"The Animal's Christmas" - 7" x 9" acrylic and gold on paper.
I started out this painting to be a sort of naive, medieval style illumination to be used as a greeting card. I didn't like it at all so I set it aside after doing the drawing just before Christmas of 2008. I took it up again last year shortly after Christmas and forced myself to finish it. I intended to add more animals but I didn't. I put Our Lady in a burqa, and St. Joseph is dressed as a Franciscan. The dog is my dog Herman, from when I was really little - which explains why he is so big. The rabbit is Mrs. Rabitowitz, the cats are mine - Agnes and Celine, and the lamb is every little kid - the figures represent these, I should say. The ox and the ass are classic, albeit the three mice above Our Lady are not.
Overall, I'm disappointed with the piece. One excuse I have is that my eyesight is getting worse and sometimes I had to guess where to lay in a detail. That is true. Notice the pupil in Our Lady's eye and the smudge beneath Joseph's lower lip - you have to click on the image to see detail. At least I can fix that stuff.
