Festivus: Two Years of Invites

Some friends of mine have an annual holiday party for which I’ve been drawing the invitation these past three years. This summer, I made the mistake of mentioning how cool it would be if I did the invite up in the style of the album cover to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

As soon as I said that out loud, I regretted it because immediately that became the idea for this year’s invitation… no ifs, ands, or buts! I was dreading the amount of work I was going to have to put into this piece, but it ended up being great fun. I gave up on having one-to-one representation of the album on here, but in general I think I got the spirit of the original right on.

There’s a lot of little in-jokes and references from within my circle of Midwest friends on there. Don’t feel bad if they’re a mystery to you.

Here’s last year’s Festivus invite, which I colored and I don’t believe I’ve ever posted. Frankly, there was no way 2014’s Festivus invitation was going to be colored, with all the tiny details.

pearce “family” holiday drawings: festivus 2012

My friend Joe and his wife Jody have a party every December themed toward the classic Seinfeld episode “The Strike” or more specifically, Frank Costanza’s made-up holiday Festivus. I volunteered my services in creating the unofficial invitation this year and I decided to keep in step with our Christmas card I had just recently drawn.

As it stands, I’m afraid this one came out quite a bit better! I mimicked the colors from the stage at the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas and I think the softer pink and purple tones make the entire illustration more appealing.