The Christmas Star

A tiny Maltese pup, dressed in his finest Christmas sweater, sits in front of the Christmas tree. As if he himself were one of the gaily wrapped packages arranged under the tree’s boughs, he is (momentarily) motionless, seemingly waiting for the magic of the morning to begin. But his eyes are fixed on something that we will never see … something we can’t understand. His sharp little doggie eyes and his sensitive nose and ears … they know. They understand the magic that is hovering … just out of reach of us ordinary human beings.

The glowing bright vision that we can’t see … though if we’re lucky we can feel its presence … is the magic of the Christmas Star … the magic of Christmas.

I recently read a wonderful book called “Lost And Found” by Jacqueline Sheehan that included some thoughts on the way dogs, with their spectacular senses not only of sight, but hearing and smell and … something else …  perceive the world. I got to wondering how they experience the same sights and sounds that we do … probably so differently and maybe so much more fully.

“The Christmas Star” is a slight alteration of one of my previous images, “Listening For Santa” which is still available at my website as well as this new version. I just felt like Buddy needed to be looking at something … not just listening.

Image painted by hand, digitally, and influenced by and very loosely based on one of my own photos using Corel Painter 2019, a Wacom tablet, the art pen stylus and a wide variety of beautiful digital brushes.

As always, a click into the image here will take you to my website where you can … magically … mouse over the image to see the detail-y bits.  

Do you have any stories about Christmas magic?  Or about the magic of our dear canine ( or other critter ) friends?  I’d love to hear them!