Holiday Card 2011 Designs

I promised in a previous post that I would post my selected holiday card designs. Since 99% of my cards have been written and mailed, I figure now is a good time.

Here is the card I mailed this year.

This is the other card I designed and my sister promptly told me she wanted to send it this year.

And I thought the back of this one was pretty darn fun too...I like how the dough folds over the back.

Both cards will be available for sale on my Etsy shop next year, but of course you can contact me if you want to buy some before that.

Additionally, please sign up for my mailing list if you didn't get a holiday card this year but want to get one next year! I will send one!

I really enjoyed making these cards -- I did them all on the computer. Even though I prefer the hands on work, sometimes working directly on the computer is much faster. I scanned fabric and paper and then "cut and paste" the materials digitally.

Happy Holidays!

Variations

I got some really positive feedback on the bird drawing I did, so I decided that while printing Soldier. Merchant. Man. (4"x6", mixed media on board) that I would also make some prints (Untitled), on paper from the image. I am really excited about them, but I am not sure if they should be worked into further. I like them for their simplicity -- the starkness of the white bird against the gray paper. I like the fact that the bird has just a wide open page to fly on (which now brings me to the desire to print this little bird all alone on a large paper...)

Then part of me thinks they should have something else to them. I'm not sure. Perhaps I need to leave it for a while and come back to it. I think art is so exciting in that way though...how you can work on something, leave it, and then come back to it months later and finally get what you wanted -- or just finally have it come together even though you didn't consciously know what you wanted. Soldier. Merchant. Man. was like that. I worked on it in February (at which time I only did the board using scraps of paper from an old book) and then again in June (?) when I drew the dead baby bird and then finally in August when I added the bird in flight. And it is exactly what I wanted in the end, but I didn't know it at the beginning.

Since I already had the screen made, and I love experimenting, I also pulled a version of it on green fabric. I love that too, but I have no idea what to do with it.

Finally, I had been constantly imagining a piece with a bird and a cage and shrunk the bird to work in Leonard (4"x6", mixed media on board). I like it. This is the second version I did, the first the cage was too high and I couldn't get the bird to balance correctly on the page.

And yes, I don't know what my new obsession with birds is, but they are so elegant and so fragile, I just love using them in my work.

Soldier. Merchant. Man.

I finally figured out how to finish the piece (Soldier. Merchant. Man., 4"x6", mixed media on board) I started in February. I had started it as a way to deal with Grandpa Miceli's death. He died at 92. He loved a good long life and passed away right after watching a UConn Girls Basketball win with Grandma, which was probably his idea of a perfect evening. Rest in peace, Grandpa.

Study of a Dead Baby Bird

Note, these drawings are referred to in order, but the text about each one doesn't fit next to the image, so I have put a number next to the drawing I am referring to. Although the drawings aren't numbered, I trust my readers to understand that the first drawing on the page is 1, the second 2, and so forth.

Growing up, we had a charcoal drawing of a dead baby bird in our house. (The image to the left is not it. That's mine!) It was truly beautiful, once I learned to appreciate it for the art that it was and not for the rotting corpse. My father loved to quote the artist, his friend Steve Halford, and I in turn liked to quote my dad. When asked why he drew a dead baby bird, Steve answered, "Because a dead baby bird is a lot easier to draw than a live baby bird." True. But a dead baby bird isn't that easy, Steve, so I am quite impressed with the drawing.

Yesterday, Kevin called me outside to see a dead baby bird in the front lawn. I scooped the bird up onto a disposable plastic plate and I promise I too would try my hand at my own drawings.

I did one yesterday and three today. I don't love the drawings, but I loved the exercise, and I never before got to appreciate the beauty and the delicacy of our feathered friends in such intimacy before.

Additionally, I loved the excuse to spend the day in the warm sunshine -- what a perfect day! (Drawing a dead animal certainly is an outside activity.)

Yesterday's drawing was simply pencil (1). After giving it some breathing room, I like it better than I remembered.

Today I stared off with a watercolor sketch (2) which frustrated me so I stopped. Looking back, I like the simplicity, lightness and unfinished nature of it.

Then I went to focus on a gouache drawing on a collage page (3) -- I started this piece when grandpa passed away in March. I collaged some pages from an old book full of synonyms. I found a bunch that described grandpa: merchant, soldier, and man. I found it to be the perfect base for the drawing, because in the last months of his life, I saw him as delicate as a baby bird. I am frustrated though because I don't like the drawing at all. The image became too colorful and too muddled. The gouache wasn't even adhering to the area where the head was. You can't see it because I scribbled over it in graphite -- while covering up my frustration, I think I was also trying to demonstrate the dark empty space grandpa left in all of us.

Finally, I did a simple pen and ink and then filled the background in deep red gouache (4) which I am not loving, but I don't hate it either. I love how the red really makes the little bird pop off the page.

I am wondering how I can take this gorgeous creature and maybe turn it into a silk screen. Or is it too delicate for such a bold medium. Maybe it would work for just that reason.

This little bird had a short life, but I like to think that I immortalized it in some way.

My little friend is starting to smell and attract flies (but a citronella candle works wonders for the later) so I think tomorrow will be our last day together. I don't know though. If the smell gets much worse, these might be the final drawings.