If I had time I'd probably go back through the archives to see if this is the latest I've ever posted the Christmas card. If it's not the latest, it's probably tied for the latest. Whooosh!
I'd originally planned to paint this fun picture of Short Round, but as I sketched it out on my iPad and started figuring out the colors on there, I really liked it just as it was so decided to just go with it and use it as an exercise to learn more about Procreate, which is a fun art program built for Apple devices.
This was my hope when I finished out the 20 year series of folk art farm cards last year. Mostly I was out of new story lines, but also I wanted the opportunity to learn some new skills. Once it was finished I realized I could still draw the back as an outline and it would probably work as a cute rug pattern, which is something else I'm hoping to learn more about.
This has been a hard year for so many people. I hope this funny old ewe brings you some joy and the silhouettes of sheep grazing in the moonlit sky behind her bring you some peace. The inside of the card this year says "Merry and Bright".
These pictures from the same night as the Archie picture are too fun to not share and save over here, especially Short Round sitting out in the field wearing her lights. Unfortunately these were all taken with my phone, so they are not as clear and sharp. Still keepers though.
I'd love to be able to talk to Short Round and hear what she thinks about her life over here. I think she gets a kick out of all the silly things we do :-).
I'm having some computer concerns and I've been cleaning up files and running back ups in case the worst/inevitable happens. In doing so I stumbled across this picture of Archie from back before Christmas when my neighbor and I were trying to set up the 'sheep in festive lights' pictures*. Of course Archie was there to help.
I know it's past time, but it's a pretty picture and I bet it will be a fun puzzle and I think some cheery lights help brighten a gloomy day.
I wonder what Maisie's thinking there in the background.
Enjoy!
*Argh. I apparently never posted those pictures over here...and they need to be here. Sigh... Another Christmas post coming then!
"We are going to have our annual Christmas Eve cookie party tonight at 9:30 eastern time. Mom says I'll probably have to wear my lights again. I guess that's okay...as long as there are lots of cookies!"
We'll be live on Instagram if you'd like to join us. I'll also save and post it afterwards so you can watch later.
Sorry I've missed so many days posting :-o. Here is a cutesilly kind of embarrassing picture of Tilly this afternoon as a prize for anyone still checking in!
And here's the whole picture with a snippet of holiday yard sheep decorations in there to prove that we haven't ALL been belly up in the grass ;-).
These shadows are made by the white cut out sheep and Hank from the Santa's Little Helper's post. Well, the shadow of Hank that is. Shadow Comby is real Comby, who was sitting there waiting for me to finish up chores :-).
I always position "Hank" facing the back of the farm, just as he does in real life. It was just a happy coincidence that the lights shadow him larger than life on the front of the barn.
I have to own up to not enjoying this winter as much as I'd have swore I would if I'd been given the forecast up front. I'm not sure if it was the extreme cold early on or the wind that accompanied it, but other than a morning here, afternoon there lately, I've been nearly miserable. If I'm thinking about heading to Alabama for a vacation? Send. Help.
I've really been bothered by this. I've had so much beautiful snow and very few beautiful snow pictures. I haven't even really made much of an effort to take pictures. I did take a short walk back to the ponds the other day, but it was more of an exercise than a treat. Tonight, as I was feeding and my fingers were so cold they hurt, all I could think about was getting finished and going to the house.
As I made one last trip out to the bird feeder, crunching through the icy snow, I noticed that my sweet little all time favorite solar light in the entire world was flickering brightly buried deep in the snow. This little lantern has to be almost ten years old and lately sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Any time it's shining is a gift, at least to me.
I grabbed the camera, sat down on the cold snow and took some pictures. And a deep breath.
Earlier, Auntie Reg had reminded me that the ISS was making a good pass over us tonight. If you haven't watched for that, you should. What an amazing thing to think about, those astronauts up there circling around and around the earth at almost 18,000 mph. It was pretty cloudy and I doubted I'd be able to see it, but I hadn't
gotten the mail yet, so timed it just in case. I opened the front door
and was startled to see the Christmas lights were on.
These lights haven't been on since early-ish in January. In fact, I'd made a half-hearted attempt to actually turn them back on after this latest snow, but wasn't successful. I have no idea what made them come on tonight.
And I've never noticed these shadows around the mailbox before. They weren'treally quite this obvious, but I set my shutter speed a hair slower to pick up some extra light. The glittering snowflakes were an extra reward :-). I played around with my camera for another minute or so, looked up and, zoom, there went the space station.
The night was still. Cold, but still. I didn't even notice. I stood leaning up against the mailbox looking at the sparkling sky, sparkling snow, sparkling lights. I could smell the snow. Could smell that it was icy, no longer fluffy. Hank barked off in the distance, but there was no other noise. The quiet of snow. The beauty of winter. A gift.
The Christmas tree's on fire It's burning down the house. The flames are getting higher and I'm tryin' to put it out. I'm beatin' back with a tube sock and a cushion off the couch. The Christmas tree's on fire and it's burning down the house.
Yes, I left all our decorations and the Christmas tree up until the end of the winter Olympics. Yes, I know I'm in my own little world...but it's okay because "they know me here" ;-). And everyone - well, except Saint Tim and our neighbors probably - is a little sad to be sitting here in the dark.
One of my all-time favorite Christmas songs. This is the Holly Golightly version.
The other night I experimented with long exposure to try to capture the shadows cast by one of the solar lights onto the snow outside the wool house. I had so much fun I decided to try to get some barn shots last night.
I left the shutter open around three seconds on this picture. If you click to biggify, guess who you'll see watching me?
This shot was exposed for five seconds. I tried some shorter and some longer. This is the one I liked the best and looks the most accurate. Solar lights are such a nice accent.
Our front door. I'm so glad I hadn't taken our lights down yet. So pretty with the snow.
I didn't even notice the tracks around the orchard tree until I saw the pictures. Isn't snow just the best :-).
Hank and I frequently sit out here and watch the sheep for awhile after the night feeding is done. Even in the winter. I have a great set of coveralls and I don't mind sitting out in the snow one bit. I love to listen to the sheep rustle around finishing up their hay and I think Hank enjoys the company. After the last sheep heads inside, we get up and walk to the barn.
Oh, you knew we would have to re-visit the greatest sheep video of all time. Just received an interview on how it was made and thought I'd share...mostly because it would give me a chance to watch it all again :-D.
Director James Rouse on the Baaa-Studs and "Extreme Shepherding" Viral Spot for Samsung LED TVs Strikes All the Right Notes Online By Bryant Frazer April 30, 2009 Source: Film & Video Post your comments below
All hail the Baaa-Studs! This YouTube video showcasing the animal-wrangling acumen of a group of Welsh shepherds had reached seven-and-a-half million views at last count. Wearing LED vests at night, and precisely herded to create animated shapes on a lush Welsh hillside, the sheep (with some help from their whimsically monickered handlers, the Baaa-Studs) created a video that feels like one of those homemade, can-you-believe-it clips that becomes an online sensation. This clip, however, was a soft sell conceived by The Viral Factory as a way to promote Samsung LED television sets. F&V talked to director James Rouse about the shoot, the shepherds, and keeping it real.
FILM & VIDEO: I’m a little ashamed that I have to ask the question — but is this real?
James Rouse: It’s real. We were using real shepherds and real sheepdogs, and a lot of it was achieved in camera. It was always our ambition to achieve most of it in camera. We even had the Welsh shepherding champion — in terms of shepherding, that’s one of the biggest claims you can make. What he was able to pull off for us, his control of his dogs, was phenomenal.
That said, we were helped enormously by our post company. But nothing that you see isn’t a sheep.
Nothing was created in a computer out of whole cloth?
It’s all elements that we shot that got helped together [in post] to form shapes. There is, categorically, no sheep in there that wasn’t filmed in camera. I can put my hand on my heart and tell you that. I’ll get my mother involved if necessary.
Where did the idea come from?
[Long pause.] Too many beers, probably. Where does an idea come from? It’s very difficult to say. I didn’t, personally, write the idea. I developed it a lot from a much vaguer concept. The Viral Factory were the ones who came up with the idea of putting these LED jackets on sheep and making them do crazy things. I worked a lot on the back story of the Baaa-studs, and why they were making a film.
It’s interesting because the branding message is kind of soft. You don’t realize it’s a Samsung promotion until the very end.
Absolutely. I particularly enjoyed the takeaway people had when they wrote comments on YouTube. The general consensus is that it’s a group of shepherds who got together and did this out of their own personal passions. Yeah, they might have been helped out by computers and, yeah, Samsung seems to have paid some money for it — but who cares? People may have felt warmer about it because it didn’t have the heavy hand of an advertising agency of a big corporation.
It’s been very successful on YouTube.
It’s obviously piqued people’s imaginations. I looked [at the statistics] yesterday, actually, because it was on our ITV News at 10. It’s been on BBC News two or three times. I was looking to see whether that had an immediate effect on the main thread on YouTube, and I noticed a comment from a guy in Australia who had just seen it on the news. Another had seen it on Hawaiian news. And I know for a fact it’s been on a couple of news channels in America. Heaven only knows how many outlets have picked it up. The shepherds who have been interviewed as a result of this have their own Hollywood kind of cult following down in Wales, which is very pleasing to them. They find that very amusing.
Where did you actually find the shepherds?
Well, we needed a location, and we knew we needed shepherds. We went to Wales, where there are a lot of nice hills and a lot of sheep and a lot of shepherds. We made inquiries to find the best shepherds around. They look great because they’re the real deal. We shot for two days. They were amazing — they gave everything they had to it.
Was it tough to wrangle all the shots you wanted during the two shooting days?
It’s always tough, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve ever been on a shoot where everything just comes together, and you can put your feet up.
So was it just like any other shoot?
I’m never going to put LED jackets on sheep and send them to play Pong on a hillside again. But on many shoots you’re doing extraordinary things, and this is another extraordinary thing that I’m fortunate to have been involved in.
In the greater scheme of things, it was a very different shoot. Strangely, I don’t think it was particularly difficult. I was pleasantly surprised at what was possible using real sheep. Of course, using animals you’re never quite sure what you’re going to get.
Was there anything especially challenging during the shoot?
Sheep don’t like being separated from the pack, I know that much. Getting one sheep to stand alone is a bloody nightmare. They stick together like mercury. Getting one sheep to stand on its own while there’s another pack of sheep near it is virtually impossible.
They couldn’t have been used to being herded around at night, could they?
No. The shepherds genuinely had no idea whether that would work or not. They couldn’t tell us how freaked out the animals would be wearing these jackets. Strangely, they didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all. It was as if they had always had lights on their backs since they were born. The dogs wore lights as well, and they were also completely unfazed by it. It was as if they had always herded at night. With sheeps with lights on them. It was very, very strange. It could have gone either way. I don’t want to be cruel to an animal, and I would have felt extremely uncomfortable if the animals had seemed to be in discomfort. But none of the animals were in the slightest bit disturbed. It was just another day’s work.
Do you normally do TV spots, or do you do a lot of virals?
I’ve done a lot of both. I like to keep things as varied as possible. Hopefully my style is eclectic. I’m working, at the moment, on a film-ic number with 35mm, anamorphic lenses, massive crowd replication. It feels like a scene from Gladiator, or whatever epic movie you want to pick. It’s the storytelling that I’m motivated by – the storytelling and the characters. And you can execute that in millions of ways.
There’s a Honda ad you’re probably aware of, “Let it Shine.” It’s one of those bizarre moments when there are two different executions of a very similar idea. The similarities are very interesting, although the style and execution are very different. The basic concept of lights on a hill making shapes, and even the framing of the lights on the hill and the type of hill they’ve chosen, is very similar. And then the execution of that idea is vastly different. They are parallel ideas.
But the Honda spot looks like a characteristically glossy television commercial This one feels more down-home.
I wanted to have the feeling that it had been self-generated by this group of farmers and shepherds. I didn’t want it to feel like the hand of a corporation, or a too-skilled filmmaker was making it. That’s probably why they came to me — they didn’t want a too-skilled filmmaker. [Chuckles.] The skill is in the sheep and the shepherding and not in the filmmaking. ------------------------------
The wind keeps blowing down the three trees I set out on the wool house porch so I moved them inside. I just love Christmas trees. The old tree I set up in the house is covered in sheep (of course) and horses (of course) and cats (of course), but also miniature bales of straw, apples, dog biscuits and even bird nests. It's full.
It's so full that when I saw Ewen McTeagle's aunt Eleanor's beautiful sheep ornaments, I did stop and think "where on earth will I put these?" But just for a second. They are so darling I knew I'd find the perfect spot. And the wind helped.
Aren't these just wonderful? Little Ewen and Petunia and Rebecca Boone and Buddy and Miss Ewenice and Boudreaux...
Maybe needs a little yarn tinsel or garland. And a bird nest!
The angels are courtesy of Popcorn PeePee Pants.
And I love the view of the sheep field behind the sheep tree.
And the ponies snug in their run in sheds out the front window. This wind can quit any time now. I appreciate it drying up all the rain soaked ground, but I think we're "good" now.
Happy Sunday Stills Anniversary, Ed! Thanks for all you do to encourage so many photographers to get out there and learn to better use our cameras.
Since our blog is pretty much devoted to our pets on an almost daily basis, I decided to try to capture some different pictures, still revolving around our pets - night shots of our snow sheep and snow Hank.
Tilly is peeking in at the bottom.
While Hank was most concerned an intruder was threatening his flock, Graham Lamb and Keebler were most worried the intruders were getting to eat greener grass. The first chance they had, they made a break for it.
Where was a good border collie when I needed one...
I had a "brilliant" idea to make cut out sheep decorations to put out in front of the wool house to decorate for Christmas this year - like the reindeer you frequently see. I've learned though that no good flock of sheep should be without a guard dog, so made a Hank cut out as well.
It took me most of the day to cut, paint and assemble them and it was near dark as we set them out. I still needed to add everyone's ears, so I turned the porch lights on so I wasn't playing pin the ears on the...
I'm sitting up tonight with Boo, who's not had a great day. Getting old ain't for sissies. I need to work on some Christmas gifts anyway, so it all works out.
Still, it's been kind of a sad day so I decided to take and share some pictures of a few of my favorite sheep ornaments (this is not the time to do a new sheep count! ;-). I really enjoy putting up my Christmas tree each year. Each ornament, even the few non-sheep ones, is an old friend.
This silly sheep always makes me smile.
Is that Brushy and the neighbor kid sitting on that sheep's back?
Brushy again, and this time with Claire Bear behind him doing a little sledding. The tiny gray swatch was from when my sister-in-law Jan Baby was teaching me to knit a few years ago.
Brushy and the neighbor kid again? I love the expression on the cat's face (click to biggify).
A friend brought the large round painted ornament back from a trip to Germany and the small painted gourd was done by a well known Harrison County artist, Sally Cammack.
I love this wooden sheep and peaking out behind is a crocheted (I think) snowflake made by the talented Jan Baby.
Well, I'd better get back to work or there won't be any brown paper packages tied up with string under my tree.
