Here we have another Christmas card design – for a client this time. (Yes, it's rather early, but they do recommend that international Christmas mail be sent by the end of October)
I was given absolute free reign as to the design itself, so since I have some splendid fairy wrens to do shortly, I thought I'd practice plump birds by putting a scarlet robin (native to south western and south eastern Australia) on the cards.
Here's the original sketch. This is heavily influenced by the fairy wrens I did on some wedding invitations last year, as I like the way the flat black branches contrast the fat little birds.
It came out looking quite Japanese in style, so I added a faint fan pattern behind, using a texture from here. I'm not quite sure if I like the effect; I may remove it later.
When I turn these into cards there will be gold glitter on the bands of the bauble (hence my deciding to preserve my sanity a little by simplifying the bauble design =P)
Adobe Photoshop CS4 with a Wacom Intuos 3, somewhere in the region of three to three and a half hours.
Three and a half hours is what I call supernaturally fast! 0_0
ReplyDeleteNOOOOOO I don't believe it, I was marking this bird down today to add to the revamped book! This is an amazing Christmas card, the bird harmonizes so beautifully with the ornament. Love the subtle detail of having them both overlap the frame, too. I decided to make Christmas cards again this year and they're going to be calligraphy-based... Perhaps we can exchange cards this year? :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Niroot. For some reason I can churn out fat little birds far faster than anything else – and to be fair, I did swipe the bauble from last year's Christmas cards, which I in turn swiped from a previous project. =P
ReplyDeleteOh Jourmana, that's bizarre! We seem to be on the same wavelength! I really like how this came out (and now everyone in the house is so jealous I may have to rethink the card I designed for this year. =P I'm going to do some test runs and see what they look like finished. I think I may have a slight obsession with things overlapping frames....
Oh, we definitely should exchange cards. Christmas cards are wonderful things. ^.^