Creating Artworks for Christmas cards
This was the handout from a workshop I ran recently on Christmas cards. I thought some of you may find it useful :-
Christmas
Card Designs in Watercolour
Christmas
is a great time of year to be more adventurous with your artworks and
use your imagination. It is good to get away from relying too much on
reference photos and think about creating your own compositions and
designs. We all know that Reindeer can't fly, so reference photos of
flying reindeer may be hard to come by! We therefore need to gather
reference photos and ideas from varies sources to bring together for
our chosen themes. It's a good idea to start by looking in the shops
to see what is in fashion for the year.
If
you have the time, it is nice to make “one off” cards on
watercolour paper for those closest to you. You can buy watercolour
blank greetings cards. However you may find it more cost effective to
make your own. Using a ruler and scissors or a guillotine, cut your
paper to the size of your unfolded card. Then on the reverse side of
the paper, measure the halfway line and carefully score it with a
knife along a metal ruler. Take care not to score too deeply and cut
the paper all the way through. Now turn your card over and paint your
design on the right hand side. Once dry, carefully fold the card
along the score line. Alternatively you could score and fold a piece
of craft card and glue your small watercolour design to it, leaving a
margin.
As
you may not have time to create lots of small individual cards, you
may perhaps prefer to create one watercolour painting to then
photograph and print. One advantage to this, is that you can paint on
a larger scale and then reduce the size. It is much easier to paint
on a larger scale, I like an A3 size paper, which will reduce down
nicely to an A5 or A6 card.
The
most important thing after completing your work is to get a good
clear photograph of it. You don't need an expensive camera for this,
even a tablet or phone will do. However you must have good lighting
and a steady hand. If possible take photographs in natural light
outside. Once you have a good clear image, you can either print from
your own home printer or upload it to a professional printer.
Watercolour
Christmas Card Design
In
the example above, I used the “wet on dry” method of
watercolour painting. This is the easiest watercolour technique and a
good way for beginners to watercolour to get started.
Materials
used :-
Watercolour
paints
Watercolour
brushes (round synthetics with a nice tip are good)
Watercolour
paper (minimum 140lb)
Pencil
& Eraser
Ruler
Water
container
Firstly
on a sheet of rough paper, get together some ideas and thumbnails of
your composition, style and theme. The style may be realistic,
illustrative, impressionist, abstract etc. The theme may be
religious, humorous, traditional, wintertime etc. Think also of
whether your card will be portrait or landscape, keeping in mind that
landscape cards aren't always as easy for the recipient to display.
Next,
tape your paper to your board and draw a margin using your ruler.
Draw your design lightly in pencil.
Once
you are happy with your design, paint in sections, allowing each area
to dry before adding more layers. Remember to leave the white paper
for your highlights. Build up carefully in layers to get a good depth
of colour.
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