Designing Greetings Cards
My Creative process so far ✨
I’ve had an idea in mind for quite a while now for a range of greetings cards (and eventually other products too) using my floral paintings and drawings. Over the past few weeks I’ve finally started working on turning that idea in to a reality, pulling my ideas together and creating some designs. I thought I’d share a little bit of what I’ve done so far - and keep you updated throughout the process.
These thumbnails sketches are the first ones I created for my initial ideas. Lots of these haven’t been taken forward, and others have changed quite a lot along the way, but these quick sketches are really helpful for getting down ideas and having a visual reference of what does and doesn’t work. It also helps me to notice repeating designs that come up on multiple spreads of these sketches - so I know which ideas I really want to take forward.
(You can see the result of one of the sketches above at the end of this post - the one on the right hand page, middle-left, with the primroses in a scalloped oval.)
I’m really enjoying working with patterns at the moment, particularly in the form of decorative borders, so I’ve been incorporating a lot of those in to my designs. I’ve used a couple of lovely books as references to sketch out some ideas before I develop the full design.
I’m using a combination of painted work and digital work for these designs. I generally prefer the effect of the painted versions in real life, but so far haven’t loved the look of them once they’re scanned in (and getting those colours matched is tricky!) so I need to work on that a bit more.
I also find I’m more comfortable with colour when I’m painting, rather than working digitally (the endless possibilities with digital colours can mean I spend far too long tweaking a colour), so I’ve found it quite useful to produce a quick painting first and then develop the design digitally. For some designs I’m creating a painted version and a digital version, and I’ll pick which one to use later on. I’m still working out this part of my process, but I’m enjoying it so far and love how things are starting to come together.
Here’s a sneak peek at a couple of my favourite designs and how they’re looking so far. I’m planning to have these printed on a subtly textured off-white cardstock (and I’m having fun designing the back of the card too!) with a coloured envelope to coordinate with each design.
I’ll share another update soon when I’ve developed a finished set of designs!
Studio Sale
While I work on this new range of products, I’ve opened up my old Etsy shop, rebranded it to Petal & Pencil, and I’m selling some older stock at a discounted price. I’ll also be adding in some original paintings for sale too.
These are just beautiful!