HAPPY NEW YEAR

So, after a nice 3-week holiday break, HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Sometimes we just need to get off the merry-go-round and smell the roses.  Hopefully you had time to do that, too.

Part of my "break" has been no travel pics to process.  I usually think of that as my job (lest they fall into that proverbial Black Hole) but with fewer excursions these days, I'm being kind to myself.

However, I AM making two new books (one each for my Watercolor Sunday and Saturday's Color posts on Facebook) and am having a blast doing them.  It's like heaven for me, when time either stands still or flies.  Eternalized moments of pure, creative joy.

In the meantime, I still color Happy Color pics on my iPad and pay attention to some of the themes I'm collecting.

For instance:

I wish I knew if these are from the same artist.

The tilt, the triste:  the sad, mournful, wistfulness.

What is he/she thinking?

The same/different artist?  I wonder.

But more of the same "what is he/she thinking?"

This is a bit more lighthearted, perhaps...

...and a bit AI-ish?

I'm not sure if they're robots or caricatures of US the day we're full of spare parts!

At least they're carrying on as though nothing happened, seizing the day.

Life does go on, doesn't it, and now it's 2020.
Let's seize it by the horns, no matter what happens.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

A Happy Color Thanksgiving

After all those years of coloring in real live coloring books with myriad sets of real live felt pens, followed by three years of posting most of them on Facebook every Saturday under Saturday's Color (and here on this blog monthly)...did I mention that I now color digitally?

I do.

Happy Color is the free app I use on my iPad with up to 6 new designs every day to color.  No, I do not color all of them because not all of them interest me at all.  But I do find great therapeutic value in the myriad hours I have spent on this "hobby."

So today, I share with you a Happy Color Thanksgiving...with designs not only from this year but from last.  As a "disclaimer," please understand that all the colors in these designs are chosen for me.  All I do is color them...like a paint-by-number canvas, taking me back to my childhood.  The main difference is that you don't see ahead of time what the finished design will look like.  The surprise of finding out, I've decided, is the main thrill for me.

[A further explanation:  all Happy Color designs are square.  Many of them I have put into collages using square formats.]

So, with that, Happy Thanksgiving from Happy Color:

It makes sense, of course, to start at the very beginning, with the Indians and Pilgrims,

even if we know how so much of what happened back then is now politically incorrect.

[Speaking of Indians, I can't resist throwing this in for free.]

I could have sunk a ship with all the turkey designs available...

some of which I liked better than others.  But you get the point:

it's hard to think of Thanksgiving without turkey...

...or without pumpkin pie,

even if pecan pie is still my favorite.

The traditional American feast.  Can you see everything you grew up with?

Wait.  Where's the green-bean and/or sweet-potato casserole?

In the end, it's the feast...AND the family all being together to share it.

And being thankful, together, in spite of all our differences.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

As an FYI, today Astrid and I drive to Amsterdam to eat a traditional American Thanksgiving meal

(a first for us in my 10 years here), at the Hard Rock Café, one of the only places that serves the meal.

Beforehand, to make a day of it, we will visit the Banksy exhibition at the nearby Moco Museum. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

to all my family and friends.

In the end, as I said on Facebook,

"Happiness is a quality of the soul...not a function of one's material circumstances." --Aristotle