My Santa Wall 2015 - 21 Paintings!!

This is an extra special post for me! I am participating in my very first Blog Hop EVER!!

Stacy at Poofing the Pillows has put this all together and invited me to join her group of Texas blogging ladies to share something special about our Christmas Homes.

One of the MOST special things I do in decorating for Christmas - other than having at least ONE tree in every room and using as many decorations as a small department store - is the Santa wall of paintings in the den.

I have been painting for nearly 40 years - usually on Tuesdays!

I have taught a class here in my home for the last 35 years.

I painted this Santa back in 1994. He was my first one.

A friend had given my daughter a Christmas present in one of those printed gift boxes.

I still have that very box lid! I looked at it and thought, 'I bet I could do that!'

And I did! It took me only 4 hours of painting time done over 3 sessions.

While I have kept this very special first one, I have painted well over a dozen others as gifts and fundraisers. The first fundraiser was for The Pirouettes of Texas Synchronized Swimming Team. My daughter, Amber, swam with this club for 11 years.

This kneeling Santa was last year's painting. 

While this isn't a Santa, it IS a Christmas painting!

I painted one on a large wooden cupboard door I found at a surplus store back in the late 70's.

It burned in the fire of 1983 when we had to gut the entire house.

In 2010 I finally decided to paint a new one!

As my wall gallery wall grew, I started to paint a few smaller sized canvases in order to make a more interesting composition. This is an 8 X 10 from 2001.

Another 8 X 10 from 2006.

I really love the Coca-Cola Santas!!!

My first SHHHH!!! Santa from 2000.

I have always liked this one!!

Then in 2013 we painted another SHHH!!! Santa in art class!

This one made us laugh because I painted him with SIX fingers!!!

And what's more - so did the other ladies!!

Teacher did so they did, too!!!

We fixed it, though, before it was totally finished!

I whipped out two of these in October when we spent 10 days down at my step son's ranch.

We have our camper there and I dearly love to just hole up and paint, read, write, walk, just BE!!!

It is my happy place! We sip coffee in the morning and wine at night and relax in between!!

This was painted by way of inspiration from some Christmas gift wrap!

Another new one I painted this year!

It's is so new - it's still wet!

I have fond memories of painting this Santa.

Louis Dean and I were camping for a week at Mineral Wells State Park in October of 2011.

I painted two of them at a time - one for my sister and her husband who LOVES and collects toy trains. For the longest time he looked just like a clown and I remember that happy moment when he morphed into SANTA!!!!

The Santa in the Sleigh is one of my largest paintings and Louis Dean's favorite!!

It was NOT an easy one!

We lived in our camper for 7 months down in Katy, Texas when daughter had quadruplets.

We pretty much closed up our house here and moved down there from August 2012 to April 2013.

I made a make shift studio in the gazebo we put up by the camper and would paint on the weekends since we were helping with the babies during the weekdays.

I believe this is my best work when it comes to painting Santas.

He was hard but I do love him so!!!

I found this Santa as a jigsaw puzzle!

I have painted him a couple of times - most recently for the auction for our family reunion!

The whispering Santa reminds me of my sister in law's little granddaughter!

I painted an extra one for our Family Chinese Christmas Tree and SHE won it!!

Louis Dean and I married in 2005 and I painted this large Santa that year.

I'm pretty proud of him!

Not all of our Christmas paintings are Santas!

Another wrapping paper inspiration!

This was from a calendar page that reminded me of my grand quad, Logan!

As I was looking at all the paintings, I notice that this is the very FIRST Christmas painting - other than the Raccoon one that burned - and it was more of a tole painting than anything else.

Tole painting taught me a lot about blending and brush control.

I paint only in oils but I wish I could do water colors.....

My very latest painting - which I just finished last night!!!

I think this one looks like Louis Dean - that's why I gave him brown eyes!!!

Every room in our house has at least ONE tree.....the den has TWO!

This is a Santa tree - of COURSE!!

It's a mixture of hand painted, crafted, purchased and gifted Santas!

As you can see - the Santa wall is FULL!!!

Next year I'm going to start on a gallery wall of Christmas paintings in the hall!

The other tree is nestled in here with these Christmas figures!

I still have to put the ornaments on it!

Our den is a happy place any time of the year but especially at Christmas time!

Our grand quads are now 3 1/2 years old and they come over to spend the day with us on Wednesdays! They love playing in here and as busy as my house is and as much STUFF as I have - which my husband lovingly calls 'debris!' - it is still a child friendly place for all my grandchildren.

I am so blessed in that I have lived in this very same house for nearly 50 years and all four of my children and now all eight grandchildren have grown up right here!!!

That's my Christmas story to share!

I do hope you will visit the other Texas ladies to see what THEY are doing!!

Today's Christmas in Texas featured blogs are:

Ellis at My Heart Loves Here

Laura at White Spray Paint

Katy at Let's Add Sprinkles

Kathryn at The Dedicated House

Susan at Ash Tree Cottage