Closing out 2025

The last 6 holiday sketches and saying good-bye to 2025

I am closing out 2025 with my last holiday sketches of 2025. Plus how this year went….

2025 as the new year

At the beginning of 2025, I sat down with my Bullet Journal and various artists’ suggestions on how to plan out your year; setting goals and scheduling target dates, and so on.

“Yeah, I GOT this,” I was thinking as I planned out the year. I diligently mapped out each month and quarter. I thought I planned and accounted for everything, including my daughter’s wedding, expected travel plans, holiday weekends and activities during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season.

The wedding plans absorbed more time than I originally thought I’d need but I happily chugged along with the planning assistance and creative tasks. The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time in St Augustine. A happy beginning to the year.

After the wedding…..

Dickens, our 6 month old kitten, had a routine kitten checkup where a potential dental issue turned into a trip to Gainesville to a dental specialist.

In the meantime, Mack, our geriatric Chihuahua became ill and eventually left to go to the rainbow bridge. There was a post back in June about Mack.

Summer

Dickens’ dental issues, turned out to be self inflicted. Not the brightest bulb in the box, but at least we know it wasn’t serious.

We up drove up to the grandkids in NJ & NY. It was good to see everyone. We took Lucy, our other Chihuahua, and left Dickens with our daughter.

Lucy had her first Cape May Ferry ride and she flew for the first time. At the airport, she tried to take on the airport security dog, who got in hot water with his handler for letting a tiny chihuahua distract him from his duties.

Around the end of summer, I found Flori Fama from one of my artist groups. She was so excited about Halloween that she started a group to start sketching for Halloween. I joined her group and I awaited September.

Autumn

Flori’s Halloween Challenge started and was so much fun. I didn’t do Inktober this year because they don’t do Halloween prompts and I love Halloween so that was a no brainer. 

Holidays

A new addition to the family

While we were Christmas shopping in November….a little black fur ball came into our lives. We came across a long haired black chihuahua that we named Teddy. Where Mack had a heavy thick coat, Teddy has a very fine coat and he feels the cold, unlike Mack, who used to play in the snow and have snow dingles hanging from him.

After Halloween, the Holiday prompts

When Halloween ended, we all wanted to keep going with Flori and the group. Flori came up with prompts for December and we had a blast doing them.. 

I posted the first 6 in last week’s news for December. Here are the final 6.

Day 7 – North Pole bound – I interpreted this as letters to Santa..featuring Teddy because Flori’s holiday group wanted to see Teddy in my illustrations

Day 8 – Snow Kissed Village

Day 9 – Chimney Jam – featuring Teddy

Day 10 – Sugar Cookies by the fire. My Christmas card was used as a springboard for this one. I already had the cookies and milk. I moved the whole scene over to add the fireplace, which was our fireplace when we used to live on Long Island.

Day 11 – A gingerbread tail (tale) – I used my past characters from #drawcatsformom to create this scene.

Day 12 – Flori suggested Summer Christmas since she was originally from Argentina and it is summer there right now. I went with Tropical Christmas because I live in Florida.

Christmas and December were nice. I had fun doing the Christmas prompts. I also managed to get some reading done. I can’t complain about 2025, even though we lost Mack. And I found out some things about myself that helped me realize where I was chasing my own tail and what it is I really like doing. 

Happy New Year.

December 2025

Here’s a peek at what I have been creating this month

Aside from the usual mayhem that December brings…I have also been working with a small group to do a Christmas Challenge. You can read more about it on my Substack at this link:

https://open.substack.com/pub/ginalento/p/december-2025?r=1bcr0m&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Day 1 – Odd Stocking

Revisiting an old “friend” that has been frequently used in the past. A Pier One Stocking we purchased many years ago because of its quirkiness. I have drawn this several times in many ways and settings….I had it sitting on my desk and drew it again.

I did two color versions:

Day 2 – Rudolph where’s your nose?

A reindeer character I have been working on….

Day 3 – Snow Globe Wonderland

I was pressed for time and I have been hitting the sketchbooks and old work….this is a new and improved Snow Globe

Day 4 – Dyker Heights Teasures

My version using a summer plein air painting of Patchogue, NY, as a reference…I believe I also used it as a Christmas card several years ago….IIt was when I was doing my postcards – #drawcatsformom art to mail to my mom. took my current Procreate skills to tweak this for a new and improved version. 

Day 5 – Silent Santa Night

Another Pastel painting inspired piece. I have been playing with this one off and on and tried some new composition ideas.

Day 6 – Ugly Sweater Collection

My “collection” is displayed on snow people…..

Well that’s all for now…hope you enjoyed them!

Saying Good-bye to Mack

Yesterday, John and I had to make the tough decision to say good-bye to a member of our family. He was a long haired Chihuahua who came into our lives March 2 of 2011. Mack was born at Christmastime, and Christmas was one of his favorite times of year. He was especially fond of unwrapping gifts, even if they didn’t belong to him. Christmas will be really sad without him. He was just like a child, but in fur. We looked forward to seeing Christmas through his eyes every year.

Mack’s nickname was MR GQ, because he was always posing for the camera. He was such a handsome little dude. Lucy would be all over the place and Mack would patiently hold his pose.

Mack was a happy little guy. He was such a good boy, even with all of the vet visits. He didn’t care, as long as he got his dog cookie. He didn’t like children at first until he realized that they were walking food dispensers. He had an angle for everything.

I could go on and on about Mack. Our daughters wanted to call him Mac n Cheese or something like it. He got his name after he pushed the puppy gate that fell on him during the naming discussion, he just kept right on going, and my husband said he was like a Mack truck. So Mack became his name.

We loved him so much. He was our Buddy. He went out peacefully yesterday morning in John’s lap with me scratching his head. Our vet gave him a peaceful transition. He was a good boy even up until the end.

I am grateful that this little guy came into our family. He was a little sparkle of sunshine. Everyday with him, especially these last few years, was a gift that I always thanked God for everyday.

Ever since Chloe was taken from us 2 years ago, with no warning or inkling of a problem, I answer the following question when asked; “was it worth it; having them in your life, knowing what was to come?”

Yes, the joy and devotion that both Mack and Chloe gave us? Yes Yes Yes. It was worth every minute.

Good-bye little Buddy. You were such a GOOD BOY. I will miss you.

National Chihuahua Appreciation Day

collage of painted tiny chihuahua sketches

I have so many Chihuahuas that I have sketched or painted that I had a bit of a tough time choosing which ones to post. I decided to repost some of my Tiny Dogs from my Tin Dog series of 2020. These tiny dogs were painted in a tiny sketchbook that was provided by the (sadly now defunct) Sketchbook Project. Many of these tiny dogs were Mack and Chloe, but I also used reference photos from the Museum App (formerly the Sktchy app).

I played around with Canva this morning to present some of these in a fun format. All of the photos were taken of me holding the sketchbook so that readers can have an idea how tiny this sketchbook is. I was told that this was one of the more popular sketchbooks when folks used to go to the Sketchbook Project Library. When they announced their closing, I immediately went to retrieve my sketchbooks. I am so glad I did because this one out of all of them is one my favorite treasures.

To give credit to the creator of the Canva template, I used NassyArt’s “Beige and Black Scrapbook Film Photo Collage Portrait Instagram Post” template.

The second image is some recent Chihuahua paintings done on 4×4 wooden hearts.

Chihuahuas painted on wooden hearts

Painting Floral Arrangements on Heart-Shaped Wood

2 Bouquets of flowers in round vases painted on heart shaped wood. One leans towards shades of pink and one leads towards coral.
Wooden floral hearts

These floral arrangements are two little paintings completed on 4 x 4 wooden hearts. I purchased the wooden hearts around Valentine’s Day.  These hearts are only available around the holiday, so I purchased several packs before they disappeared until next year.


Last year, when a friend asked me to paint a portrait of her cat on one of these heart, I was very lucky that I had one left!  I went to get more to ensure I had some backups,  but the store was sold out for the season.  I did many detailed sketches for her approval before I did the final on the heart.  She was very happy with her kitty on painted on the heart.

Having learned that lesson, I made sure that I bought plenty of the hearts this year.

The floral arrangements that I painted on the hearts were inspired by this huge, blue glass vase that we inherited from a house that we purchased several years ago.  The previous owner had left everything, including the decor.  My husband and I really like this vase so we purchased some artificial flowers for it.  We bought flowers for everyday, then an arrangement for autumn and we also have a Christmas arrangement for this vase as well. It stays out all year.

It’s always in my view when we sit at the kitchen table and one day I thought, “why haven’t I ever painted this?” I picked up the hearts and decided to do a couple of versions of the vase painted on the them, playing with different color ideas.  Looking at the little heart paintings today and writing about them, I am getting more ideas for playing with the vase, so don’t be surprised to see more. They are cute and fun to do!

Inktober Day 2

Arteza brush pens and Carbon Ink Jack O'Lantern with 2 Chihuahuas and a bird outside examining the lit pumpkin

The prompt for today is “discover.” Lucy and Mack have “discovered” live Halloween decorations.

Carved pumpkins seem to attract all sorts of creatures. When we lived up North. the local squirrels would eat the Jack O’Lantern every year. They would also eat the uncarved pumpkins, too.

Here in Florida, we found out the hard way that you don’t put the pumpkins out as decorations until the actual day of Halloween, or you’ll wind up with a mushy hot mess in front of the house.

For Inktober…I am back to using color. I am using a Lamy Safari Fountain pen filled with Carbon Ink and I am using Arteza brush pens. I have a specific color palette that I work with when I use these pens which means all the other ones I bought in the set aren’t being used. All of these little vignettes are being created in a 5×7 sketchbook that I made using Arches Text Wove paper.

I may have to use the other ones in another application.

Inktober 2024 Day 1

So much to do and so little time.

I debated on whether or not I wanted to do Inktober this year.

I also debated what I wanted to draw. Did I want to follow the suggested prompts, do my own thing or follow other lists. Or just pick and choose daily from various lists.

Did I want to commit to anything this year?

Halloween and my mom were a thing. They went hand in hand. My mom loved Halloween. We gave her Halloween gifts for Christmas. She decorated her house and dressed as a witch every year. Now, she’s not here for Halloween for the first time in my life and it’s abnormal. At least when she was living with dementia I could get excited about telling her things or picking up little Halloween themed stuff for her.

It won’t be the same without her.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still love and celebrate Halloween. That won’t change because like my mom, I love this time of year.

I will miss sharing it with her.

Oh well.

Moving on…My Little Witch series started back in 2018. I used the prompt “backpack” for this one.

I used a fountain pen and brush pens in a handmade sketchbook.