Bunnies in Stocking Caps and Mittens

What a beautiful time we had spending 3 great weeks of the summer in the small mining town of Ely, Nevada. This was our 4th year in a row taking time for what I call my "art sabbatical" and living in our camper.   I have gotten a lot of art accomplished while I’ve was enjoying the cooler temperatures that the higher altitude affords.

One of my biggest projects in the first week was the creation of 10 new designs that I have used to make my Christmas cards for 2019.  I had to create each piece of art that I used and then come up with the designs.  I so appreciated all the feed back I received from my followers on my Facebook Studio Page.  The ladies were so encouraging and shared their valuable opinions as I was coming up with each design. 

One set is called “Barnyard Country Christmas” and the second is “Gingham Country Christmas”.   Besides the 2 sets of cards I also created to fine art prints that can be framed and displayed on the wall to bring a smile to all your holiday guests.   They all turned out super cute but I will just let the images speak for themselves.

You can place a order on either my Website or on my Etsy Shop-Barnyard Christmas & Etsy Shop-Gingham Christmas.

 Barnyard Country Christmas 

all 5 designs included in the set

8 x 10 print matted to 11 x 14- perfect to add as a holiday focal to any wall

 Gingham Country Christmas 

all 5 designs included in the set

 

8 x 10 print matted to 11 x 14- perfect to add as a holiday focal to any wall

In LOVE with Plaid

I have always loved a plaid design.  I have fond memories of dressing my sweet baby boys in little plaid flannel shirts, jeans and little high top faux work boots.  Cutest thing ever.  So it is just natural for me to LOVE this BUFFALO PLAID decorating style.  The sharp contrast found of the black and white plaid bows, table runners and pillows just makes me so happy!

It is natural for me then to want to bring that same happiness to a design art prints and note cards that I have been working on for sometime.  To me a set naturally consists of 4 designs so while I had two of the designs created a while back, I still needed to work out a 2 more ideas.

I wrote a blog post back in June showing 2 new pen and ink sketches that I had recently finished and how I was going to take those sketches and with the aid of Photoshop Element turn them into the 3rd and 4th design I needed to make a set that I'm calling "Country Plaid".  I finished that project and I thought you might want to see the end results.  I am very happy with how they have turned out and the whole set is available on my Etsy Shop as either prints, magnets or blank note cards.  You can either click the tab above you use this to get to my shop.  Country Plaid Note Cards on ETSY

First, let me just repost the sketches as they appeared in my sketchbook and then I can talk about what I did to come up with these new designs.

There are a lot of people who love cardinals and since I already had a chickadee gracing the front of one of the cards, it was natural in my mind to include a second bird in the set.  I drew this cardinal with a seed in his mouth.  Sunflowers were also a theme in the first 2 cards so I decided to just to create then a another detailed sunflower sketch that I could use.  Again, the way my brain works, I had a mouse design so why not bring in a 2nd mouse?  I had the perfect drawing in mind.  I call him my "peeking mouse" and I have used him on lots of other occasions.

NOW it's HOCKUS POCUS, CLIPPITY CLOP...Work your magic oh mighty PHOTOSHOP!  

I sometime feel that it is magic for me to be able to edit my artwork in such a way that I can completely create such diverse compositions using the same drawing.  It NEVER gets old!

The finished set of "Country Plaid Note Cards"