site update and st. nick

I made another update to the website today, and added the last four illustrations I did to the gallery. Included are different layouts for the Dragonflower poster design (see previous post) and this new piece, a Christmas card featuring the European St. Nicholas, with both front, back, and utility view. I have plans to overhaul the site over winter break, just to make it a little smaller and more manageable, and without the animation transitions.

Some say that the tradition of leaving shoes out for St. Nicholas to fill with toys and treats dates back to Norse mythology. Children would leave their shoes out for Odin, the All-Father, and fill them with hay or grain for his eight-legged steed, Sleipnir. When his steed had eaten his fill, Odin would leave gifts or food in the shoes as a thank you. I grew up with the story of St. Nick and the shoe-stuffers taking place largely in a Dutch/Netherlands context, and so I have made it a wooden shoe in the illustration.