Category: Holidays and Events

Happy Hanukkah 2018

Last year when I talked to a friend (Lindsay) about making ASCII art Christmas cards she asked if I had made anything for people who are Jewish and celebrating the holidays. I’m neither Jewish or Christian so I don’t make religious art very often. Lindsay said it was hard to find holiday/ seasonal greeting cards for other religions and cultures. What a shame. So, here I am, trying to make ASCII art for Hanukkah.

My first attempt was almost an error due to lack of knowledge. Luckily, I checked more illustrations for details. The first I found was on a t-shirt. But, it did not have enough candles in the menorah. There should be nine, I only had seven.

The dreidels were difficult. I started them twice before flipping the plan and starting from the bottom instead of the top. I hope they look right, or recognizable at least. I wanted to add the symbols but they didn’t fit well. Another year I might try making them bigger so I would have space to create the symbols in the centre.

Remembrance Day Poppy ASCII Text Art

I’ve made a few poppies for Remembrance Day. This year I want to make something different. I haven’t decided what it will be yet. But, it is the 100th year since the end of WWI. That’s something to work with.

Wearing the Remembrance Day Poppy with Purpose

It’s called Remembrance Day in Canada and takes place each November 11th. The eleventh day and the eleventh hour. We observe a moment of silence. Sometimes they specify a minute of silence, sometimes it’s a moment.

What do you think about while you give the moments of silence? Have your thoughts changed over the years? In school I didn’t know much about the whole thing. We had the facts but not the life experience to really know what it all meant. Later in life I began to understand loss, loss of life and loss of family and loss of fellow humans.

When I see the veteran’s on TV the loss of human life takes on a face. The survivors of each war have more to remember, the actual faces. But, in each of their faces you can see other faces, if you look.

Now the moment of silence has become fresh again. The war isn’t just something written about in history books and talked about by parents and other old people. It’s not so mysterious and unreal to people any more.

Yet we still have a distance from it all, less than the distance our Grandparents felt I think. The war is something happening overseas, even after 9/11 in New York City, the war is not something which directly touches us all. We watch it in the news. Sometimes we have a conversation about it and protest about it or support it, depending on our point of view.

What do you think about when you buy a poppy? Do you know what the donation for the poppy goes towards? It’s a good time to find out.

Remembrance Day Links

The Ode of Remembrance

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Lest we forget.

Merry St. Patrick’s Day 2018

It started with a shamrock behind the crown but that was getting too messy looking and hard to see the image I wanted to make with so many things so close together. So, I took out the shamrock. I’ve wanted to make a claddagh for a long time. I have a few attempts in the past. This one turned out pretty good, I thought. Then, I realized it also looks like a bird wearing a crown. Now that I’ve seen that I can’t really see the claddagh any more. So, possibly another try for a claddagh… The hands were the hardest part. It’s the thumbs of the hands which look like the eyes of a bird (wearing a crown). So, it’s flexible.

Uploading Halloween ASCII to the Shop

I started uploading Halloween ASCII art to the shop on Zazzle. I soon discovered long art, like this one, does not work well on most items/ products. So, I will work on making things taller instead. But, for the Halloween village, longer is still the best. Like most things, having a shop is a learn as you go thing.