Hope all my lovely readers had a very happy Christmas and are enjoying the Boxing Day wind-down.
Now, after counting down the last few days to Christmas (here and here), in all the excitement and busyness of the day itself, I didn't manage to get a photo of my actual Christmas Day outfit. Oops! Rest assured, it was red and green, despite the fact that my original dress plans were superseded when I decided to rug up warm instead, especially with a Christmas stroll on the cards. So I ended up in a jumper and wool skirt, rather than the resplendent 1980s party dress I was intending to wear...
However, with pen, pencils and paper, and leisurely Boxing Day time, I decided to make up for my lack of photographs and sketch you a cartoon Christmas greeting and interpretation of my planned but unworn outfit, with a tree much larger than the one I actually have. The joys of artistic licence.
The Google doodle for today is celebrating Edward Gorey's birthday. In my own nod to him, I decided to share my favourite Gashleycrumb Tiny...
For those who don't know, Edward Gorey is a wonderfully strange and macabre American illustrator. Young Neville above is taken from his book The Gashleycrumb Tinies, published in 1963, which recounts the tragically comical deaths of 26 children - one for each letter of the alphabet - in rhyming couplets. If you've not come across it, and you like your humour dark, I'd definitely recommend looking it up.
It's funny that Edward Gorey popped up today as I was just thinking of The Gashleycrumb Tinies the other day. I'd been listening to the Dresden Dolls and picked up my sketch book and a pencil to have a go at drawing up the image brought into my head by the song Mrs O off their album, Yes, Virginia.
Oh, Mrs O
Will you tell us where the naughty children go
Will you show
How the sky turned white and everybody froze
Heaven knows how they got into the fireplace
But everybody's saying grace
And trying to keep a happy face
And oh, Mrs O
Can you teach us how to keep from getting cold
Out we go and you watch us as we face the falling snow
What a show with our hairdryers aimed heavenwards
And fifty-foot extension cords
You really have a way with words...
The end result made me think of Edward Gorey's children, with their Victorian Gothic appearance and dark air.
Obviously, my drawing is a mere scribble of an amateur but I was pleased by the feel of it. Oh, and for the record, I have actually mastered the ability to draw decent faces but I ended up preferring the effect of the blank face on this occasion... Really, it's true!
And for those who don't know the Dresden Dolls, they're a duo from Boston who describe themselves as Brechtian cabaret punk. If that doesn't intrigue you enough to look into them, then probably nothing I say will.
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