Silent Night...

I hope that your weekend will be calm and bright and full of joy and cookies and fun.

If you visit Between the End Pages, you can see my illustration for this month's theme, "A Christmas Carol".

Also, I'm going to take a vacation from the internet for a week or two. So, I'll see you next year friends! Cheers and Happy Holidays!

Illustration Friday: Separated

And the winner is.....

Thank you so much to everyone who entered my Thank You Giveaway! It made me feel so cheery to read your favorite things about the holidays! Last night, I put everyone's name in my winter hat and pulled out three names. The grand prize winner is....
























Congratulations Monica!! I'll be sending you a set of Winter Birds note cards and you can choose any item you like from my Etsy shop. Monica's favorite things about the holidays are listening to the soundtrack of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and drinking hot chocolate. Mmmm... Today would be a good day for hot chocolate, especially peppermint hot chocolate. In my family, its not really Christmas until we've listened to the John Denver and the Muppets Christmas album a few times.

The two runners up are....















































Congratulations Emily S. and Jeanie W!

If Monica, Emily and Jeanie will please email me at BrookeBoyntonHughes (at) gmail (dot) com with your addresses (and Monica, with your Etsy item of choice), I'll get your prizes in the mail right away.

Thank you again for entering my giveaway, and thank you especially for taking the time to visit my blog. Cheers!

Illustration Friday: Brigade

I've been reading Wildwood, written by Colin Meloy, with illustrations by Carson Ellis. Ms. Ellis' illustrations are really wonderful and suit the book perfectly, but seeing as Wildwood is a novel, there are many many characters and scenes that aren't illustrated. I've been loving imagining the fantastical characters and scenes of Mr. Meloy's story. So, when I saw that this week's word was "brigade" I immediately thought of Wildwood's army of coyotes. My original sketch for this involved several coyotes marching, but then I remembered that I had to make dinner and do laundry and make phone calls and work on other illustrations... so instead, here's this guy, an officer in the coyote brigade.

Work in progress...

Another bear taking a stroll.

And if you head over to Between the End Pages, you can see my illustration of a robot bear.

Also, there are still a few more days left to enter my giveaway if you're in the market for some free "Winter Birds" note cards.

Oh, and one more thing... Did you see this interview a few days ago with Abigail Halpin? Her art is delightful and so is her interview.

I hope you have a happy weekend! The husband and I are going to get our Christmas tree and do some holiday decorating. Bring on the egg nog! (er... soy nog.)