2013 holiday cards

As per tradition (since 2009 at least!) I have made cards to send to friends and family so I thought I would make a post about my card-making process for this past Christmas. This year, I tried something a little different from years past. Before, I made every card individually by hand (painted/colored/stamped/drawn). My list of card receivers has grown over the years and I decided to try something new to save some time but still produce a nice card from my own art.

I created a gouache painting of a scene from one of my favorite places in the world: Las Cruces Biological Station in San Vito, Costa Rica. This was my first time really painting with gouache and it was great! These paints basically control like watercolors but produce very vibrant colors. You can also easily manipulate the opacity of washes so it is almost a little easier to use than watercolor paint. I ended up with a stylized scene of agoutis in Las Cruces interacting with seeds on a tree-lined hill. This is pretty similar to a view from one of the cabinas there!

After painting and scanning the piece, I uploaded it to MOO (the company I use to print my business cards) and made holiday cards using one of their templates. I could create a customized message inside the card and also on the back (where I added a small picture of the shrew train I painted for Shannon and BJ).

I am really pleased with the end result. Everything worked so well that I may have to do something like this again next year!