The 12 Days of Christmas – An evolving story.
Back in 2007, the 12 Days of Christmas started as a personal project and evolved. In fact, is was originally intended just as a single picture of the ‘partridge in a pear tree’ which features in every day of the song. It was well received at the time, so I decided to do all twelve days. but I also decided to repeat characters, as doing one for each day, would mean 78 different characters over the 12 days! (12+11+10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1=78).
I originally designed them, for my website, in a portrait format, a black background, with the verse of that day added and finished off with a mini-vector of that day’s character as a flourish at the bottom. Below is a slideshow of all twelve finished works. (Keep an eye out for a Doctor Who reference, ‘Ten(th doctor) (time) lords a leaping’!)
Click on the arrows to peruse each day, from a lone partridge to a dozen drummers:
Well I didn’t know that!
As I drew, then vectored and finished each day, The 12 Days of Christmas encouraged me to do some more research on the history, meaning and words of the song and discovered that although I’d spent most of my life thinking it was leading UP to Christmas, The first day of Christmas is actually Christmas Day, the second is Boxing day and so on, until the twelfth day, which is the day before Epiphany, the 5th of January. (There’s a few mathematical connections too.)
There was a lot of feedback from the project on my website during post-Christmas 2007, but as the year moved on, I’d almost forgotten about them until October 2008 when I got a really nice email and that’s when things got a bit more exciting…..
The 12 Days – A Collaboration across the Atlantic
Lorri Christopher – Florida – and – Dean Perry – England.
Lorri Christopher, a Holiday Designer from Tampa Bay, Florida, contacted me via email to enquire about the copyright for use in charity work, namely the UPARC Charity Tree Festival, Florida (2008).
I was delighted to be asked and if I’m honest, it was a good cause. Through which we struck up a great working bond between us, firing emails back and forth across the pond.
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As the originals were rectangular, Lorri asked if there was a way to resize them to suit her criteria, which was to place each design in a fine glass spherical bauble. I offered to completely re-work each design rather than crop them, and, as each design was saved in mostly vectors, there vwouldn’t be much work.
Below is a slideshow showing the re-worked-circular designs.
(click or tap on the arrows to see more)
The 12 Days of Christmas – The Baubles
Created by Lorri Christopher – Florida
Lorri used the circular designs and created beautiful, delicate ornaments. Her work ethic and attention to detail was commendable, taking extra care during printing and construction to acheive the right contrast and colours.
Below is a slideshow of twelve of her stunning creations.
(Click or tap on the arrows to see more)
The 12 Days of Christmas – A 1st Prize tree!
Credit to Lorri Christopher – Florida
Lorri decorated a 7ft tree, in a prize location, 4th from the door. She received a lot of attention and before the competition was opened to the public, won a blue rosette for 1st prize in the 7ft Hand-crafted category.
Below is a slideshow of how the tree took shape, and Lorri with her winning rosette.
(Click or tap on the arrows to see more)
Lost connection
We were very happy with the outcome and I featured the whole story on my website for several years, and even made a you tube video for it at the time (see below) but I thought it would be nice to give it a page more recently, because it’s a lovely, illustrated tale of volunteering to raise money for a good cause.
Sadly, life being forever changing, we lost contact. I tried whilst constructing this page to contact Lorri for permission, but her email no longer works and I’ve tried several other channels, but to no avail. If you know Lorri, please contact me or tell her I said hello!
Dean Perry aka pickledpizza 