Pop art maestro Jesse Keyser made this Christmas tree-topping ornament. Through an email interview he tells me it’s “Stewie” from the television show Family Guy. In this pic it looks almost like there’s a light inside his head (Stewie’s), but Jesse says not this year. Unfortunately, I didn’t get more details about its construction from the secretive artist.
There was a time when Mr. Keyser would make a painting at Christmas and reproduce the image for cards. I haven’t seen one for a number of years. At least now I, nay, the world can get a look at a recent Keyser original through the miracle of the Internet.
There is no Photoshop trickery happening here. This image was captured in one take using a single long exposure photograph. Blah blah blah blah, or you can just watch this video. Jump below for the details.
This large scale light painting of a Christmas tree was made in our backyard. On the ground the tree was 55 feet tall and about 25 feet wide. It appears short and fat because of the angle of the photograph. I had the camera, and video camera, in a stairwell window at the back of our house. I’m at least four storeys (someone asked, that is in fact the correct spelling) in the air because our property drops quite a bit. We are in the mountains. But the back lot is nice and flat. I used rope to lay out the tree and enlisted the family and some conveniently located neighbors to move the lights around.
The kids were in the middle of the tree swinging the light sabers (see below) in circles to make the “ornaments” and Mars walked back and forth to make a “garland.” The Moms (Mary and Jill) made the tree outline by waving two light sabers each as they walked along the rope, invariably racing at the end of each take to finish in time. I used a kitchen timer and called out the remaining seconds.
I wanted to do some light painting myself so I took the tripod and camera outside and made some “Nöels” in green and red. Nöel is way easier than trying to write “Merry Christmas,” backward mind you, in the dark, before the time runs out and the shutter closes. Plus, Nöel is so short I was able to turn the light on and off for each letter, and add the umlaut over the “o.” I put a strip of four of these inside the card, along the top.
Nöel Light Painting
We did something similar for the family shot on the back of the card. For this one I used another camera, mounted on separate stand, just for the flash. That way I could move the lights around to make the frame, then get back into position before the second camera flashed, which would make us visible in the photo taken by the first camera. Staggering the timers on the two cameras so that the flash would happen after I was done drawing, but before the shutter closed on the first camera was a challenge. Have I mentioned we were in the dark? The image came out too dark on the card but the original looks good.
Family Portrait Light Painting
This was a fun card to make, but I was stressing about the execution. I mentioned to my friend Gary a couple months ago that I was worried about the logistics and he said something like “only you would have a Christmas card with logistical challenges.” Why do things the easy way? Walk hard.
Camera: Canon G9, 15 second shutter time, ISO 100, some other stuff I can’t remember
Lights: Light sabers from FlashingBlinkyLights.com, only $36 for 12 (Note to parents: some items at FBL are PG13); one regular flashlight for the garland. Sourcing some good lights was probably the toughest part. I looked everywhere, poi stuff, glow sticks, gels, etc. This idea needed large swaths of light and these sabers were perfect, and cheap!
People: 2 moms, 6 kids (one toddler helping Paris), and a gigantic whining dog with me in the stairwell
That concludes the giveaways for the Jackpot Pillow sets. Stay tuned for more cool stuff. We may even decide to do some more giveaways for different stuff in the new year.
Oh man, I hope doesn’t rain up in Gingerbread Town because those cookie people are going to get wet. Mary later decided to disguise this chasm on the gingerbread house roof with a Playmobil Santa, sleigh and reindeer. Clever. She makes one every Christmas and the kids join in.
Mary spent a few years living in Germany and has been to the Kristkindl market (giant Christmas market place) in some of the cities including the gingerbread capital of the world, Nürnberg.
And, our “neighbor” up the hill, Grove Park Inn, has a gingerbread house competition every year. We haven’t been yet this year, but I did find this video of some of the winners from a couple years ago. I don’t think we’re ready for the big leagues, yet.
Paris made this with her grandmother when she was “camp” with them this summer. She claims to have sewn it entirely by herself. She said she made the yellow sweater for the bear because his body was a little lopsided. The grandmother-granddaughter team was making a batch of bears for a charity, but Paris decided to keep this one. She even learned how to crochet to make the green scarf.
Still bloated from Thanksgiving. Still, in, food, coma. Must reach randomizer lever… pull a jackpot for someone to win these Jackpot Pillows, the coolest retro modern pillows on Earth. I can make it… You people I’ve never met deserve a chance to win! Whatever happens, that lever will be pulled tonight at 11 PM eastern.
It was, and the winner is… Cecilia P. in California.
Mumsy is back in the doll making game after a little hiatus. A while ago she made 20 rag dolls for a charity called Rag Dolls 2 Love, Inc from a pattern they provided. This one here is a Christmas gift for the latest grandchild, Oli, and it’s made from the scraps of another project. She’s a crafty crafter! This handmade rag doll is a combination of the charity’s pattern and her memory of a two-sided doll from her childhood.
From the Rag Dolls 2 Love site:
Rag Dolls 2 Love, Inc was started to put a soft cloth doll in the hands of children who live in countries ravaged by war, are orphaned or infected by HIV/ AIDS or traumatized by natural disasters. In the summer of 2003 as I listened to a report of Palestinian children shot during a raid by the Israeli army, and the death of Israeli children in a bus bombing, my frustration and anger spilled over at the loss of so many young lives.
The letters have been broughten, peoples. Yeah, I said “broughten.” I was originally going for an Art Deco flavor but these ended up more like op art, which I also like. The plan was to use these panels to make Letter Pillows, and that is still going to happen. But why wait on us? We’re adding these to our Etsy store and folks can use them to make anything they want. In addition to pillows I can imagine piecing these panels together to make quilts, duvet covers, tote bags, chair cushions, wall hangings, table runners, what else? I’d love to hear your ideas.
Each panel is 17″ square with a half inch seam allowance for a finished piece of 16″ square. The fabric is a 7 ounce organic cotton poplin. As green as we can get!
In addition to all 26 letters we printed yardage of a matching concentric square pattern, terminating with our anvil logo in the middle. The plan is to use these for the letter pillow backs, but they look pretty cool just hanging on the wall. Curtains? I don’t know. We may offer this for sale as yardage.
This pic of the anvil is reasonably close to actual size, maybe a little larger.
Later tonight I’ll post a graphic showing all of the letters. UPDATE: And here they are. Click for bigness.
Congratulations to Sarah in Athens, GA. She’s the lucky winner of the first Jackpot Pillow set giveaway.
