Sidekick

Meet Sidekick. Sidekick has been friends with Santa for a few years now and likes to appear in Santa's paintings. He also sits in the studio and tries to offer helpful comments while Santa is doing his paintings.

Sidekick is a dog (not a bear) he enjoys a quiet reading session and outdoor trips, especially if he gets a ride in his wagon. 

Santa often takes Sidekick on camping trips. Santa and Sidekick share a joke at the cabin.

Inside the cabin. Some people say that humans often get dogs that reflect their own appearance. Perhaps.

First step is a modeling session. Sidekick is generally patient although it helps to give him a cookie once in a while. The cookies always disappear by the end of the modeling session so I know he likes them.

From this a drawing is made with vine charcoal. I go over the drawing with acrylic paint and then wipe off the excess charcoal.

Painting fill in begins after going over the whole canvas with a background color. This is usually red with burnt sienna.

The completed painting. (You may click on the image for a larger view.)

Sidekick is  little sad. In an act of friendship and kindness Santa wraps a quilt around him, sits quietly with him and holds him. Some things you might miss if you look too fast. There are radiating circles coming from Santa and Sidekick to create a halo effect. They interlock and so repeat the color effect of the quilt. The blue space in the halos is also reflected in the blue squares of the quilt and the shape is also repeated in Sidekick's nose. Santa wears gold beads on his moustache, I usually add some kind of beadwork to the moustache or beard.

The quilt is done with a traditional log cabin design although normally the blue square would be red, representing the warmth of a hearth (fire place) in a cabin. Thanks and a tip of the hat to Barb of Hot Springs, SD who provided the quilt.

 This is called "Comfort for a Friend." People caught up in the gift giving of Christmas often forget that sometimes the best gift is not an object but a gesture, like hugging, spending some time or a kind word.

Here I am with Sidekick and Farley. Many of the stars in the sky at Christmas were put there by Sidekick.

Farley arrived a few months after Sidekick. There are now five bears working with Santa, a moose and a rabbit.

The little moose is Tundra. He arrived in 2009. I used him as a symbol for Canada.