For me, this time of year shouts gingerbread house, even if a bit late. To be fair, I wasn't late with the gingerbread house, only the posting. It did appear in a timely manner on the Aitken Christmas dinner table - taking up way too much room as usual!
Around the month of October, I decided to depict a home as if it were underground. It squeezed my brain a bit in the process of taking the idea, the sketch, and then figuring out how to actually do it with gingerbread. With a house-like structure, you create flat pieces and then assemble them. Easy concept. With something that shows both the underground and the top, the question is how do you finish it off? How do you handle the sides and the back? These were the challenges of designing The Gnome Home.
As always, The Gnome Home is entirely edible (except for the tuft of cotton for the smoke and the lights). Gnomie has fallen asleep while reading A Christmas Carol in front of the fire with his tea and cookies next to him. He is an artist by trade, so as you walk to the back of his home you see his art studio and his latest painting (he is experimenting with nonrepresentational art these days). He is an avid reader and loves to bake. If you head up the spiral stairs there is a pantry storage area where he not only stores important foods like M&M's but also dries herbs for cooking. A potbelly stove keeps the second floor warm and also helps to dry his laundry. It also keeps his bedroom cozy. Around the back of the second floor is an indoor bathroom (an upgrade) and a large storage closet, but I did not think you needed to see these. If you go around through the art studio, he has a very small office with a desk, but he didn't want me to show that. Privacy? I don't know, but you don't argue with a gnome. You can see for yourself that he has not finished filling out his Christmas cards and his nap is about to be interrupted. Or will it? He just may not answer. Gnomie is like that sometimes.
Well, silliness aside, I hope you enjoy The Gnome Home!
Note - a big shoutout to Abigail Aitken for making the video for me!!
Beware! Gingerbread Minutiae
Each year it seems as if I learn something or discover something new in the world of gingerbread. I was able to use a couple of those from 2020 Pixie Point, like meringue mushrooms and dyed coconut. Each house has contributed new ways of using edible materials either for support or story telling. Usually, each house has to be designed over the hole in my wooden base so that a light, or string of miniature lights, can give the house light but not be seen. This is limiting. In The Gnome Home, the I switched out the normal bulb, which is the size of a nightlight, for a smaller bulb. Then I removed it from its little base and threaded the bulb and cord through the living room, around the back of the root holding the fireplace. Then I placed a small "window" colored with dye to look like fire in front of the bulb and covered the cord with the floor tiles (fondant). I suppose I could drill another hole in my base, but through the years it might start looking like Swiss cheese! I also used mini tea lights in the pantry and the bedroom by burying them into the roots and leaving the little on/off switches exposed and arranging them so the bulb would shed some light into the dark spaces. It worked pretty well except that one must have been used or I left it on and drained its battery, because it did not last long.
Click arrow to the right to view slideshow (Photos & close-ups):
RECAP OF ARTWORK IN 2024
In previous posts I have shared that I am working on a collection of portraits, with the hope that I might have enough some day to display as a collection. If not, my family will simply have to find a place on their walls where they have the honor of seeing their own image looking back at them every day. That being said, I have begun to enter them into various local shows. The Apple was the first portrait I painted and was the first I entered into a show in 2023. After that, they are in no particular order. I enter these exhibits to affirm that I am heading in the right direction. Often, if you are lucky enough to earn an award, the juror will make the award presentation while at the same time waxing poetic on the finer points of the painting. I think all artists find that particularly satisfying.
I have also continued to exhibit several stained glass effect paintings in shows - Birmingham Society of Women's Painters Pot Pourri, Sweetwater Coffee & Tea Cafe Exhibit and Woods Gallery Exhibit (BSWP).
Charach Gallery Fine Arts Exhibit
Grosse Pointe Artist Association Exhibit- Food in Art
11th Annual TCAC Juried Exhibit: 2nd Place Award
Canton Annual Fine Arts Exhibit: People's Choice Award
11th Annual TCAC Juried Exhibit: Juror's Choice Award
Northville Art House - Birmingham Society of Women Painters
Canton Annual Fine Arts Exhibit
Atelier Group Exhibit (this was voluntary, not juried; I haven't entered
Robert into a juried show yet)
Annual TCAC Juried Exhibit: 1st Place Award & Popular Choice
Livonia 25th Annual Arts Commission
Grosse Pointe War Memorial Art Center: 1st Place Award
Northville Art House (Birmingham Society of Women Painters): 2nd Place Award
Annual TCAC Juried Exhibit
The painting on the easel I just finished recently (below). I think it may be my favorite thus far because of the scarf. If you zoom in you get a better idea of how it looks in person. I have not entered it in any shows yet - it still needs varnish. I also have to title it. What do you think about The Scarf as a title? I don't know - I need to think about it more.
I have also started drawing. Until now I have primarily just sketched. I haven't drawn seriously. My first drawing is of my husband. In the photo I took, he was looking across the camper table at me, having won at Yatzee once again and the dice are in the photo. I cropped out the dice, but I love his expression.
At the moment I'm working on a painting of my eldest and starting a new drawing. I am excited to see what 2025 brings in both my artwork and my life in general. I hope you are staying warm and being creative!