We Wish You a Merry Christmas....

This was one of my mother's mirror paintings. She did them every Christmas for a long time... I just loved them. I know it's early, but...


My mother's mother was an artist. She didn't start painting until she was in her mid 50's, and she started with water color and segued into oils. I would think it would be easier the other way around, as water colors seem more unforgiving. You can make a lot of mistakes with oils and just keep covering up... my kind of craft! I may put one of my grandmother's paintings here someday. Maybe not.

My mother was artistic, but, since she kept her children around her, she didn't have much time to pursue art. She did hand color black and white photographs of us, and did a pretty good job of it. I still have her 'photograph coloring kit' which seems quite fresh, even now. The one thing she did have time for when we were young was Christmas. Somewhere along the line she started painting over the mirror in the living room at Christmas. She worked from magazine pictures and no two pictures were ever totally the same. Through the years she perfected and enhanced them so that, for a while, they were truly works of art. I have a picture of her somewhere on a stepladder, painting away... I'll have to see if I can find it.

As she aged and we aged beyond the 'living at home' stage (a noticeably longer process for me), the mirrors started getting 'simpler'. One of the last was just a Merry Christmas scrawled across the mirror...

I still miss the mirror paintings. I should start them myself...

If only I had a mirror anywhere in this house...

me