Card #1 – The Fox

Remember how one of my goals for this year was to get 5 cards online for sale? Well here comes card design number 1 that I am very proud of, I have to say. I think for using rather unprofessional tools to get to this final piece of art, it is one of my favourite ones I have ever done.

Here is how I used to go about my card-making business. Select an animal that I felt particularly drawn to that year, research, doodle and sketch the subject until it clicked in my head (so basically about 100 drawings later, as I am not claiming I am Picasso when it comes to drawing. On the contrary!) and I found my style for that particular animal. Then on to electing the most precious of all pens that will get me through hand-drawing all cards for family and friends.
It may sound silly but up until last year it didn’t occur to me that people who also draw and sell cards must somehow get their creations onto computers to then be able to print one design more than once. Not sure where that blockage came from, but I had the epiphany in the end. As it just so happened, I took some online courses to get a better understanding of some basics of graphic design. One of the courses was all about image-making where the basis for the above beauty was made.

The countryside in Wales with autumn leaves all around inspired me to choose the fox for 2016. I sketched and glued and collaged after tons of research and, boom, here he was (yes, it’s a he) , staring at me. I don’t think I could ever reproduce this, to be honest, so the paper was stowed away preciously.

Until the day, our printer/scanner and all around wonder machine arrived. On a side note, isn’t it amazing what you can get these days? I remember when Canon printers and Dell computers didn’t want to collaborate… Anyways, this is the brilliant all-in-one card-making engine that I chose: Epson Expression Photo XP-760 All-in-One Printer. It is a brilliant little thing and has all sorts of hidden compartments to stick paper into in various sizes. Also, it scans with 600dpi! You laugh, but considering that the last scanner/printer I had was when Dell computers were still the ones… I should mention that I also got it from Amazon a bit cheaper; I believe it may have been the Black Friday weekend.

You should have seen my face when I had my drawings scanned and up on my screen. The good old trusted Photoshop did the rest; well I did with my limited skills. Before you say anything, I know Photoshop is not the tool for this, usually, but I don’t currently know anything else and I know how to get done what I want to get done with it. Et voilà, above is the final result. Whoever got this first specimen for Christmas, consider yourself lucky!

You may have noticed that this blog is very simple. I will develop it as I go along, and this card/design will be available for sale soon (I hear Christmas is a recurring event). Just got to figure out some other logistics that go into this digital card-making business.

For the record, one of my Christmas presents was an Adobe Illustrator course, which I was told is the right tool. It can only get better from here, right?

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