With this inspiration, I drew up a quickly scribbled concept drawing. This little sketch was very rough, but I has happy with the shape of the birds which came from such a quick and loose drawing. I have learned from my partner Charles (who is a professional Concept Artist) that often, the most powerful images come from the quickest sketches. The more a drawing is replicated and pushed, it can become less free and compelling. So, I kept the rough little sketch tucked safely away until I had time to make something more of it.
When it was time, I scanned in my quick little drawing, and traced over it with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. This became my template with which to make up some little birds. I printed out a few of my bird line drawings. I printed a few of these little bird drawings out, and used them to cut out collage pieces for my birds. Using all sorts of scraps - fabric, paper, linen-backed wallpaper - I cut the shapes out using my template. I lightly glued all my little cut pieces to a piece of white paper, and when I was happy with the composition I scanned them into Adobe Photoshop, where I touched up any small details and sized the image.
Once my image was ready, I saved my photoshop file into a .tif and placed it in Illustrator. I do this because I despise working with typography in Photoshop - I find Illustrator is much better for this kind of work. In Illustrator I then made and added the 1, 2, 3 numbers and the copy, going back to slightly tweak the background image in Photoshop a couple of times until it worked out best for the space. The typefaces I used are Mrs. Eaves and Engravers.
Then, using my old (Canon Pixma iP4200) desktop printer, printed them out onto this wonderful heavy, linen-canvas paper which I had picked up on sale. Once printed, I trimmed them down using a sharp new xacto blade and metal ruler on a cutting mat, and rounded the corners using my corner rounder.
One thing that I have always been meaning to do for years is to make a thank you card at the same time as making other cards. It is so easy to just put them off (and never, ashamedly, get around to doing) but I am really happy that this time I just pushed myself to get some thank-you's done at the same time. It feels great to already have them, all ready to go!
When I showed Adelaide the finished cards, she kept hugging and kissing them! She loves these little cards so much, that she has been sleeping with them, too!
I really enjoy making things for my daughter - putting a little bit of myself and my love and time my time into handmade things for her. Such as yearly birthday party invitations - partly because I know that I will have them to save for her forever. She really doesn't need any other presents - this is my gift to her.
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