It's rather surreal to see more of my photos and thoughts formatted into greeting cards. A year ago I was so unsure of myself. Would anybody like the cards? Would they touch a responsive chord in anyone? So many anxieties and fears. But with the help of good friends I've pushed through the fear and now here I am getting ready to expand the line.
In this post I thought I'd share six of the new cards with you - four serious sentiment cards and two humorous ones. This is something of a teaser. More cards will debut in future posts, I promise.
Hopefully I will have the printed cards in my hands ready to sell in a week or two. (I can't wait!!) I will be posting them for sale on my own website (fernspackman.ca) and on Etsy. For those who live in Canada, I'll be posting a list to my website of retail shops that carry the cards. And please let me know if there is a shop in your area where you'd like to see the cards sold and I'll do what I can to try and make that happen!
Now these 12 are at the print stage I'm developing 12 other cards that once printed will be marketed as packaged cards - some 'blank' cards with no text on the front and no text inside, and some that say 'Thank You' on the outside and are blank inside. Actually, all my cards are blank on the inside, though I can custom print the inside with text and/or a logo if, for instance, a customer wanted a quantity of 'Thank You' cards personalized for business use.
Not much happening lately in the painting department as I have spent most of my energy working on cards. Today I played around with the idea of "underpainting" a watercolour. I use the term "underpainting" loosely, as I'd like to test both pencil crayons and extremely thinned down black waterproof drawing ink (think the modern version of what used to be called 'India Ink') as mediums to create shades of grey on white paper, then layering colour over the shading to see which method gives the most desirable result... or the result closest to what I see in my head. I will test the concepts out on a sample painting and post pictures so you can see how it's working out.
I've received a few questions about the various greens I used on my 'watercolour-on-gessoed-canvas' painting and how I mixed them. Sorry - I didn't think to mention before what the colour mix was. The four watercolours I've posted so far were all painted with mixes of a limited palate of just three colours -- Cadmium Yellow, Winsor Red and Prussian Blue (my paint all happens to be Winsor and Newton brand right now) -- so all the green are varying proportions of Cadmium Yellow and Prussian Blue, occasionally with the faintest touch of Windsor Red added when I want a more 'greyed down' colour of green. I quite like working with a limited palate. Prior to this fall's art class, I had firmly believed that I needed a box full of different paint colours. The class has taught me to be comfortable with just primary colours and the occasional "guest colour" -- like when using Alizarin Crimson instead of Winsor Red to get brighter purples or pinks, or adding in Payne's Grey on a rocky landscape.
You know, it's been really great to work on the cards -- both the words and the pictures. But I am feeling something like "painting withdrawal" symptoms! Apparently painting fills a need in me different than what other creative activities fill. Hmm... it's not too late yet this evening... I think I hear my paint brushes calling!
I hope you are all finding ways to add creativity to your life.
: ) Fern
