Nutcrackers, One by One

December illustrated journaling and drawing, ornaments, nutcrackers, and series

Dec 03, 2023

Portrait in illustrated journal. A. Cowen, 2020

"Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments, embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour." — John Boswell

December is here! The long month of November is over. I wrapped up NaNoWriMo a day early and also made a long reflective post in the gratitude series a day or so before the end of the month. Thank you to those who read throughout the month.

December is new and fresh and has the potential to be shiny. I tell myself that in concept. I don’t know that we are headed to anything shiny, but I did find the remote control for the tree lights, and I did turn them on one night this week. It was the day after we would have, traditionally, set up the tree.

I know that light, even the artificial kind, even the cool-to-the-touch-I-can-be-any-color kind, is often the conduit to balance and calm for me. December lights are one of my favorite things. As I sit here now, keyboard on my lap, and look at the tree, white lights warming the ornaments, I realize this is, without a doubt, a glimmer. That this is something I can so easily control is not lost on me. Let things twinkle and shimmer and glisten and shine. In the midst of things falling apart or being patched together, I always find something in the light.

Today’s post is about December journaling. I’m sure some of you will be glad to focus on something short and concrete. Me, too. Things did take a bit of a zany turn though when I decided to give the nutcrackers a bit of digital space as my panel challenge this week.

The unexpected twists and turns of each weekly mix is part of the fun of filling this space.

Thank you for being here.

Amy

PS - This post is “too long” for your email because there are a number of images in it. Use the link at the top to click through to read in the app or in a browser.

Thinking About Nutcrackers

My panel practice for this week was about nutcrackers (which I’ll be talking about below in the context of illustrated journaling and a December series). This is an odd set. It ended up being thought provoking. I really wanted to do lots of different nutcrackers in different colors and patterns, but I didn’t have that kind of time. (That’s what I’ll be doing on paper this month.) I had fun though working on these panels. Somehow challenging myself to add this element to my weekly posts is one of my favorite parts and is the puzzle each week that I twist and turn and consider even as the words spill along and line up in orderly fashion on the side.

(I know they don’t all have a candy staff. The one I decided to draw happened to. I know, in truth, the staff takes all kinds of shapes. That’s a cool thing. That they are all different and not just cookie cutters of a single manifestation of “nutcracker” is also true to the magic of them. My comic flattens the reality mightily.)

December Journaling

Illustrated journal pageS. A. Cowen, 2020

As December approached, I found myself thinking about December art and December journaling through the years. I associate December in my sketchbook with softness, with something light and whimsical, with something quiet and reflective. When I think of time spent working in my sketchbook in December, there is something warm, something comfortable, something nourishing. This is, of course, the snow globe time of year.

My kids are grown, and my patterns have shifted, but my sketchbook time used to be early morning, hours before the boys would wake, before I would need to do morning things, breakfast and school and work.

I remember, faintly, the feeling of sitting in the living room chair, gold with its burnished red poppies and green stems, and drawing and painting ornaments, one each morning. One year, I know that I would sit down each morning, pull an ornament from the tree, and draw it. Maybe it was that year, or maybe it was another, but I know I painted a little holiday biplane, the color of honey and snow on its wings. On another morning, a glass hummingbird, one I hang as a symbol of my grandmother. I feel like I stenciled the words on these pages, words identifying each ornament. I have such a strong sense of these simple drawings.

Now I feel like I have to find them. I have no idea how far back they might be, probably somewhere around 2007. That’s my guess. I wonder if I’m right, or if I am making up this memory, some assemblage of bits and pieces and things I know, but not entirely accurate. I think most memories are this way.

I know, of course, that I tend to draw ornaments each year. I know that for many years I drew in the morning. I know the golden poppy chairs were my favorite. These drawings that come to mind could have been any year along the way.

Fifteen years? In thinking of December drawing, what comes to mind is something that if I threw a dart at a timeline, I would throw somewhere in the vicinity of 2007. It could be any year. I’ve drawn or painted some of the ornaments many times. I have a few favorites, a striped cat and a spotted dog and several robots, that I often draw each year.

While most of the ornaments lend color and sparkle to the tree, I tend to draw the ones with clean lines, clear details. If I was a painter, the others would be fair game. But the details in most of the blown glass ornaments (and most of them are glass) are harder to nail down, a bit squishier overall.

There was a trip to a small ornament store, maybe our first year in San Francisco. We bought several ornaments that year. The city was new to us. The world was crisp and exciting. There is the faintest buzz of memory, the muffled sound of conversation, of laughter, us and the two men who owned the store. Which ornaments did we buy there? A Santa with white robes covered with red hearts. A frog prince. A cat in a slipper. Maybe the lighthouse? Maybe a small bell? I feel like there was something pink, a discussion about something pink. I wish now that we had bought whatever that might have been.

Drawing ornaments is always a thing for me. I remember one year feeling like I found my “mojo” in December, reclaiming something that must have felt fragile or tired that year. Drawing ornaments helped light the way back to my sketchbook.

🎧 Looking back, that show was in 2016, not nearly as far back as I would have guessed. Episode 210: Mojo was a “Creative Mom Podcast” episode and is no longer available as part of the podcast feed. I’ve made it temporarily available, if you want to dive into the podcast vault.

📕 Last year, I looked at Tree of Treasures: A Life in Ornaments by Bonnie Mackay, a fascinating book about the author’s collection (and tracking) of more than 3000 ornaments. I wish I was more organized about our ornaments, but her organization and collection is truly extraordinary. You can listen to that book summary in Episode 480: Ornaments.

Branching Out

December drawing often involves ornaments. I’m happy to revisit them each year. Even if I’ve drawn them before, I know that year to year, my drawings will look different. Sometimes, I see actual changes in my drawing. Sometimes, I am simply drawing differently. But sprinkling ornaments through my pages is comfortable. It’s easy. It’s authentic.

Our tree has now been up for two years straight.

Last December, I drew a few ornaments. I kept ornaments in the mix in the weekly Illustrate Your Week prompts. But last year, I unexpectedly got interested in nutcrackers. I drew several. And I drew gnomes. Several. I remember a portrait with a woman wearing a hat…

Nutcracker in illustrated journal. A. Cowen, 2022

Assorted excerpts from illustrated journal pages, 2020-2022. A. Cowen

Illustrated journal page. A. Cowen, 2022

In the year before (or the year before that), I know there was a portrait of a man holding letters. In the original photo, the letters said something, maybe NOEL, and I changed it because I ran out of room and knew I couldn’t fit all the letters. I didn’t want it to say NO. As I write this, I know I will be finding the page in my sketchbook and inserting a photo. It will show up here as an image, a memory confirmed or corrected. I think he holds the word OH. Or maybe HO.

Drawing of a man holding letter OH — Portrait drawing. A. Cowen 2020

So many years of drawing. All these years. All these years since some informal “starting” point that I associate with the podcast. Many years in a row now of keeping an illustrated journal. Not a lot stands out when I think back, but somehow these few drawings come to mind…. drawings from December.

I am warmed by that. I am grateful to feel like I can even “almost” picture something from memory. As someone with memory issues, that I have these partial mental images of things I drew, that some of these drawings have stuck with me, is fascinating.

A Series

This year has been a challenge in terms of follow-through. It is something I’ll be thinking about as the year winds down. But even knowing that my track record this year is a bit dingy, with the month starting, there isn’t much that could stop me from setting myself up again for a series.

As many times as I have talked about working in series and the simple comfort of it, it sometimes surprises me a bit when I realize “here I am again.”

Here I am again lining up something that will feel repetitive, but each one will be slightly different. Here I am again lining up something that asks for me to be accountable and diligent and present. Here I am again with a plan that gives me just a bit of a “to do” each day. Here I am again reminding myself that my art matters to me, that the time I spend drawing each night is how I best take care of myself.

This is wisdom I have gained through the years. This is what I have learned about myself. Time spent drawing and documenting life is my version of self care.

And so, here I am again, thinking about even a sliver of a December series.

I know the month will be busy. There will be family and lots of holiday movies to watch. There will be lots of knitting and lots and lots of games.

Thinking about a series, even a sliver of a series, may not make a lot of sense.

But here I am.

Nutcrackers

I think I didn’t quite get the nutcrackers out of my system last year. In October, I was focused on Pez, and there are some holiday Pez dispensers I often redraw. But I’ve been looking forward to December for the nutcrackers. Over the Black Friday weekend, I kept looking at nutcracker ornament sets and thinking, “I could just buy a few.” But, the simple reality is that drawing them from online photos works. I don’t need to own something to draw it. So, I’m thinking I will draw nutcrackers throughout the month. It’s maybe an odd choice. They aren’t “that” interesting, really. Their faces are a bit odd. The hair is typically a bit scraggly. The eyebrows are often inane. They are much more interesting in color, and I haven’t been using color at all.

Unlike many of my series, where I work on something each day, either on standalone papers or on a larger page that I add to, I’m planning to keep these nutcrackers simple. I am just going to work them into my Illustrate Your Week pages. That keeps it low-key. They will be part of the cluttered terrain of each week, not standalone pieces. I am also not telling myself this is necessarily a daily series. If I draw 31, excellent. But it’s okay if there are less. However many take up residence on my pages will be fine.

A series doesn’t have to mean daily.

I’m hoping the nutcrackers keep me company through the month. Maybe I’ll discover something I don’t expect. Or maybe I’ll just find that the process is comforting in its own way and that I enjoy seeing them on the page. Maybe I will find a way to make my nutcrackers girls. It does bother me that they are all men.

Do a Small Series

I encourage you to find a series for December, something small that gives a thread of continuity throughout your pages. It can be something simple. Maybe you:

Draw a holiday candy or peppermint each day
Draw candy canes
Draw snowmen
Draw Christmas trees or wreaths
Draw Santas
Draw something from your tree each day
Draw gnomes
Draw elves
Draw your cactus or amaryllis each day
Draw holiday postage stamps

These are simple ideas. I hope you think about it.

The Nutcracker Panels

The use of color is always such an intriguing element. Digital makes it so easy to change things and try variations. (It can be an overthinker’s nightmare.) I looked, as a final step, at the background color of the title box. It could be anything pulled from the nutcracker. I find it interesting how each pick contributes a slightly different feel. This was more obvious when looking at the first four panels with different backgrounds in box 1, but I don’t have space here, really, to put you through that. These are things that I continue to toy with.

Alternate color options for a comic panel.

Made It?

Thank you for reading.

It was a long almost-eight weeks. My heart (and my fear) has been on the page each week (and also tucked and folded into the monthlong series of gratitude posts). Mostly, it feels like it was invisible, like I was writing in secret. But having a Sunday post to craft each week was a lifeline.

I appreciate those of you who read and who comment and who share ways we connect and overlap.

Thank you to those who have chosen to offer paid support. Your show of support in my words here and on the podcast means so much to me.

🎯🖋️ The Week 49 prompts for Illustrate Your Week are available.

🎯❄️ There is a separate set of December prompts, too.

Your comments help make this space warm and cozy.

A favorite ornament (if you are a tree and ornament person) or a favorite knick-knack from the shelf
Lights: colored or white
A positive word for this December, one you hope will be fitting
A project you have planned for December
A favorite pop holiday song (save traditional carols for another week)

I have made countless Christmas and holiday playlists through the years, but one of my favorites is a “River” playlist, a collection of versions of “River.” I especially love the Sarah McLachlan cover. (The playlist below contains a few other songs mixed in for an easy holiday listen. “River” is, of course, a melancholy song. If it gets you down, this isn’t the list for you! Something about having it almost on repeat works for me.)

The song going through my head as I contemplated this list of prompts was “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Funny how music pops up that way!

With so many fantastic writers in this substack space, there is a lot of room for self-doubt. I try to keep my head down and just keep being me. Your support helps reinforce the work I am doing, tells me when I am putting out something that has meaning to you, helps the substack grow, and, hopefully, will help this space be sustainable. I see a lot of people saying that simply “doing good work” leads to success. I know it isn’t always that easy.

I very much appreciate those of you who come back and read each week.

I appreciate your support in all the ways. Sharing with friends, restacking here at Substack, and commenting are all helpful!