How to Draw a Holiday Window

After nearly two weeks of painting, we are almost done. As of today, we have two and a half Skywalks left to paint. The half is because I have one skywalk that Susan and Laura have painted snowflakes on but I haven't got any skating figures up yet. I'm going to take care of that tonight.

In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to describe the process of creating beautiful Holiday Window Scenes for fun and profit. Mostly profit!

Start out with a window and some kind of design. When one is painting skywalks, it is not hard to find a window. Suddenly, they are everywhere. You see them in your sleep after a while.

I use tempera paint. That's the water based paint that comes as a powder that you used in Grade School to paint posters and other students. It cleans off very easily with soap and water. But be warned, If your window is exposed to the elements at all, a good rain will really mess up your artwork.

I started this process by free handing my design from a picture, but I found it was much faster to create a large stencil on butcher paper and then trace my figure using a white China Marker...a grease pencil.
This year I found a water based Spray Paint that cleans off as easily as the tempera. I spray the image with paint as evenly as I can and then roller it out to fill in the gaps. Because of the free form style of this particular design, I don't have to worry about staying within the lines. In fact, the over spray adds a nice touch to the design.
Once I've got the whole image filled and it has had time to dry, I come back and hit it with some highlights. It's just a line that I paint down the leading or trailing edge of the image that helps define an arm or leg and makes the image a bit more interesting.
Finally, I outline the image in white. Again, the style of these figures allows me to be inexact with the outline.

Now that I have the system down, I can paint 12 different figures in about three hours. I usually finish before Susan.

So there you have it . . . a complete guide to Holiday Window painting. Don't even think about invading my territory.

A Reason for my Absence from Blogging

I haven't posted anything here in a while because Susan and I have been busy with another project that has kept us out of the house. . .almost completely for over a week.

As a Starving Artist and Cartoonist, I have always looked for new and different ways for me to express myself in Art and make a buck while doing it. I have been painting Holiday Windows for over 20 years now. It's a great way to make some extra money just at a time of year when I can really use it.

Susan and I have had a deal going with a local Real Estate company for the last few years to paint some Christmas characters on office buildings and one of the skywalks downtown.

This year, my name was referred to the office of the Downtown Spokane Partnership, which is a local booster organization that promotes downtown. There is a big Ice Skating Championship coming up in January and they wanted to promote that in a fun way that would also help decorate up the downtown area.

So they asked us to paint a wintery skating theme in ALL THE DOWNTOWN SKYWALKS. For those keeping track, there are 15 skywalks downtown.

We started painting last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and we have been going strong ever since. To date we have completed 11 skywalks. I don't care to divuldge the amount of money we are making in this process other than to say it will be a very Merry Christmas.