Gifts, my 2008 Christmas Card

Every year I look forward to making a new Christmas Card. I've been doing it for almost a decade. I start by asking myself what I'm feeling. Then I choose a Christmas Carol with a title that I can put a new spin on. I write a poem incorporating the title and what I want to say. Then I create an illustration to go with it and send it to friends and family. Email makes this a lot easier and cheaper.

This year I had a certain message I wanted to get across: Life and Hope. None of the Christmas Carols I haven't yet used seem to be right. And I had no idea what I wanted to draw. After a lot of work, the idea came to me: I'll draw Christmas morning the way I remember it as a little kid. Then the title came to me: Gifts. I know it's not a Christmas Carol, but it would allow me to say what I wanted to say.

The illustration was so much fun to do. I've been trying to find a style that looks like me. I finally developed it while working on my latest attempt at creating a comic book. The line work is interesting but clean, the colors have the texture of a painting without looking silly or overdone, and the figures are stylized and graphic, but still feel like they have mass. I was very happy with the end result. I hope you like it even half as much as I do.

Usually I write the poem really quickly, but this year I spent three days. It's not my favorite, but there are some cool lines in it, and it basically says what I want to say.

To see Christmas Cards from past years, visit my website, SkyFitsJeff.com. They're archived there somewhere.