About the Christmas card illustrations

For many years I have designed Christmas cards for friends, colleagues and clients. I am quite ambivalent about Christmas itself, but for some reason I have always found making the cards satisfying.

At first, all the cards were handmade, and I experimented with various graphic styles and techniques, including cut-outs and collage. However, as my mailing list grew, I confined myself to drawings in ink and Caran D'Ache coloured pencils which could be scanned and printed. Inevitably, I progressed to images created on a computer which could be directly e-mailed. Somehow it's not quite the same, but that's the world we live in.

"Christmas with the Bears"

ink drawing, 1992

Have you ever wondered what became of the Bear family from the fairy tale "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"?

Baby Bear has since grown up a bit, and prefers to be called Junior. He's pretty excited about Christmas and hoping for a gameboy or a new skateboard. In fact he's so excited that he hasn't even finished eating his porridge, which as we know is the family's favourite food. Perhaps it's too hot. Junior now has a younger sister who is in her room playing with her Barbielocks dolls.

Mama Bear sits by the fire dreaming festive dreams while knitting a vegetarian Christmas turkey from soya wool. This is a great relief to their neighbour Tom Turkey who is passing their window on his way home from the office party.

Pappa Bear is still at work. He's just got a new job as security guard at Santa's toy factory, and at this time of year there's always plenty of overtime.