Happy Feast of Stephen!

An unusual old Christmas image that I cam across in my annual image search earlier this month.

Happy second day of Christmas everyone. Or Happy Day After as my late maternal grandfather used to say. We are planning a relaxed day with some light skiing in another nearby park which has trails. Again, just about five minute from the house and later more Christmas goose and all of the fixings. The Young Master seems to enjoy goose and even suggested yesterday evening during dinner that we have it for Christmas every year, so I guess that is that. Otherwise, some time down here in Zum Stollenkeller today, so I can finish tightening up an article to get off to Greg well in advance of the New Year. The online Christmas jazz should help spur me along nicely.

-- Stokes

The Young Master and Dad, Christmas Day 2017.

Comments

MSFoy said…

Ignoramus that I am, I have to confess that I knew St Stephen's Day was sometime around Christmas, but I never realised that it was the 26th. These blog things are educational, no doubt.

When I was a nipper in Liverpool, there was an alternative schoolkids' version of the famous carol. I hope it is not unacceptably sacrilegious:

Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,
When a snowball hit him in the eye and made his face uneven.
Brightly shone the stars he saw, though the blow was cruel,
Then a poor man came in sight, riding on a bandy-legged mu-u-el.

We're probably on relatively safe ground here, since the carol makes no reference to the Nativity, nor anything holier than a good deed.

Today is our day for tidying up and putting away the Premier Cutlery. All part of some ancient ritual...

2:00 PM

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...

Basic Reds Done at Last. . .

S till quite a way to go with the current batch of 20 human figures and a horse (of course), but they're actually starting to look like something after all of the red distinctions. Quite a bit of painting in hour-long sessions the last week as and when time has allowed. Mostly applying the basic dark red to facing areas and turnbacks followed by the inevitable touch-ups to clean up wobbly edges and those misplaced, minute splotches of Citadel Khorne Red. They're looking like so many Austrian infantry regiments of the era at this point, but the eventual flags will turn them magically into the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment, more or less, of the AWI period. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. One frustrating point (ahem) of sad discovery. I've started trying to use those Winsor & Newton 'Series Seven' brushes (#1 rounds) purchased last spring, and the blasted things simply will not keep a point. Very frustrating since I have heard over the y...

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

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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