Last year, we had a lot of fun making up our own Christmas cards for the family based on the movie A Christmas Story. We decided to do the same thing this year, but with different yuletide inspiration. I had “After Schulz” written at the bottom of the drawing but it was scissored off during the edit process. I hope the inspiration is plain to see.
For the past few years, I’ve taken some time out of my comic schedule to celebrate Halloween by drawing a picture of Ellen and I with the kids in some kind of Halloween motif. I also color the thing, something that’s not entirely my forte, but I give it a shot.
Two years ago, I drew us as Ghostbusters. Last year, I went the Universal movie monster route. This year, I decided to stick with the monsters but go a little modern.
Ellen is Freddy Krueger, I’m Jason Voorhees, Elliot is Chuckie from Child’s Play, and Henry is Jigsaw from the Saw series of films.
There are things I really like about this drawing, I guess. Ellen’s in a fun, dynamic pose. I always feel like she gets the short end of the stick in these holiday drawings, so that’s a nice thing. Beyond that however… I don’t know. I’m not as happy with this years’ drawing as I have been for past Halloweens. I guess the “monsters” the kids are just don’t pop the same way they have in the last two drawings.
Of course, I’m over thinking this a whole lot. I’m aware.
Here’s this year’s Pearce family holiday drawing; you may like to click here and see the drawings from years’ past. This year, I’m paying homage to the 1984 classic A Christmas Story. The fun thing about this sketch is that Ellen and I turned it into our Christmas card this year!
We quibbled over the text inside the card. I wanted to use the original tag line from the movie and have it read, “Hope you have an Original, Traditional, One-Hundred-Percent, Red-Blooded, Two-Fisted, All-American Christmas!”
Ellen balked at that… and she was probably right to. Not many Christmas cards use the words “blood” and “fist” in any form, and the tagline for the movie isn’t universally known. It was probably too “inside baseball” for our purposes. Instead we went with a more friendly “Hope your Christmas Story this year is terrific!”
If you’re on the list, you’ll be getting one of these in the next few weeks!
Every year around this time, I draw a Halloween-themed picture of our family. Last year, I did us as Ghostbusters. This year, I went the classic movie monster route:
I was sorely tempted to do us as The Addams Family and draw Elliot as Wednesday, given his propensity for “spinner shirts” but I relented at the last second. I’m fairly happy with the drawing, save for Henry who I think looks a lot older than his almost-2 years.
Here’s the drawing done in black, white, and grays, going for more of a Universal Monster look.
Ultimately, I let Ellen choose which drawing I’d post on social networking sites and the like. She went with color and that’s probably the best call.
I do these drawings of my family for most of the major holidays (click here to see last year’s Christmas drawing and I really had a good time with this year’s Halloween illustration).
If you’re looking for holiday content, I’ve written up four Christmas Comics Cavalcades this month and I’ve bookmarked them all for you! Check ’em out if you haven’t already. I really enjoyed writing about these books and definitely plan on doing another round in December of 2012.
Takin’ the rest of the week off from posting, but I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a very happy holiday!
This year’s Thanksgiving drawing came out a little muddier than usual- I’m a total idiot when it comes to Photoshop, so I’m not very sure why. Our dog Roxanne is actually that cracked out and ugly.
Anyhow, Thanksgiving! Hope you have a happy one, if you’re celebrating. Ellen and I are hosting our first for some friends this afternoon and it should be a good time. I’ve already had to make three “emergency” runs to the grocery store, so I know there’ll be a lot of food.
Every Halloween and Christmas, I draw a family picture for the holiday for fun. I usually post them on all the various social networking sites. It’s not teaching comics, but I thought I’d share this year’s with you all:
Every year, I draw a picture of my family around the holidays. This is this year’s. I think it’s the first time I’ve drawn Henry anywhere.
Teachable Moments 