#85 Hymns & Carols

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85 Hymns & Carols
 #85 Hymns & Carols
Click image to view full size or download poster for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

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BEST WISHES FOR THE HOLIDAY SEASON

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Production notes for #85 Hymns & Carols:
Original size: 20x30 inches

Program: Adobe Photoshop
Font: Old English
Ampersand: Montage by Chaz DeSimone
Credit: Candle image Graph​ic​Stock​.com
You may repost the image. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster, click on the image.

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone? Damn good!

#70 Candy Canes & Silver Lanes

70 Candy Canes & Silver Lanes


#70 Candy Canes & Silver Lanes
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This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
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Do you recognize these lyrics?

I bor­rowed a few words for Amper­Art #70 Can­dy Canes & Sil­ver Lanes from this song that was pop­u­lar when I was grow­ing up:

It’s Begin­ning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
by Mered­ith Willson

It’s begin­ning to look a lot like Christmas
Ev’ry­where you go;
Take a look in the five & ten glis­ten­ing once again
With can­dy canes & sil­ver lanes aglow.

It’s begin­ning to look a lot like Christmas
Toys in ev’ry store
But the pret­ti­est sight to see is the hol­ly that will be
On your own front door.

A pair of hopa­long boots & a pis­tol that shoots
Is the wish of Bar­ney & Ben;
Dolls that will talk & will go for a walk
Is the hope of Jan­ice & Jen;
& Mom & Dad can hard­ly wait for school to start again.

It’s begin­ning to look a lot like Christmas
Ev’ry­where you go;
There’s a tree in the Grand Hotel, one in the park as well,
The stur­dy kind that does­n’t mind the snow.

It’s begin­ning to look a lot like Christmas;
Soon the bells will start,
& the thing that will make them ring is the car­ol that you sing
Right with­in your heart.


Song from 1951

It’s Begin­ning to Look a Lot Like Christ­mas”  was writ­ten in 1951 (the year this Amper­Artist was born) by Mered­ith Will­son. The song was orig­i­nal­ly titled “It’s Begin­ning to Look Like Christ­mas”. It has been record­ed by many artists, but was a hit for Per­ry Como & The Fontane Sis­ters with Mitchell Ayres & His Orches­tra on Sep­tem­ber 10, 1951, & released on RCA Vic­tor as a 45 & a 78 (kids, you know what that means? —no, it’s not pix­els per inch). Bing Cros­by record­ed a ver­sion on Octo­ber 1, 1951, which was also wide­ly played. —from Wikipedia

Although I’m glad I found a song with the lyrics Can­dy Canes & Sil­ver Lanes in the first stan­za, I like the mid­dle part best where the melody changes, play­ful­ly & humor­ous­ly describ­ing how the hol­i­day affects the kids & parents.


Origin of the Candy Cane

Accord­ing to folk­lore, in 1670, in Cologne, Ger­many, the choir­mas­ter at Cologne Cathe­dral, wish­ing to rem­e­dy the noise caused by chil­dren in his church on Christ­mas Eve, asked a local can­dy mak­er for some sweet sticks for them. He asked the can­dy mak­er to add a crook to the top of each stick, which would help chil­dren remem­ber the shep­herds who paid vis­it to infant Jesus. —adapt­ed from Wikipedia; full sto­ry here


ChazHeadXmasHat

It’s Begin­ning to Look a Lot Like Christ­mas” vivid­ly describes the Christ­mases I remem­ber as a kid: the can­dy canes & sil­ver lanes (I think that’s describ­ing the sil­ver gar­land dec­o­rat­ing store aisles), the five-&-ten (we called it a dime store & they actu­al­ly had lots of stuff for a dime, a nick­el, even pen­ny can­dy. Dun­can’s was very con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed on our path to and from school.)

Christ­mas to me used to shim­mer with lots of sil­ver: the tin­sel which my moth­er so care­ful­ly placed onxmas cookie silver balls the tree; the shiny lit­tle round non­pareils on the Christ­mas cook­ies that she baked (a dec­o­ra­tion that was always spe­cial to me, but they’ve been dis­con­tin­ued due to the ingre­di­ents — fun­ny, no one’s dead that I know of from eat­ing them); and of course, the alu­minum Christ­mas trees pop­u­lar in the 1960s, with their mag­i­cal col­or wheels. Yes, we had one, as well as white flocked, pink sprayed, & then plain ol’ arti­fi­cial green through­out the years. The year we went back to a real tree some­how felt more like Christ­mas again.

Mer­ry Christ­mas to you, my Amper­Art Subscriber.

Read More

#76 Corn Cob Pipe & Button Nose & –do you remember the lyrics?

corn cob pipe & button nose

 


#76 Corn Cob Pipe & Button Nose
Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing and framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

& two eyes made out of coal.

Mer­ry Christmas!
Hap­py Hanukkah!
Hap­py Kwanzaa!
and for a few dear friends of mine…
Bah Hum­bug!


Frosty the Snowman

a corn cob pipe & a button nose & two eyes made out of coal”

I chose this frigid but fun lit­tle guy to wish all my Amper­Art friends a Hap­py Hol­i­day Sea­son. I don’t think Frosty has any reli­gious pref­er­ence — well, maybe he wor­ships the Ice Man.

For this Amper­Art piece I could­n’t quite remem­ber the lyrics — I just recalled “a corn cob pipe & a but­ton nose & some­thing some­thing some­thing”—so I pulled up the ani­mat­ed short that I’ve always heard about but nev­er seen: Frosty the Snow­man by Bass/​Raskin Pro­duc­tions (1969). I was delight­ed to hear one of my favorite voic­es nar­rat­ing the sto­ry — Jim­my Durante. (Paul Frees, the voice of Dis­ney’s Haunt­ed Man­sion Ghost Host, Lud­wig Von Drake, and Boris Bade­n­ov of Rocky & Bull­win­kle, is fea­tured as San­ta Claus himself.)

Here are the full lyrics:

Frosty the Snowman
Writ­ten by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson
Orig­i­nal­ly sung by Gene Autry & The Cass Coun­ty Boys
Released Decem­ber 14, 1950

Frosty the snow­man was a jol­ly hap­py soul
With a corn­cob pipe & a but­ton nose
& two eyes made out of coal
Frosty the snow­man is a fairy­tale they say
He was made of snow but the children
know how he came to life one day
There must have been some mag­ic in that
old silk hat they found
For when they placed it on his head
he began to dance around

Oh
Frosty the snowman
was alive as he could be
& the chil­dren say he could laugh
& play just the same as you& me
Thumpi­ty thump thump
thumpi­ty thump thump
Look at Frosty go
Thumpi­ty thump thump
thumpi­ty thump thump
Over the hills of snow

Frosty the snow­man knew
the sun was hot that day
So he said
Let’s run &
we’ll have some fun
now before I melt away
Down to the village
with a broom­stick in his hand
Run­ning here & there all
around the square saying
Catch me if you can
He led them down the streets of town
right to the traf­fic cop
& he only paused a moment when
he heard him holler “Stop!”
For Frosty the snow man
had to hur­ry on his way
But he waved good­bye saying
Don’t you cry
I’ll be back again some day
thumpi­ty thump thump
thumpi­ty thump thump
Look at Frosty go
thumpi­ty thump thump
thumpi­ty thump thump
Over the hills of snow

If you want to watch the 1969 ani­mat­ed short, click on Frosty’s hat:

tophat

I wish all of you, my loy­al sub­scribers, vis­i­tors, and amper­sand fans around the world, a warm and won­der­ful hol­i­day season…
except for Frosty — a jol­ly freez­ing cold one for him & his corn cob pipe & but­ton nose.


 Note on design: 

I fre­quent­ly have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to apply my for­mu­la for “aha!” design, which is luck + tal­ent = damn good design. Take a look at the lyrics in Corn Cob Pipe & But­ton Nose. There is at least one “o” in each line! That gave me the idea to use Frosty’s body for each “o.” Though it appears there might be miss­ing or hid­den let­ters, they’re all there. We (Frosty & I) have just turned every “o” into a snowball.


 

Production notes for Corn Cob Pipe & Button Nose:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Illustrator
Typographic styling: There are no letters missing or hidden by Frosty’s body. Each “O” is rendered as one of his snowballs.
Font: KB The End Is Broken
Ampersand: the finest wool, of course
Images for Corn Cob Pipe & Button Nose:
Snowflake background: psd​graph​ics​.com (hundreds of free hi-​rez images)
Top hat: cli​partbest​.com