Long explanatory notes, I'm afraid - but I think they may be worth your interest.

Unfinished (and will remain so, but will be no less well-loved) illustration for a Christmas card, 2003.

Kindly 'Stitched' together for me from two scanned halves by *slightlytriangle.

{Also, merely in case anyone is curious: I'm not Christian. I didn't think this information was necessary at first, but dA can be a strange place and - if you'll forgive me - some people are apt to be rather short sighted, and I can imagine a number of scenarios may ensue: assumptions, dismissions based on sheer subject matter, etc, etc. }

This was to have been a full-colour illustration for a christmas card. I remember very clearly that it was begun in the summer of 2003, the year of my graduation. I was about to have some time on my hands, so I thought I'd do something fairly ambitious in scale by my usual standards. The whole piece measures 35.5 x 51 cm - considerably larger than what I usually attempt for an illustration (as opposed to observational drawing, which have sometimes been much larger). In the event, Walker Books contacted me that summer, I got to retell and illustrate my first book and thus my yet sapling illustration career began. I've been kept fairly busy ever since and this remained unfinished. I thought at the time that I'd go back to it eventually and never did. I don't think I shall now. I think (I certainly hope) I've improved since, and after all, it's attained its own quiet nostalgia for being in the state it is.
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Details, clockwise from centre:

~Mary was inspired in large part by one of my favourite depictions of the Madonna (quite possibly my most favourite ever, in fact), Sassoferrato's Virgin In Prayer [link] . I was going to paint the bauble the cherub is dangling above the Christ Child as the globe.

~Upper right: two visiting deities from the far East I wanted to include. On the left is the bodhisattva Guan Yin [link] of Mahayana Buddhism. She is a bodhisattva of compassion - a goddess of mercy, if you will. Less to do with Theravada Buddhism (although she does appear in the Buddhist tale of the Mahajanaka) and more to do with Thai mythology, is the Goddess Manee Mekhalaa (or simply Mekhalaa for short) on the right.

~Just beyound the kings in the stable are pencil ghosts of the ass and ox. Typically, I wanted to draw a Brahma bull...

~Just left of the Holy Family, a white hart, so frequently seen in paintings of the Virgin and Child from English and French schools of the early Renaissance.

~On the left, a choir of angels sings Handel's Messiah, with Handel himself conducting. I think they're just singing 'For unto us a child is born' (no, not the Alleluiah chorus ). The soprano angel at the front will sing 'I know that my redeemer liveth' later in part three of the oratorio...

~Just above and slightly to the left of the family, Gabriel, inspired directly by Lippi's Annunciation [link] .

This was five years ago now...

Happy Christmas, everyone, and thank you.