Christmas time always reminds of the Charlie Brown Christmas special, so while I finished up this project a few months ago it seemed like a good time to share it. I've kept a little collection of clippings of my favourite comic strips from the newspapers throughout the years... well back when there were actually comics in newspapers, and quite a few of my faves are Peanuts. I thought it would be fun to enlarge one as a decor item.

After picking one to go with (easier said than done) I had to find a canvas that would work. This rectangular one one wasn't perfect but I didn't feel like stretching my own. I then calculated out the scaled panel sizes so that it would leave even border spaces around the art. I have a strange history of enjoying conversion ratios while drawing. Then I roughed in the characters and the text in pencil. If I recall correctly, Schultz basically drew right in ink which is why his characters always seemed so spontaneous. After the layout was good, I tightened up the art by brush, trying to get the likeness right.

Certain things like Rerun's hair and especially hands became odd once blown up from comic size but I didn't really change anything. I mean, those hands are basically just a few brush squiggles, which really helped me to appreciate the economy of line in Schultz's work. Finishing the art off, I used  pencil shading over the canvas grain for the greys so that it would look dotted like the the strip's halftone pattern.