I painted this commission many weeks ago but haven’t been able to post it until now, because it was a surprise birthday gift. A good friend came to visit me in Japan last year, and for her birthday her mom asked me to paint a memory of her Japan trip. The background in this painting is Tojimbo, one of my favorite places here (you can see those same cliffs in a number of my paintings, including the Umibozu). The sky and water patterns are borrowed from Hokusai’s Great Wave over Kanagawa, one of the most famous Japanese images. The painting is acrylic on Japanese washi paper board.

My wife and I will be going back to Takefu, to her parents’ house, for a traditional Japanese New Year’s. I spent New Year’s there back before we were dating and had a great time, so I’m looking forward to it again very much this year. And we’re expecting to have a huge snowstorm that night too, which will be fun.

Expect lots of new things here in January! Going back to the A-Yokai-A-Day theme, I’ll be working on another series of paintings of Japanese kami, or gods. I won’t be doing one a day — I have a lot of things to juggle right now, so I can’t devote 100% of my time to a single project — but I’m aiming for 4 to 5 per week. These will also be painted in acrylics and gouache on shikishi like the yokai, and will also be available for purchase as originals or prints. So please check back here soon after the new year rolls in! And have a safe and fun New Year’s holiday!

Well I said I was working on a Christmas piece, though I suppose this might come as a surprise to those who weren’t expect it.

The wonderful thing about Christmas is that, despite what the fundamentalist nutjobs and the Republican party want you to think, it’s truly a multicultural holiday. In fact, almost nothing we associate with Christmas today has anything to do with Christianity, except for the name. The winter solstice has, of course, been important since the first civilizations arose, but our Christmas season of greenery, lights, and feasting, and the concept of “eat drink and be merry,” come from a Roman winter festival Saturnalia. The idea of a god-son born in midwinter comes from the later Roman holiday Dies Natalis Solis Invitci, the birthday of the unconquered son. Sun worship in the form of the infant-god-incarnate motif was very popular in the later empire, and many of the customs of Christmas come from the celebration of Mithras’ birthday. Other traditions, like gift-giving, christmas trees and wreaths, and traditional foods come from Northern European pagan religions (even our word “Yule” was the name of the Germanic winter solstice festival). We always hear that Jesus was born in the spring, during the Roman census, but the early Catholic church wanted to eliminate these pagan traditions, and so set up Christmas on the 25th as a way to subvert these native customs. However, even with the loss of their original meanings, the traditions carried as Christmas was popularized in Victorian England, and then later in the US. Even Santa Claus has a very diverse origin. He is a blend of Father Christmas, an English character whose origin and outfit go all the way back to Roman Saturn, and Sinterklaas, a Dutch character who evolved out of the much earlier story of Saint Nicholas. These two folk figures were merged together in the US in the 19th century, and the character Santa Claus was born. Later the Coca Cola image of Santa Claus, combined with the short stories of Washing Irving and Clement Clarke Moore cemented the American commercialized concept of Santa Claus in our hearts and minds. The Christmas Card was started in 1875, and the rest is history.

And that’s why I say the Republicans and the so-called “traditionalists” can shove it up their turducken when they complain about the commercialization of Christmas and the “War on Christmas” and other bullhonkey like that. Christmas was never a very important or big holiday in the church until the 19th century, when it became commercialized. Its origin has less to do with Jesus than it does with pagan bacchanal, and the true meaning of Christmas is whatever you want it to be, because there is so much tradition wrapped up into it that no one culture can claim ownership of the holiday. (And most of the popular Christmas songs were written by Jews, so they get a piece of the pie, too!)

Anyway enough of my little history lesson. I wanted to show you the painting. Remember the Dutch Sinterklaas who is half of the origin of our Santa Claus? Well he didn’t travel alone. In most of Europe, Saint Nicholas had one or more companions who traveled with him, helping him out. In some cultures, they are based on the original stories of Nicholas of Myra (who, by the way, was from Turkey), like the French Père Fouettard. In some, they are medieval additions to the already mythologized tale, like Knecht Ruprecht, or the Dutch Zwarte Piet. In others, they are remnants of the pagan past — former gods who were either demonized or diminutized when Christianity took over — like the German Belsnickel, the Austrian Klaubauf, Swiss Schmutzli, and others: Rumpelklas, Hans Muff, Bellzebub, Drapp, Bartel, Cert and Andel, Hanstrapp… and the list goes on and on beyond that. This painting is of one of the more well-known Christmas monsters: Krampus.

There’s a decent article in Wikipedia about Krampus, but in short, he’s a scary monster that “birches” the bad kids, while Santa gives them presents (makes you wish for coal instead, doesn’t it?). I find Krampus pretty interesting, because (as you’ll see on the Wikipedia page) he survived the Christianization of the solstice fairly well, and lived on in festivals and even Christmas cards and illustrations. Boy, I would love to get a Krampus card one year…

So here is my Christmas Krampus/Krampus Kard/Merry Krampmass? All I know is if I were raised in the Alps, I would probably not look forward to Christmas nearly as much as I do now.

So be good for goodness sake!

Back in the summer and early fall, if you remember, I was doing a lot of work with an RPG company, Nevermet Press. Their first PDF was published this month, and my artwork is on the cover! I also designed a good chunk of the PDF layout as well. Click on the image below to go to the Nevermet Press page for the product.

Nevermet Press Issue 1: The Desire

If you haven’t heard about NMP, it’s a RPG blog that creates community content non-specific to any game system. Kind of drag-and-drop game ideas. The Desire is the product of a number of writers and artists working together, everyone creating their own content based on a central theme — in this case, a villain named The Desire. The cool thing about the project is that, unlike a lot of RPG products that present a linear script with a beginning, middle, and end — severely limiting the GM’s ability to modify the adventure — NMP’s articles develop locations, encounters, items, and characters around a central concept. As a game master, I think it’s a refreshing take on the “modular” concept of game modules, and is easier to plug in to an existing game. Finally, as each writer and artist presents their own vision which stems from the original article, there’s a wider variety of stories to tell. Just like if 10 artists painted the same scene, you’d still get 10 different paintings. (Admittedly, I’m biased because I worked on the project.)