(No Longer) Dreaming of a White Xmas

I'm looking out the window right now at snow falling. On Xmas Day. The ground is still white with the remnants of our last snowstorm, and though it's above freezing so the new stuff isn't sticking (much), I finally got to see an honest-to-goodness White Xmas. I also saw a hummingbird on Xmas day. Of all the things I thought I'd never see...

It hasn't been a great year overall, but it's been a decent holiday thus far. I got some new blankets and bedsheets, and some other loot I look forward to hooking up and reading and otherwise employing. Moreover, people seemed to like what I gave them. (I think one of the fundamental shifts that marks the transition from childhood holidays to adult holidays is when one becomes less concerned about what you get and more about how people enjoy what you give.) I went over budget, naturally, but it's Xmas. If you're ever going to go over budget, that's as good a time as any.

Well, it's time to post the results of this year's ornament blitz. To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely happy with the outcome. This is a lesson not to take a year off from a medium before belting out ornaments...

The Ornaments - Work In Progress
I was at a loss as to what to make this year, until I remembered that my aunt wanted a painted feather for Xmas. So wouldn't it be just too clever to make Paperclay feathers and paint on them? Here you see my work-in-progress on six templates. (Two are still half-finished...)

Ornament Feathers Front and Back
Yes, I know the shots are lousy. It turns out that flat ornaments reflect light badly when one is trying to photograph them in a dim basement at one's workbench... Anyway, the images (since you probably can't see them well) are a beluga, an osprey, a cardinal, and a walrus. Not very happy with the way the osprey came out, and I misplaced the fin terribly on the beluga, but deadlines don't allow for much in the way of redos.

How do you spell family?
Immediate family has a way of wandering by my workbench at inappropriate times, so I can't do exceptionally elaborate items. I'm also in the midst of an inspiration drought. So when I was wandering though Micheal's and saw wooden letters, I thought: Hey! Letters! They have names with letters in them! And thus, one of my least creative ornament ideas was born... The holly leaves are mostly there to hide the hanger glue; I don't have a drill, so I had to glue hand-twisted wire hanger loops to the backs. I don't know that the fake holly leaves are a drastic improvement, in hindsight.

The Painted Feathers
Now, let me start with the disclaimer that these feathers were a gift, and I'm 99% certain they're from acceptable sources; one's clearly turkey, and the other one looks like some manner of domestic fowl to me.
Okay, since my aunt wanted a painted feather, and I had no idea what to do for her husband, I decided to paint feathers for them both. My first step was to look up how to paint feathers online. (That's the subject "how to paint feathers" which I looked up online, not how to go about painting an online feather.) I found a variety of instructions, good and bad (mostly bad) from a variety of sources. My test feathers, however, showed no significant difference between those I prepped by various methods and those I painted "raw." I washed some in Woolite and some without. I prepped some with varying intensities of thinned Elmer's glue. I sprayed a couple with varnish. I was able to discern no difference when painting, and saw no difference in drying after over a week. In the end, I winged it. (No pun intended. Oh, okay - I fully intended that pun.)
I carefully picked out the least ragged feathers from the bunch. I used a thin solution of Elmer's and water to help prep the feathers, in theory binding the thing together so it was less likely to split in the painting process. I spent too long hunting for halfway interesting ref pics. And finally, when I'd finished my other ornaments and cleared my workbench and had no more excuses, I started to paint.
It was a whole different process, painting a finished image on a larger feather (the shorter one's an even 12 inches, the longer over 15), than it had been painting test blobs on smaller feathers. The images fought me. The paint fought me. The feathers fought me. In the end, I triumphed... more or less.
This left me with another dilemma I hadn't even considered beforehand: how to present them. The fair where my aunt pointed out the painted feathers sold them loose. I've seen other people selling them in custom mattes (or, more often, as prints of custom matte jobs.) Unfortunately, I've never cut a matte in my life, and this close to the deadline seemed an unlikely time to start. I also discovered that buying a large enough frame was a joke, as I only needed a narrow frame and they're darned expensive to buy, especially if I'd be hacking out half the width anyway. All the precut mattes were made to normal frame proportions; again, I'd be paying for far more matte than I'd be using. The local "fancy" art store also was woefully low on uncut matte board, to the point where I'm suspicious that they're clearing it out. Another desperation run through Micheal's, and I hit upon an idea, or something close enough to one that I snatched it up and ran with it. I bought lengths of flat basswood and basswood dowels, cut them to size, stained them, and glued them up with wood glue. Then I drilled holes*, threaded wire through to secure the feathers, and ran more wire for a primitive hanger. The end results are pictured here. I'm actually happier with the improv frames than I am with the painted feathers. The primitive look makes them pop, I thought. Besides, my aunt's husband has a good woodshop and makes picture frames; odds are the feathers will end up in something better if they find themselves on the walls.

* - Okay, I didn't do the drilling, since (as mentioned earlier) I have no drill. I also didn't do the dowel and blank cutting. My sister has a woodshop, so I got her to do that. I also had to borrow the woodstain and wood glue from her. So she's as much a contributor here as I am.)

So, anyway, I thought I'd get these posted before we headed off to the family gathering. The snow's still coming down, but the roads are mostly bare from what we've heard.

Hope everyone's having a decent holiday season! Bundle up, drive safely, and enjoy!