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Behind the Scene: Caroling Through the Town

Dominique Densmore

Updated: Dec 31, 2021


*I'd meant to post this before, but I had trouble finding this little drawing. Well, better late than never...!*

Christmas cards are among my favorite things to design. I try to make a new one every year, (whenever possible); this year I decided to return to the theme of my first ever card, which you see above.


It may seem like a simple idea, but in reality there's never really any such thing as "simple" in drawing. I looked at many pictures of harnesses (dreadfully complex things to my untrained eye) and, as I was taking the scene out of the country and into the city, many references of narrow streets.

I also took my own street photos, to get an idea of perspective, and amongst other things, many studies of various types of sleigh. (You wouldn't believe how many different kinds there are...!)


Even if many of the details don't end up in the final product, it always helps to have that background knowledge, and it will show through in the finished work. I won't go through all the different references I studied and sketches I used as this would go on too long, but at last I got going...



This time around, instead of the couple I decided to have a jolly group of people of all ages.

I wanted the picture to be full--


Full of people... Full of movement... Full of light, and joy-


Just full.



I wanted the feeling of speeding along, right out towards the viewer, as though the revelers were in a merry race to spread the Christmas Spirit to as many people as possible. As usual, I had specific music in the back of my mind to complement the action, this time Nat King Cole's "Christmas Bells are Ringing:"

"Mark ye well the song we sing,

Gladsome tidings now we bring!"



I wish you and yours a Joyful Christmas, and a very Happy New Year!

Catch you later!

Dominique Densmore

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