Today is the day – the big announcement of my new painting release for the 2024 Holiday Season!
When I started my Santa series nine years ago, I had a five-year painting plan. (All I can say to that is “Oops!”) The last four years of “extra Santas” have been both a surprise and a delight, as new ideas seem to be birthed every year.
You see, I really enjoy the holidays, and there is something about painting Santa that brings me back to the old days of twinkling lights, gifts from the heart, and mistletoe… or in this case, the bell of a streetcar!
This idea sparked last holiday season when Tom and I spent so many long hours together at the Holiday Market at Market Square in Downtown Pittsburgh. Surrounded by so many paintings of the Jolly Old Elf Himself, we wondered what new concept I could create that people might enjoy.
One of my friends/customers stopped by and mentioned the Christmas Trolley at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. Immediately, the idea for a painting started swirling around in my head… a trolley coming over a hill with a silhouette of Pittsburgh in the background and Santa waving from the open door.
And that’s how this year’s Santa painting came to be… ”Here Comes Santa’s Jolly Trolley!”
My initial idea made sense until this summer when we were at Bethel Park’s Art and Music Festival. I asked Tom to pose for me with the streetcar they have on property, and I realized how huge the car was in relation to Tom. Uh-oh! In my mind, Santa should take up so much more space in the painting… but if I made him too big, he’d look like a giant. So the painting stayed in my head, unfinished. Then one day I was chatting on the phone with a friend whose awesome creativity got me thinking.
Sure enough, I started playing around with the idea of cropping the scene in closer. Then it was off to the races! Santa stopped by the Heinz History Center and posed alongside their trolley so I could see their relative sizes. Then later that evening, I stopped by Santa’s North Pole home, and he posed for me there as well. (Of course, while we were there, we also started brainstorming for next year’s Santa painting!)
It was when I started painting it that I saw the true beauty of this piece. The vibrant colors of a warm, celestial blue background with magical colored lights decorating the streetcar. I changed the number on the streetcar to #25, which seemed perfect for a Christmas trolley as it journeys to the North Pole. God bless Santa for posing for over a hundred photos, waving and smiling until we got just the right look, one that invited you to hop on board.
I asked Santa,”Why do you love driving a streetcar?” It was as if he had returned to his childhood, and the excitement bubbled up in him. He answered
“You ring the bell twice, then you apply a little power and feel that 19-ton vehicle start to move. Before you know it, you reach full speed, flying down the railway in an incredible vintage machine.”
Vintage machine indeed! Everyone loves streetcars, and you can ride the 1711 yourself anytime during the holiday season at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.
In the meantime, this weekend you can actually bring home a print of your own! I’ll be exhibiting at the Ebenezer Covered Bridge Festival on Saturday and Sunday, September 21 and 22. My tent spaces are 25-26. I’ll have plenty of prints in stock!
Or if you can’t make it to the festival, you can purchase the print on my website, www.lindabarnicott.com!