A week of Christmas movies

 Traditionally our family watches Die Hard and It's a Wonderful Life for Christmas.  This year, since we aren't able to gather with the kids for our daylong bagel buffet and present unwrapping, Jeff & I have expanded the movie list.  In part to give us more seasonal things to do and in part because of some interesting discussions among my FB friends about their favorite Xmas movie.

Last night, we started with Long Kiss Goodnight.   Clearly in the Die Hard camp, it's also one of our favorite watch things blow up movies.

We'll also be adding one of my top five movies, The Lion in Winter.  Definitely a family movie and set at Christmas but not a feelgood film.  Lots of family infighting and emoting, but at the end of the film nothing has changed.  Great actors and excellent writing.  We like the original with Pete & Kate. Altho I'm just now realizing I haven't seen the one with Patrick Stewart instead of O'Toole.  

Also new on our list this year, Love Actually.  This is a more traditional sort of holiday movie which is also a favorite in our rom com category.

That will pretty much round out our week ending with a zoom call with the family on Christmas Day.  I hope your holidays are healthy and happy.  

Finding joy during studio sabbatical

 My back is still being cranky so I am mostly doing not much of anything but read and watch the hummingbirds through the window.  This is annoying as I was really enjoying working with the alcohol ink but I will get back to it in a few weeks, I'm sure.  And when I do, I will use some of my bird photos as a starting point.  So today, I'm sharing some of the ones I'm considering.  I'm mostly looking for a good silhouette altho if it's a stunning bird shot, I may just interpret it in ink.

First up, my favorite Steller's Jay photo.  Part of what I'm doing while not in the studio is learning my new photo software (Affinity) and I'll be creating a layer off this photo with lines that can be used as a silkscreen.  

And of course I have to have a Great Blue Heron shot.  So many choices.  Here's a flying heron that I love because of the water background.  I think the alcohol ink will be great for doing that background.  If I use this one, I'll probably crop it in but that will be a balancing act between focusing on the heron and keeping enough of the water to give that spacious feeling.

The other candidate is one taken at Tennant Lake in April so we joked about the heron keeping social distance from us on the boardwalk.

This one is more of a classic standing pose and that's always a popular choice.