Bag Some Fine Art This Christmas from Family Christmas Online^TM

As proprietor of a Christmas-oriented web page, I'm constantly on the lookout for ideas and resources. In late 2009, I was at a discount store (Dollar Tree), when a large gift bag display caught my eye. Some of the art, like the graphic to the right, was top-notch. It got me wondering who the painters were. I didn't want to randomly buy a couple dozen gift bags just to satisfy my curiousity. But I went through the bags and wrote down the names of any artists that seemed to have a distinctive style or seemed to show up more than once. Even at first brush, it was obvious that some of the art was as clever and well done as any popular art I'd seen.

Then when I got home, I looked the artists up on the internet. I was surprised to discover how many well-known artists and designers were represented in that Christmas gift bag collection. As an example, the graphic above was the work of designer Pat Yuille, many of whose fabric prints are available from Wilmington Prints and sold through national chains like Jo Anne fabrics.

Note: In this article and the related articles, I am including small photos of the artists' work so you can see what I like about them, but in respect of the artists' and publishers' copyrights, I'm not putting bigger versions online. I AM publishing links to the artists' web pages when available, so in many cases you can contact the artists yourself if you like their work.

The next time I hit that store, I made a point of picking up a dozen or so of the gift bags I had liked the first time around, so I could take a closer look. In the day or so between trips, all of the Pat Yuille designs except this one had sold out. But the work of several other artists was just as compelling in its own way. And it got me thinking that this would be a good source of art prints for holiday decorating. Carefully trimmed from the rest of the bag, matted, mounted, and framed, many of these graphics would be indistinguishable from professional art prints. And the variety and quality were surprising.

How Does Good Art Get Around This Way?

As an example Richard Burns' painting "Quiet Waters," shown at the right has appeared on all kinds of products, including mugs, puzzles, and cards. The artists aren't selling the rights to their art - in a sense they're leasing them out for a particular period of time and a particular number of products. For each use, they receive some small fee that's far smaller than they would get for selling a print. But what they "lose" in direct income, they make up in volume. And in some cases, it brings direct sales from people who fell in love with artwork they spotted in a gift shop or some such.

Again, if this article inspires you to buy a gift bag with, say Tom Browning's artwork on it, all you own is the bag. You don't "own" the art in any way, nor do you have have permission to copy or scan the art for any reason. As examples, the artist's copyright makes it illegal to make copies to sell or give away, to scan the art into your Christmas cards, to post the art on an internet site or anything like that. Nor do you have permission to turn the bag into a craft project and resell it. But nobody is going to come after you if you cut apart the bag, then mount and frame the artwork for your own use, or even, to give as a gift.

Western Paintings

The first painting that really caught my eye was a painting of Santa in a corral surrounded by several caribou. I couldn't help noticing that the caribou's shoulders, legs, ankles, and hooves were painted accurately, something that almost never happens in Christmas card art. When I first saw it, I thought, "This must be the work of a Western painter who's used to painting horses and getting every detail right." Turns out I was right - the artist, Tom Browning, is famous for his paintings of Western subjects, and his Christmas work is just a sideline - a very impressive sideline to my way of thinking. A detail of one caribou in the painting is shown at the right. If you click on it, you'll see a slightly bigger image - not TOO big, since I don't want to rob artist Tom Browning of his rights. If you've ever been around these creatures, you'll appreciate Tom's attention to detail.

In fact, since Tom's Christmas art is so special, we've created a whole page just to highlight those efforts. Click here to see that page.

Another Western artist whose work is represented here, is Derk Hansen, who is also a wildlife artist, as demonstrated by the bluejay and cardinal pictures below.

Wildlife Paintings

Wildlife is another popular subject, as the trio of bird paintings below shows.

The fact that these three paintings show up in the same format in the gift bag department means that someone in the gift bag company has a good eye - they're actually from two different artists, but go very well together.

• The chickadees are by artist Cynthie Fisher, whose wildlife art is worth a whole article or ten by itself. To see several great bird prints that she offers, click here.
• The other two paintings are from artist Derk Hansen, who adds Western themes to his wildlife art, and has been known to participate in a number of real-world cattle drives.

Landscapes

H. Hargrove is the "nom de brush" of Italian-born wine consultant Nicolo Sturiano, who fell in love with the American heartland and incorporates that love into his paintings, including the two shown above. Many web pages sell prints of his paintings, but, as far as I can tell, this link goes to HIS web page. To go right to a page showing his Christmas prints, including full-sized versions of the two paintings above, click here. In these two well-matched paintings, I especially like the accurate detail and proportions of the Victorian neighborhoods he portrays. Many of his other Christmas paintings have more rural themes.

Artist Richard Burns was a hard-working wildlife painter for years, then "fell in love" with lighthouses and cottages. Or maybe he "fell in love" with light itself, as he has made a career out of capturing the glows and reflections of lamplight and natural lighting at various times of day. The gift bags with Richard Burns' art each had a fine glittery substance sprinkled on, so you won't fool anyone into thinking they are professional prints, but such products give you a chance to bring the "warm glow" of Burns' work into your Christmas season. Rich's wife Heather tells me that Rich will have several new winter-themed prints for sale this year, so if you're interested in having great seasonal art in your home, check their site from time to time.

Folk or "Primitive" Art

The paintings above are by the Scott Church Creative group. While I classified these paintings as folk or primitive, the vast majority of Scott's work is more trendy. You've probably seen it as gift wrap, customized Christmas cards, and a hundred other places, since the "Group" licenses Scott's images to dozens of such manufacturers and printers. To look at some of Scott's patterns for Christmas-themed project, click here.

Devotional Art

Update for December, 2010

In another Dollar Tree, I also saw two nice snowman paintings from Andrea Brooks, as well as several very nice Santa paintings from Richard Macneil

Conclusion

Needless to say, almost none of the works shown on this page will be available this year. But other works by these and other first-tier artists will be. If we've given you some ideas that will make your holiday decorating or gift-giving a little brighter, we've done what we set out to do.

Also if you wind up incorporating any Christmas-themed gift bags into wall art, place mats, crafts, or what-have-you, we'd love to see photos that would give other readers ideas to brighten their own Christmases.

Contact us and we'll let you know the best e-mail address to use.

In the meantime, have a VERY warm holiday season,

Paul and Shelia Race

www.familychristmasonline.com