As the new year slowly moves forward, I've nestled within my studio and started working away. It's been quite the sight, actually. With the extremely (and unusually) cold temperatures, I've bundled up in thick sweaters, wearing two pairs of socks inside my giant grey slippers, while toting around a hot water bottle all day. Regardless, for me, winter brings so much magic that my heart can hardly contain it! Eek! One cannot deny the fact that my artistic heart truly shines during the winter/Christmas months within my work.

With that said, I've many goals this year and one of them pushing myself within my work by not just telling more of a story in each illustration but also capturing that child-like heart/wonder as well. To kick-start things, I made a point to begin moving in this direction with my daily 2016 Christmas countdown. After flipping through each of the 25 illustrations completed, it was apparent I accomplished what I'd set out to do. Yay me!

After the first few weeks, most of my illustrations were stand-alone characters but in the final 10 days that followed, each slowly transitioned into full-blown illustrations, telling of a sweet, magical, Christmas story. Let me tell you just how much my heart was thrilled to see this!

Over the coming days, weeks, months...I hope to share with you more of these wonderful stories - just like the one above. In fact, you can view my initial sketch idea here. I tweaked it just a little by changing out his hat and face a little. In the end? Pure child-like heart magic found within another woodland winter tale.