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A Tom and Jerry is a traditional American Christmas cocktail, invented about 200 years ago by British writer Pierce Egan. It’s akin to hot eggnog, the perfect adult beverage in the bleak midwinter.

It’s tricky; I’ve made the batter at home, but it’s never as good as that from Schwabls in my home town of Buffalo, NY. Either way, it isn’t for the faint of heart; one will loosen up your singing voice; two will undermine your ability to walk home.

My own woodstove, Tom and Jerrys, mince pie, and my bathtub and bidet are among the things from home that I miss right now. I miss my daily hike up Beech Hill, my dog and my husband. I’m in Albany, NY for the foreseeable future, and it’s dark and snowy. In the bleak midwinter, indeed.

You never outgrow worrying about your kids

My trip out west was organized to get me to Rochester, NY for my goddaughter’s wedding. Before that I swung east to alter my grandsons’ suits and my granddaughter’s dress. I assumed I could use 9-year-old Grace’s sewing tools. Unfortunately, kids her age are not organized. I spent as much time sorting as I did stitching.

My daughter Mary, who makes Rowan Branch brush soap for me, bounced between being an attentive bridesmaid and gulping acetaminophen. On her way home, she pulled off the Thruway and called an ambulance. That week, she had a stent placed and emergency gallbladder surgery. Oh, and she had pneumonia, too.

“I really couldn’t tell if I was sick or just imagining it,” she said.

Even hypochondriacs get sick, I retorted. It’s good to laugh with multiple incisions in your belly.

And Laura

Many of you know my daughter Laura, who is my IT and marketing person. As Mary was discharged from St. Peter’s Hospital, Laura was admitted. She’s suffering from preeclampsia and is there for the duration of her pregnancy.

“Your mother was making Laura work in the hospital yesterday!” I overheard. That’s right, and I intend to keep doing it. Once you’re stabilized, a hospital is a very boring place.

I never thought I’d be doing the daily preschool run again. Little boys are such obsessives. Just as my son and I talked bridges, Josh and I talk cars. He’s still a little shaky on his directions, so I’m also teaching him port and starboard as we drive.

And my husband

Even I know that, unlike kids, adults don’t get feverish on a whim. It turns out my husband also has pneumonia, which is spiking here, in Canada, and in Great Britain. That’s a great reminder to wash hands your regularly as we enter flu season.

 And all manner of things shall be well

Mary gets her stent out on December 17. Toodles is scheduled to arrive on December 9, which they figure is sufficiently baked to avoid a long NICU stay. Doug is feeling better. The newlyweds seem appropriately blissful, and my granddaughter and I are slowly excavating her bedroom.

I’m not telling you this to worry you; it’s just to explain my distraction over the past few weeks. In my never-to-be-published book, 100 Best Things About Having Cancer, I mention that I no longer sweat the small things—and almost everything is a small thing. My family is getting great care, both in this large (and excellent) city hospital and back home in rural Maine. In the Bleak Midwinter is a song about the hopefulness of this season, and that’s how I’m feeling.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

• Advanced Plein Air Painting, Rockport, ME, July 7-11, 2025.
• Sea and Sky at Acadia National Park, August 3-8, 2025.
• Find Your Authentic Voice in Plein Air, Berkshires, MA, August 11-15, 2025.
• Immersive In-Person Fall Workshop, Rockport, ME, October 6-10, 2025.

My nine-year-old granddaughter tells me she’s not supposed to use mechanical pencils because her teacher thinks their points break too easily. That got us into a detailed discussion of traditional drawing pencils and other tools.

Wooden Pencils

Pencil leads are generally given hardness grades, and each hardness is suited to a different purpose. ‘H’ stands for hard leads, ideal for technical drawing due to their fine lines and lighter marks. ‘B’ represents black or soft leads, which give darker, bolder strokes, perfect for shading. The middle ground is ‘HB,’ balancing hardness and blackness for everyday writing and basic sketching. The higher the number, the farther the lead is from that central HB position.

I do not recommend Blackwing pencils because they’re primarily for writing, not drawing, but if you are interested by the hype, start with a mixed set, here at $23.50 plus shipping. Blackwing doesn’t use the traditional scale, but that set includes a Matte, Pearl, 602, and Original, in descending order of hardness. Of course, to get their full value, you’ll need a Blackwing long-point pencil sharpener, here at $21.00.

Personally, I’m too parsimonious for that. I have General’s ten-pencil set, for the much more reasonable price of $9.99. Add a Maped 2-hole sharpener and a General Mechanical Eraser and you’ll be set.

Mechanical Pencils

If you bear down too hard and breaking points is a problem for you, there are two options. You can replace the lead in your inexpensive mechanical pencils with high-polymer lead, which is stronger and denser. Or, move to a .9 mm lead pencil. You can buy hi-polymer 2B leads for this and other pencil sizes from Pentel, and even 4B lead for a .5 mm pencil.

Woodless graphite pencils

Once I get past my sketchbook, I move over to woodless graphite drawing pencils. They don’t need sharpening. Because you can work them on their sides, they make smoother graduated passages than conventional drawing pencils. I have this set, which costs $15.99 and has lasted me forever.

Charcoal

I avoid pressed charcoal; it is difficult to erase due to the binding agent. That also makes it less versatile for blending and making soft transitions. Unlike willow charcoal, it can bleed into paint if you use it for drawing on your canvas. However, it can be useful for fine detail and sharp lines since it can be sharpened.

Willow charcoal is more like painting in that it can be smudged and moved and lifted with ease. My personal preference is Coate’s willow charcoal.

Paper

For sketching, I use a Strathmore Visual Journal, as it’s completely erasable and multimedia when I need to add color.

For woodless graphite and fine work in charcoal, I like Canson Mi-Tiente Pastel Paper. It gives me the greatest control and value range. But for painting design, I use willow charcoal on newsprint, or any other cheap paper I have lying around.

A recap

I didn’t mean for this to be a shopping guide, but it seems to have ended up that way. Here are my ‘real’ holiday gift guides for 2024:

Holiday Gift Guide for Budding Artists

Holiday Gift Guide for Experienced Artists

Holiday Gift Guide: Painting Workshops

Holiday Gift Guide: $100 off any painting on this site.

There are still openings in my January drawing class. For more information see here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

• Advanced Plein Air Painting, Rockport, ME, July 7-11, 2025.
• Sea and Sky at Acadia National Park, August 3-8, 2025.
• Find Your Authentic Voice in Plein Air, Berkshires, MA, August 11-15, 2025.
• Immersive In-Person Fall Workshop, Rockport, ME, October 6-10, 2025.

Use the code XMAS100 to take $100 off the price of any painting. This code is valid for any painting, from the smallest to the biggest, for a limited time.

This week, my four-year-old grandson and I have been playing with Matchbox cars and Legos. In my spare time, I’m doing a little online Christmas shopping, and listening to heavy-handed hints from the eight- and nine-year-old. That’s gotten me thinking about what would make a good gift for each person on my list.

The best gifts thoughtfully match the recipient’s personality, interests, and needs. They reflect our understanding of our loved ones and show that we put in the effort to select something meaningful.

A great gift is personalized. It speaks to the recipient’s tastes, hobbies, and life experiences. You wouldn’t buy a painting for someone who has no interest in fine art, but anyone with walls can aspire to more than the ‘art’ available at TJ Maxx. You might tailor a painting to the recipient’s love of cooking, boats, nature, or shoes, or in the understanding that they might laugh at the absurdity of a tin-foil hat. You know the places he or she finds special: the shore, the desert, or the Great White North. That’s a sign that you’ve both listened and remembered.

A great gift has an emotional connection. That’s why concert tickets are such a wonderful present: they share feelings. Whether that’s joy, nostalgia, or excitement, gifts that remind us of shared experiences are often the most valued gifts.

A great gift emphasizes quality over quantity. Years ago, I saved my pennies and bought my mother her first and only strand of real pearls. She kept them until her death, and I have them now. I bought her many other gifts over the years, and I can’t remember many of them, but that strand of pearls was a winner.

A great gift is unique

One of the gifts I’ve received that gives me the most joy is a high-tech hip flask, which was my 65^th birthday gift. Another is the tactical backpack which travels around the world with me. They’re not exactly the gifts most grandmothers covet, but they were both unique and very targeted.

And of course I own paintings by many of my peers, including Tom Conner, Bobbi Heath, Barbara Tapp, Bruce McMillan, Bruce Bundock, Chrissy Pahucki and others.

Paintings are one-of-a-kind, and many people get a thrill knowing they have given or received something nobody else owns.

By the way, this is why I don’t sell NFTs and no longer sell prints of my work. Paintings are one-off, tactile objects of craftsmanship, and images of them are pale imitations.

A great gift has long-term significance

My grandkids have lots of grandparents, aunts and uncles. On Christmas, I sometimes wonder if they remember what they opened five minutes earlier. The thrill at their age is in the unwrapping, not in the plastic toy.

Nothing lasts forever, but a carefully-chosen painting has value for years to come, and can be enjoyed by generations.

You can take $100 off any of my paintings

If you’d like to give a painting to a loved one (or even to yourself), you can use the discount code XMAS100 for $100 off any painting on my site. As you look through the collection, consider what resonates with you and what might resonate with the people on your list. Read the stories behind the paintings. Ask me questions, and use this opportunity to make this year especially memorable.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

• Advanced Plein Air Painting, Rockport, ME, July 7-11, 2025.
• Sea and Sky at Acadia National Park, August 3-8, 2025.
• Find Your Authentic Voice in Plein Air, Berkshires, MA, August 11-15, 2025.
• Immersive In-Person Fall Workshop, Rockport, ME, October 6-10, 2025.

We all know the temptation to buy things instead of burrowing into the work of getting better at our craft. Sometimes, the last thing you need is more stuff, but an experience that shatters your ‘business as usual’ habits. That might mean new skills for the beginner, new techniques for the advanced artist, or—for anyone—the therapeutic experience of painting in one of America’s great beauty spots.  

What’s in it for you?

I’ve been teaching painting workshops forever, and I can promise you’ll take away one or all of the following:

• New techniques:
• A blossoming of your creative process;
• A good dollop of color and design theory;
• Keener observational skills;
• New friends;
• The ability to critique your own work;
• Some beautiful finished work.

My painting workshops have been winnowed down recently to include those I absolutely love, both in the teaching and the place. Let me tell you what I treasure about each one:

Canyon Color for the Painter, Sedona, AZ

In March, I’m really, really sick of snow. This is an opportunity for my friends and me to head west and concentrate on a completely different landscape. This is a color-theory based workshop that turns the green-blue of the east coast on its head. And the Sedona Arts Center is a fabulous support center. March 10-14, 2025.

Advanced Plein Air Painting, Rockport, ME

I love teaching students of all levels, but this is a class designed for professional-level students to work on more complex concepts in painting. These include directing the viewer’s eye, narrative flow, serious drawing, and more. (Requires a portfolio or permission, and please don’t be offended if I suggest you take a different workshop first. It’s not about ability; it’s whether you have the process down.) July 7-11, 2025.

Sea and Sky at Acadia National Park

This is a student favorite and a personal favorite. It’s in one of the most beautiful, less-traveled parts of Acadia National Park: the Schoodic Peninsula. It’s my longest running workshop and all levels of experience seem to enjoy it. The wilderness setting seems to create a special camaraderie among students. Enjoy all-inclusive accommodation or join us as a commuter. August 3-8, 2025.

Find Your Authentic Voice in Plein Air, Berkshires, MA

I fell in love with the Berkshires when my oldest daughter lived in Pittsfield, MA. She’s moved on, but it continues to enchant me with its historic little towns, rolling hills, and working farms. I love the verdant landscape and especially the day we get to spend at the amazing Hancock Shaker Village. All levels are welcome. August 11-15, 2025.

Immersive In-Person Fall Workshop, Rockport, ME

This is a deep dive into all the special places I get to paint here in midcoast Maine. We cap it with a private guided tour in the Farnsworth Art Museum that’s tailored to my students. It’s easy to get a hotel room in this area, it’s the height of fall color, and all levels are welcome. October 6-10, 2025.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

• Advanced Plein Air Painting, Rockport, ME, July 7-11, 2025.
• Sea and Sky at Acadia National Park, August 3-8, 2025.
• Find Your Authentic Voice in Plein Air, Berkshires, MA, August 11-15, 2025.
• Immersive In-Person Fall Workshop, Rockport, ME, October 6-10, 2025.

When do you get to stop worrying about your kids? Never.

I’ve had an exhausting fortnight, as my British subjects would say. I arrived in Albany, NY from my western perambulations with just enough time to alter multiple outfits for my goddaughter’s wedding. That was in Rochester, NY, last weekend. A lovely time it was, too. When my third daughter started to complain of abdominal pain, she pounded acetaminophen rather than set aside her bridesmaid’s duties.

She wasn’t kidding that it hurt; she had an emergency stent put in on Tuesday and her gallbladder removed on Wednesday. I’m vastly relieved that as of this writing she sounds much more chipper.

My work from this year’s Sedona Plein Air

I took terrible photos of my paintings from Sedona but (for some reason) it took me until yesterday to rephotograph the ones I brought home with me. Although I will make more money if you buy a painting directly from my website, I’ll be just as happy if you buy one from the Sedona Arts Center if that’s the one that trips your trigger; it’s a great organization and could use the support. To that end, I’ve separated them into two sections. Click on the image and it will take you directly through to more complete description.

As I was writing this post, I kept thinking, “That’s one of my favorite paintings.” That’s a good sign; it means I have nothing to apologize for.

On my website

Dawn, at top, and Cottonwoods along the Rio Verde, above, are both on my website. In addition, there are:

Through Sedona Arts Center

The photos on the Sedona Arts Center website are dark; I’ve replaced them with my file photos where possible. If you want further pictures showing the paintings in daylight or details, contact JD Jensen.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

• Advanced Plein Air Painting, Rockport, ME, July 7-11, 2025.
• Sea and Sky at Acadia National Park, August 3-8, 2025.
• Find Your Authentic Voice in Plein Air, Berkshires, MA, August 11-15, 2025.
• Immersive In-Person Fall Workshop, Rockport, ME, October 6-10, 2025.