It's the First Day of Winter!

The first of two vintage images of Father Christmas this cold winter's morning morning. I absolutely love these old late-Victorian and Edwardian Christmas cards.

A bitterly cold, windy, and clear morning here at Stollen Central with a couple of inches of crunchy snow on the ground outside. And so, in view of the pre-Christmas rush around here at the moment, let me wish everyone in the Northern Hemisphere a Happy Winter Solstice! Please continue to tune in to the GD of S blog during the next few days in the run up to Christmas Day, to see how the wooden trucks I'm finishing for the Young Master finally turn out. And maybe I'll actually get some soldier time in this weekend too. Assuming I don't conk out in the evenings. You know. Mr. Excitement and all that.

And here's a second old Christmas card, featuring purple robes, trimmed with white fur and a dark red, or crimson cap with a gold tassel. These old images used to seem so strange to me when I was small, given the Coca Cola image of Santa Claus that most of us in the United States have in our collective consciousness. But I prefer the old images as an adult. They are certainly more colorful, and there is just something magical about them.

Here is the gingerbread house the the Young Master and the Grand Duchess assembled two or three days ago. Paul applied much of the white, sugary icing and many of the various candies. Apparently, he was more interested in helping his mother stir and then eat huge spoonfuls of the former.

Finally, here is a photograph of our main tree (A Fraser Fir) -- especially for Jeff von Saxe-Bearstein -- in the library/parlor/front room of Stollen Central with some gifts beneath it already from the Grand Ducal In-Laws. The arrival of their Christmas parcel each year in early December is always a much anticipated event. While things are wrapped, and no clues are thus given as to what the packages might contain, it is great fun unpacking the large box and then placing everything beneath the tree several days later once decorating for the Christmas Season has taken place. Please note the Young Master and feline friend inspecting things closely at the bottom of the photograph.

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

Thanks, Stokes. The tree is lovely . . . I really like the Fraser Firs.

I also prefer the older images of Father Christmas.

May you, the Grand Duchess and Young Master Paul have a most wonderful and joyous Christmas and a delightful New Year . . . and lots of nice snow for Nordic skiing.

-- Jeff

1:38 PM

Anonymous said…

It's strange how small children and cats seam to be fascinated by the same objects. My young daughter and our cats can spend what seems like hours starring at the christmas tree and presents.

11:56 AM

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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