Greetings!
On Saturday folks in the Czech Republic greeted the arrival of the Three Kings. You know those guys, the we three kings of orient are kings. It's a day to supposedly celebrate the arrival of the kings to Bethlehem bearing their gifts for baby Jesus. What it has become is the kick-off date for roving bands of crowned thugs to accost passers-by and sing carols at them until their victims pay up to get them to move along. I took a picture of them from a safe distance:
Actually, it's an old tradition that was frowned upon by the communist regime and was renewed after the revolution in 1989. It's a day when groups of kids dress up in costume as Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar (in Czech-- Kašpar, Melichar and Baltazar)-- and yes, the kid taking the role of Balthazar does often wear a costume that includes wearing blackface makeup. Considering that they sing carols and not Al Jolson's greatest hits it's only mildly offensive. Traditionally these little tykes go from door to door, carrying burning incense and a Star of Bethlehem, singing "We Three Kings" and writing on the doors of each home "K+M+B" and the current year with chalk that is usually blessed at the local church. In this way they give their blessing and protection to the home in the year ahead and usually receive some treats or a bit of hard cash in compensation. This is still how the tradition works out in the small villages. In the larger towns and cities the kings are more likely to be collecting for the official "Three Kings" charity to help the poor. You can see one of the official plastic buckets in the photo above-- a photo which was taken on Wednesday. It has been a charitable week.
More blithering about my week and a few more pictures lay in ambush beneath the ginger hairball...
The usual disclaimers apply. This is a community open thread diary. It's being posted to the Street Prophets group but we've no membership requirements in the comments. All are welcome to join in, relax, have a cookie. You don't have to react to my blithering; it's an open thread. You can decorate the comments in your own style.
First, let me say that I'm sorry for not taking the time to romp in the comments of my SP Open Thread diary last week. I appreciated all of them!
On Tuesday I picked up my prints of "Billeh in Candy Corn"
Archival quality prints (11.5 x 8.25 inches) on 100% rag paper for $35-- kosmail for details
I managed to send one of them out already to someone who had expressed a desire to own one and whose wish was almost instantly heard and made possible by a sneaky Secret Santa. A couple of Secret Santas ganged up and made the reproduction of one of my other paintings possible for another person who was kind enough to express her desire to at least own a copy of my oil painting titled simply, "Carnations":
Archival quality prints (19 x 22.25 inches) on canvas for $95-- kosmail for details
I had donated one of the "Billeh" pieces to the Netroots Nation Holiday Bazaar auction-- I've heard that it sold but didn't get the follow-up email with the details of where I need to send it. I sent off a message to the Netroots folks earlier this week to ask if they could look into that for me-- no news yet.
During this week I spent some time looking into my options for expanding the exposure and sales of my work as an illustrator. I'd like to be doing more online. One interesting detour led me down a series of links to a whole library of tutorial videos from one Matt Kohr. I'm no stranger to digital painting but his work is beautiful and his technique differed from mine in several important points and some of them were the sorts of things that had me wondering how many hours I'd wasted stumbling along with my old methods. I've still got so much to learn but I had some fun this week working on this:
Trying out those new techniques. I've still got a couple of hours of work on it but I thought I'd share the results.
Life, art-- it's all about the journey.
Or something, something, cookies for dinner, something...