December has arrived, and along with the end of the Wave cycle come many holidays, including, but not limited to, Christmas!
I painted a nice snowy landscape with just a touch of the Christmas spirit, inspired by Bob Ross. I used oil paints and drew from many of the techniques he used in his videos. I didn’t actually follow along with his videos but instead painted whatever came to mind. If you’ve watched as much Bob Ross as I have, you probably know that he comes up with his ideas for paintings by drawing from his old memories of Alaska. I think that’s pretty cool.
In addition to my snowy landscape, I added some reindeers flying in the sky pulling Santa’s sleigh. I think that reindeer are really cool animals. Did you know that some reindeer have blood vessels in their nose that regulate their body temperature? If there really was a snowstorm on Christmas Eve, it makes sense why Santa would want a reindeer with a red nose to guide his sleigh. They would stay warm through the weather! I wonder if that’s where the story of Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer came from. There are tons of other interesting facts I’ve learned about reindeer in the past week. Like how they grow hollow fur to help them float in water, and how male reindeer shed their antlers right before December. So, all of Santa’s reindeer are most likely female (yes, female reindeer do grow horns. They just shed them at a different time of the year).
This was actually a really fun and relaxing thing to paint right before finals. I was able to start and finish in a matter of hours, the only difficulty was having to clean my brushes afterward. I used soap and water to clean them off, in hopes that they won’t be ruined by the next time I want to use them since I don’t have the right things to clean oil paints. It also took a lot longer for the paints to dry than I thought it would. I left it to dry for four days, even in front of a fan for several hours, and it was still wet to the touch.
As I wait for this final project to finally dry, I’ll be working on new art. During this past cycle, I have tried new mediums, explored different styles and grown as an artist. Next cycle I hope to return to the Wave and continue to turn my imagination into paintings.
