Holidays = Making Cards

A tradition since childhood: Making my own holiday cards & decorations. Christmas cards! And Valentines, with their limited palettes of pinks, reds, whites & purples. They were simple this year, with my discovery of Caran d'ache water crayons, pearlescent watercolors, glitter markers & Posca white markers, along with the usual gouache & aquarelles. 

Roses are red, 

Art is fine,

Hearts are supreme

And pink is divine.  

Hahaha! 

Holiday Card Making During a Full Moon

 

On Dec. 15, while I was happily working 

on this year's holiday cards,

I was also following the Cold Full Moon on its journey 

as it rose in the Northeast & set in the Northwest.

I felt so alive & excited!

So I stopped what I was doing 

& started making sketches & notes & 

recording full moon information in my journal. 

And then I created a series of small paintings.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season!

I hope you'll leave me a note with a hint of who you are!

Holiday Greeting Cards 2023

I had different Christmas-y sketch ideas for a holiday card. 

But this image was the most "autobiographical", if not 

Christmas-y. It's from a series I had printed from the original.

Before the color prints, I had copied small black & white line drawings 

from my original & handpainted each one, adding colored pencil & pearlescent paints. 

Less vibrant & smooth than the printed version, but to me 

they're sweet in their roughness.  

Happy Holiday Season to all, & Happy Winter Walking. Rita.

More Card Making Process

I have fiber artist friends

who experiment wildly with mark-making, 

 media & formats. 

I love their work 

& love learning from them, trying some of their techniques.

But in the end, I come back to drawing

&  "coloring" (Gasp!!) as my favorite mode.

These days I use watercolors & Prismacolors, 

but I'm still connected to the childhood pleasure 

I had with Crayola crayons.

I pulled an image from an older journal sketch for

December greeting cards.

In the end, what I love most is 

that I be authentically expressing myself

& finding pleasure in my process,

ignoring that old inner critic.

Recently I did a jigsaw puzzle of an illustration

by my favorite illustrator, the French Sempé.

 I found great joy in learning more about how he uses

ink line & paint & felt affirmed in my way of working.

I am fascinated by grids & boxes lately. 

In the end, my idea for Christmas cards, 

(in the above photo)

evolved to these trees without the boxes.

 

Nothing like Homemade Valentines!

 

At our library art group we, adults,

reverted back to childhood pleasures, & made Valentines.  

 Valentines Pot Luck: Rather than 

food to share, we brought ideas, art papers, & frills.

I brought some leftovers home.

 My three Valentines made at the meeting.

Très simple. Often when in a group,

I work quickly, creating sort of rough draft ideas

for future, more finished products.

This pop up was bought at a bookstore,

so I could bring it to show to the group.

 I bought these little girl cards at a stationery store

that's been in Portland for about 40 years.

The Paper Patch.

We used to have anonymous Valentines 

planted all over downtown on this day, 

on store fronts, on tree limbs,on brick walls, 

all tagged saying,"If you love me...take me...free!"

The anonymous makers, we hear, 

have moved away now, 

but this year one of our group has left Valentines 

in various shops... for people to take....for free!

Happy Valentine's Day, to you my blog friends!

What I've Been Up To...

A little sketching with the Sketchers...

At a most magical shop in town, Brambles...

The owner always welcomes us! 

(I have previous posts/sketches from Brambles...)

Quick sketches when I'm out. 

Still carrying the book everywhere.

This was lunch at the Coop, a great Sketch-Op.

Enjoying my Prismacolors. Here,

they were basking in winter sunlight that streamed in

through the back door blinds.

 Prismacolors on my new "mini memory" daily calendar, 

inspired by the great sketch blog of Lin, View From the Oak
& her "Smallies". Do visit her blog! 

A great form of journaling!

Card calendars for my bulletin board.

Been playing with collage a bit.

Ongoing Daily Journal ritual. Every morning with coffee.

I'm adding more color, drawings & paste-ins

than before.

 

This was the bottom corner of a page. 

That's Washi tape as the base.

Envelope-pocket-journal-folio books, 

taught by local paper craft artist & teacher, Robinsunne. 

Current one in progress.

Elements taped with temporary cellophane tape.

 I mostly didn't send out holiday cards.
I gave a few of these to folks in my Zumba class. 
I hope you all had a fun holiday season.

 My new cork board on the mantle. 
A reminder that I want to paint more without ink line...
A challenge, & outside my comfort zone!

Above, some are mine, some are inspirations by others.

Great time of year for making art!

Joy, Joy, Joy of Autumn

I recently skimmed through my old blog posts, 

from the beginning...May, 2012.

And I skimmed through my photo collection 

of my drawings.

I don't think this little image is posted.

It was a mini card for someone.

Tomorrow is officially the first day of autumn.

And this is truly how I feel about it! Joy! 

Notice the printing on this older image.

I have just started practicing 

an italic calligraphy alphabet. 

It's like practicing scales on the piano.

I'm looking forward to continued refinement.

The repetitive practice is soothing...

...perhaps addictive. In a good way...

Valentine's Day Fun

 

I tried printing this Valentine Girl

with my printer.

 But the colors came out badly.

So I did a black & white version 

& added just a few colors by hand.

Valentine Girl's source was a small, 

super quick sketch 

I did last summer

when a woman zipped past me 

while I was sketching a church.

 

 I led our Library Art Group this week in making

non-adhesive, folded gift boxes. 

Valentine's Day has been a fun inspiration 

for me since childhood.

I used the January page from a 

beautiful letterpress calendar for this box.

I've had a lot of painted snippets around, 

great for adorning boxes.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Colored Pencils with Rubber Stamp Printing

Accordion fold card, using a Rubber Stamp "0"

and colored pencil.

 Our Library Art Group had a presentation 

of Rubber Stamping, by one of our participants,

a retired art teacher & awesome artist.

She laid out a beautiful assortment

Stamps, inks, papers, &, what caught MY eye...

...a tin of Ticonderoga Colored Pencils! 000000H!!

I started randomly printing with an "0".

 Something about the repetition with variety, very satisfying.

Something about being minimal when I could have chosen

a lot of different materials.

It seems to be my theme these days: 
Simplification.

Leslie showed us no models, and barely gave a demo.
Therefore, every one was free to follow their own themes.
All processes & works were different from one another.

 I love my old Prismacolors, but seeing the new set of

Ticonderogas was very exciting!! A new toy!

After, I made some color charts. 

My Prismacolors remain my favorites, 

but the Ticonderoga's are fun! 

They got me to re-explore my own colors. 

Thanks to Leslie & to our monthly Art Group for 

lots of inspiration & fun!

Mini Zumba Greetings

I failed to send Christmas cards this year. 

But I have promised myself that I will send winter cards.

I did make up some mini-cards to give to a few local folks,

some of them being fellow Zumba enthusiasts.

 

 And a card for my Zumba teacher. 

I have enormous gratitude for her. 

This dance & her exercise classes have enriched

my life & my health tremendously!!!

Good Bye to Autumn Colors

This little sketch isn't really about today.

Pumpkins are now covered in snow, 

& green appears on evergreen trees 

rather than in downtown window displays.

But it's one I reworked recently.

The oranges, warm browns & golds that you see on 

all those Thanksgiving cards have been replaced 

by blues, grays, cool browns: & lots of white! 

Brrr!

Meditative Color Play, Continued...

Still playing with watercolor with attention & focus...

(previous post). A form of prayer & meditation. 

"L'attention, à son plus haut degré, est la même chose que la prière."  ~Simon Weil 

      

 "But what are you going to DO with them?"

"Well, I could cut them out & make cards..."

 "...and handmade books..."

"And then I could let them go..."