with embedded fibers, a wool cord, and an embroidered scarf.

On God's blessing all depends.

The contents are always a large (sometimes huge) old art book for my growing collection. This year's was on Chardin. I've always liked his works, especially the simple still lifes. For my thank you card I always do a small drawing or painting based on something in the book. Hanni has a large collection of all the many cards the children and I have made for her and Leo over these many years. This is what I did tonight.

From Chardin's "The Peach Basket" still life. His is more full and larger. (This has a glare on it, despite my efforts to avoid it, but you get the idea. If you look at it from an angle, it seems to be better.) Mine is water media. I'd really like to do this from life, rather than from a book picture, but it was a good exercise.