In 2009, I did a graphite drawing of Santa feeding apples to his reindeer, entitled "Santa's Treat." The drawing is approx. 13" x 8," and we used this as the image on our family Christmas card that year.

In June of 2014, I came across a copy of the card drawing in a file and thought it might be interesting to revisit the idea...

In a revised rough sketch, I moved things around a little and made Santa literally the high point of the composition. I liked this adjustment and decided to use a little window of time in my schedule to take it to the next step of shooting photo reference...

Dressed in a make-shift Santa costume (complete with padding), and holding a bucket as a stand-in prop for the basket of apples, we set up the lights, and my son Karl took a bunch of photos of me in variations of St. Nick's pose.

After they were shot and printed, I edited them and taped the selected shots to pieces of old cardboard. I grouped them in ways that would show me a range of possibilities, in similar poses.

At this point other commitments forced me to set this project aside until later...
 

...AND REINDEER!

Reindeer antlers are always a challenge when planning a composition in which these great animals are featured. It took a bit of finessing to choreograph them in a way that they looked natural and interesting as antlers, but didn't get in the way or line up with other elements and form awkward tangents. As the picture developed, I was pleased with the way the sweep of the antlers helped lead the viewer to Santa's face.

Once I got this sketch worked out (at about 10" x 8"), I cropped it to 7" x 5," the proportion I wanted for the finished piece.The next step was to enlarge that cropped sketch up to a good size to work at for the final drawing, approx. 18.75" x 13.25." I did this on our home copier machine.

At this stage, I have spent about 2 days working on this piece.

I taped the enlargement of the compositional sketch to the drawing board, put a sheet of some semi-transparent layout paper over that, and started redrawing the elements. I like doing it this way because the sketch is just that - a loose version of the composition done to work out the design and arrangement of a picture. The final drawing fine tunes things, adjusting and working out the details before taking the piece to canvas.

This photo basically shows how the drawing board looked while working on the finished drawing. The iPad (upper left) happens to have a picture of our dog, Riley in this shot, but it displays all manner of visual reference throughout the work day. Next to that is the progression of drawings and sketches prior to this point in time. Way over to the left, on the table is the reindeer sculpture.

You may also notice cut-outs of xeroxes of drawings of a reindeer (to the left of the main drawing) and Santa (to the right). All the key figures in this piece were drawn on separate sheets of layout paper, then xeroxed, cut out and put into position. This is an archaic way of allowing me as much flexibility as possible when arranging the elements. I can also reduce or enlarge each single element as needed. Once I get the picture to the right size, I wax the back (with a 30-yr. old hot wax machine that I inherited!), put it into position on the composition and burnish it down. Although the cut out reindeer is like the one in the lower left of the sketch, I decided to adjust its pose for the final composition.

...AND JOE!

You have undoubtedly also noticed by now my helper, Joe. Because I couldn't shoot the photos and be in them at the same time, Joe consented to be photographed while working. Here he is, literally propped up on much of the stuff that helps form the foundation for this picture; reference books, picture files, CDs of great music to listen to, and last but not least - a cup of coffee.

This is how the final drawing looked with everything in place. The trees in the background were drawn in pencil around the group of figures. My wife, Patty, scanned this drawing and we sized it to fit a masonite panel that I had cut to 27" x 19.25."

We then sent this image via the computer to a local company that can print out hi-res images on canvas. Usually the turnaround for this process is within the same day.

Because the black pigment in the copier toner is too harsh, I soften it with a coat of Golden Acrylic absorbent ground, a sort of gesso that remains semi-transparent and pretty absorbent to washes. 

The color study was then done directly on this mounted copy, with acrylic paint. I had a very clear idea of what the color might be (for once!) and this study was completed in just a couple of hours. 

They don't all go this smoothly, however. Many times, I spend a full day on one study, or end up doing several versions before getting what I want.

At this stage, I'm about 6 working days into this piece.

Here we see Joe rolling on the second coat of matte medium to the front of the canvas panel. This is just extra protection for the image, since I'll be doing the first part of my underpainting in water-based acrylic.

This is a great surface to start painting on. I go to the extra trouble of having my actual drawing printed on the canvas because I prefer it to the other method of transferring it through the drawing with graphite paper. 

Even though I still use that approach (depending on the job), I like the quality of this printed drawing to the bad tracing quality of the graphite paper transfer.

The Imprimatura has transparent glazes made up of acrylic paint mixed with matte medium, primarily yellow ochre and raw sienna on the figures, and dioxazine purple mixed with white and a touch of ultramarine blue on the background. This simply gives you a general tone and color to start building the rest of the painting on.

This step took a couple of hours to do.

In about a half a day, I laid in this much color in oil on the figure of Santa and the basket of apples. It is now that my color study becomes an invaluable guide for the rest of the picture. Even though this step is primarily intended as a foundation to paint on top of, if done right, much of this work will be visible in the finished painting as well.

My pictures are usually made up of various layers of paint, each hopefully adding to the whole.

This shot shows the oil color underpainting on Santa's face, coat, basket and apples. This first use of oils in the painting is basically a glaze of color on these areas, spending a little more time on the face of Santa, trying to establish values in paint, and covering the lines of the transferred drawing.

Joe is always happiest when we reach the oil painting stage.

For the background, I started painting the closest trees, the snow on the ground and the sky. I like to establish an environment before working in depth on main characters, I feel that they then fit into that space as opposed to painting a space around them.

Joe feels the same way.

Today I painted the rest of the trees and did a little more work on the trees from yesterday as well. I think the background is basically done now.

Then I started working on Santa's coat, belt and mitten. I painted these fairly quickly wet on wet; I'd like to leave them like this, but we'll see how they look as the elements around them start to get finished, as they may need a tweak here and there so that everything works together.

For years, my wife, Patty has been telling me about the live reindeer that a north suburban garden center has on location at Christmastime. This year, I finally made a point of taking my camera to see for myself, and man, was I happy I did! 

Getting reference from books and online is great, but when you can stand a foot away from an actual reindeer and see the beautiful colors and the thickness of the fur - well, there's nothing like it, and the timing couldn't have been better for this painting!

That afternoon, back in the studio, I made a first pass at Santa's face. I will continue to make adjustments to his face as the painting proceeds, but this half-day's worth of work has established the basic foundation, and once it's dry I will always have that to go back to if future adjustments don't go well. I also worked on the fur trim of Santa's cuff and coat.

Varying from the color study a bit, I laid in three different colors on the reindeer's halters: originally I planned to make them all a reddish brown, but thought it might be nice to add some more color to the picture by making them green, orange and reddish brown. I'm not sure about this, so we'll see if I leave it or not.

I think the reindeer on the right is done now - boy, did that reindeer photo reference come in handy on this guy! As you can see, I also changed the halter from orange to green to match the licking reindeer. I think I prefer this, as it helps to unify the deer, and the green looks good next to the red of Santa's coat.

I also heightened the white of Santa's beard and the fur of his hat, and cast a shadow from the reindeer onto Santa's left arm.

Today I concentrated on the left foreground reindeer, and made adjustments to his face in order to make him look a little less "moosey." I think I'll be spending a little more time on this guy tomorrow...

When I came back up to the studio after lunch, it appeared that something had gotten into the basket of apples. So that evening, I decided to set the camera up on a tripod, trained on the still life, and rigged up a motion sensitive trigger for the shutter. The next morning, this photo was all the proof I needed.

The cat wanted me to throw Joe in the brig, but given how hard he's been working lately, I decided that if he's really that hungry, we should probably increase his K-rations instead.

Today I was at the point where I needed to review what still had to be done in order to finish the painting, and I made a list of those things. This really helps me to remember them all, since many of them are very subtle, and unless I make a note of them, they will be overlooked. I think these kinds of subtle adjustments really help to tie a piece together. I've always thought of this step like the final rehearsal before a performance of an orchestral piece of music - a point at which the conductor asks the orchestra for more brass here and a little less kettle drum there. It's a process of fine-tuning a piece so that passages are either heightened or subdued, according to where the desired emphasis is supposed to be.