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Christmas Radio’s playing on Pandora, drinking a nice cup of hot coco, doodling snow flakes, reindeers and elves …‘tis that time of the year again! At the studio at least. Lately I’ve been in complete holiday mode busy preparing for the season rush. Having a ton of fun creating illustrations and design ideas, but what I’m mostly excited about is that a lot of this years cards are predominantly inspired by Parols (traditional Filipino Christmas lanterns).

Growing up I’ve always been fascinated with Christmas Parols. I love everything about them, from the various types of designs, their intricate details, to the scent of baked ube in which I’ve somehow associated them with. Traditionally Parols have two components, the five pointed star and a pair of tails to represent rays of light (think shooting star) which symbolizes the star of Bethlehem that guided the Three Wise Men on their journey. Above is a sneak peek look at this years Parol inspired cards. More updates on this in the weeks ahead!

Happy Thursday!

With times being so hard for illustrators right now, I’m always impressed and encouraged to see fellow commercial artists come with with new ideas to keep themselves busy and keep revenue flowing. Like illustrator friends here in BC, Doug Jones and Fiona Richards, who started a smart little side business called Cartolina, selling stationery featuring “centuries old block prints and antique cartouches, combined with twentieth century lead type, contemporary colours and our own original illustrations.”

And it’s not just paper cards; they also have an accompanying iPhone app which is really quite delightful and brings a whole new spin on doing e-cards:

This app is all about sending brief but beautiful emails and texts using one of our customizable Cartograms. Choose from a selection of beautiful designs, customize your message and pretty up someone’s inbox! Includes an integrated calendar which sends you automatic reminders.

I attempted getting into the stationery business years ago, and it was harsh. It’s hard work to carve out a spot for yourself in an industry dominated by two or three giant aggressive companies, so I’m glad to see Fiona and Doug making a go of it and being successful.

Posted by Luc Latulippe on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags: BC, Business, cards, greeting cards, Illustration, Nelson, stationery

A batch of samples of greeting cards I did came in the mail recently. You may recognize some of them (Boss’s Day and the animals) as I posted bits and pieces here on my blog. Only one of these was from an idea I had submitted, the rest are my illustrations of concepts they commissioned. [...]

They go together well, doncha think? Some samples of greeting cards I illustrated for RSVP came in the mail a few weeks ago. The one below is for Mother’s Day (Duh!) I didn’t concept or write these; just did the drawings.

Yayers. The Love Es Strange critters is finally complete! 12 Sets of critties! One for every month of the year! If you collect them all you can tell your special weird one how Love Es Strange with a different set of critters every month.

I've been away ... but before I left I managed to squeeze in some work on text designs so am putting two of them up here for Valentine's Day. Am now madly catching up on other jobs, and will post more customer request text designs within the next couple of days before I begin on another project and as that involves drawing, I'll be getting the coloured pencils out soon too. Cheers!

Yes Heart cards and products are up on Floating Lemons Typography at Zazzle

Love Heart cards and products are up on Floating Lemons Typography at Zazzle

• Card terends: research, seasonal cards, occasional cards, and publishers
• What subject areas and categories to focus on, how to stay organized
• Test marketing your cards and card verse.
• Seven most common mistake card writers will make
• Why competition in the card business is vastly over-estimated

Listen to the PodCast!

Yesterday I delivered some new greeting cards to a local shop who carries my art and knitting (A Cottage Affair on Fair Oaks Blvd in Lyon Village, Sacramento, CA.).

I needed to box them up, or something. So I decided to be stylish and pulled out one of my cool Edwardian hat box cases (which I bought at Hold Everything, ages ago.)



I managed to carefully squish them all in, just. The little pocket in the lid was perfect for the notecards. Yay!


Here they are, unsquished a bit. There are several dozen all totalled, of all different designs.



I thought I'd share a little bit about how I make my cards. The ways to make a greeting card are endless of course. There are whole books written about making cards, for goodness sakes!
But the most basic elements of a traditional one-fold, image on front card are the same. You can go to town embellishing and having fun. But here's what I do for my most simple ones.

First I get some card stock with matching envelopes. I often buy these in bulk from a crafts store (Michaels, JoAnns, Beverlys, etc.). I also like to use Strathmore's special cardstock which comes in a variety of sizes and styles (some with a deckled edge, some notecard size, some with a colored edge, etc.) You can also make your own out of any kind of paper, of course. You can also buy envelopes (or make them if you're really industrious.)

This is a pack of ivory colored basic 5 x 7 card stock with the fold already scored, and matching envelopes.


You'll also need some supplies: mat knife, tape, a burnishing tool...


I love this tape they make now for scrapbooking that comes on a roller. You can get permanent, repositionable, archival, refillable, etc. It just depends on what you want.


You also need your images! I do sometimes print my images directly onto good card stock, but I've found that a lot of my work looks better printed on glossy photo paper. So I usually print up a bunch of images on that (at the right size ~ somewhat smaller than the 5 x 7 card size, or whatever) and then cut them out and tape them neatly and cleanly to the front of the card.
No jaggedy edges or scuffed image or crooked taping is allowed! It has to be PERFECT.


Then there's the back side. You always want to put your name or contact information on there somehow (at least I do). And maybe the title of the art, your copyright notice, company name, whatever you think is important.
Sometimes, if I'm doing a really small amount of cards, I'll set up a file in Photoshop and print the back side of each card. But doing it this way is very time consuming, because you have to feed each card through the printer one, at, a, time. (Same thing goes if you're printing the image directly onto the card stock.) It can make you crazy, especially if you have a big order. BUT. If you're doing something special, and its the only way to do it right, you just have to do it.


What I usually do for the backs now is print up a sheet of labels, and use one of those on the back. I love these ~ Avery #8667. They're small, and CLEAR, so if you burnish them down onto the card, they kind of disappear. They work well if you have colored card stock and don't want to stick a big white label on the back (tacky).
I just format them in Word (Office), its super easy. You can fuss with the typeface, make them be in color, whatever.


Then I always put my cards in a plastic bag. It keeps your card clean and protected and looks soooo much more professional.


Clear Bags makes about a jillion different kinds of bags for everything you can think of. There are probably other places to get them, but I've always used Clear Bags and have always been happy with them.


I also print up a page of "Card Inside" blurbs. I do a lot of blank cards, but sometimes there are "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hannukah" ones or whatever. When you have the card sealed in a bag, the buyer can't open it up to see what it says inside. So you have to put a little note with it. I just cut these up and pop one in the bag with the card, on the back side.


So here's what one looks like all packaged up.
Front ~


And back ~


And that's it!
It always takes way more time to put these together than I think it will. Even though I know that, I still think I'm going to just whip 'em out. And I don't. You have to print out the images, cut them, adhere them to the card stock, fold the card stock and press the edge with the burnisher to get a nice crease, print out the labels for the backs and then stick them on, then put them in bags with the 'inside message' blurb, and seal them up. It can get very tedious.
I'm just saying.

It does help to have studio mates to keep you company and cheer you on ~

These gorgeous flowers are springing up all over the place, so imagine my delight when I found bunches growing in my front garden! I have them in white as well but these purple irises are just so wonderfully vibrant that I had to draw one of course, so went out with my trusty little camera and took tons of pics. I haven't done it justice but here's the result.

Purple Iris cards and products at zazzle

These gorgeous flowers are springing up all over the place, so imagine my delight when I found bunches growing in my front garden! I have them in white as well but these purple irises are just so wonderfully vibrant that I had to draw one of course, so went out with my trusty little camera and took tons of pics. I haven't done it justice but here's the result.

Purple Iris cards and products at zazzle

I know I posted this before, but it's timely. Spring has already sprung here, so this is for the snowbound. Nature has an instinct for spring. The caption reads: "God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform."�William Cowper

Someone's feeling a bit neglected this week. I'm busy working on some greeting cards and a promotional mailer. I took him for a 3 mile walk, played with him after, and cuddled him a bit. Apparently, that's not enough this week. He's feeling needy. It's like having another child. He wants to sit in my lap while I work just like Josh used to.

My Christmas vacation time is rapidly coming to a close - we'll start back to schooling stuff next week (ish). We always start back light at first.

I had high hopes for this book - sounds perfect. However, only some of the information has been helpful. I like the personal profiles of some of the illustrators. But, a lot of it seems like "common sense" and I don't really benefit from the drawing and painting how-to's.

The great Richard Thompson reports on his blog that today is Ludwig's birthday. While rummaging through some of my things, I found this card given to me by my wife's aunt, Jan. I previously posted about these cards here. This is an unique birthday card because it is not telling anyone Happy Birthday, other than Beethoven and the card is celebrating his 200th birthday, which means the card was

October was my brother's favorite month, which makes my life especially stressful right now. I think the most upsetting thing is that I recently read his journal, and last October he wondered what this October would bring. I think about him so much, and not being able to talk with him is not getting any easier. So I've decided that, to distract myself, I need to work ... a lot. I'm not sure if distraction is good or bad, but it creates art that I can license, so there is a pro. I've been able to on average create one image per day this past week, so that's quite a bit of work nowadays.

As I've previously said, I decided to go with a birthday or party theme with similar poses but different animals. I really don't have many birthday or party-themed images for licensing, so I decided to start there. I'd love your opinion - which is your favorite? 

The black cat I could not help but to make a Halloween theme! Here's a close up, and I really like this one:

I've discovered a sort of glitter-effect brush, and used that for the eyes and nose. In college they called me "Glitter Girl" because I always used glitter in about all of my art projects. So figure it's about time I learn how to create the same look digitally ... Oh joy!

I can't believe it is October 20th. Halloween is around the corner, and a few days after that, the much-anticipated results of the election. I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to wonder what the news stations will have left to cover after this election is over. It seems that's the topic of absolutely everything lately! I really don't recall a race this intensely covered in the past, but then again, I was still in high school at the beginning of Clinton's last term.

Well, I guess I about covered everything today ... art, Halloween, life, and even some politics. Thanks for dropping by - I hope you all have a great week!

For those interested in creating and selling greeting cards, I’ve launched Whimsy: The Greeting Card Industry Information Source. I’ll be posting industry news, interviews, resource links and tips.

I've got several things I'm working on presently, and this greeting card is one of them. What you see is just the top half of the illustrated copy on the rough, so the colors aren't added or flushed out yet. I have decided, though, that the background will be a bright green/yellow. The above copy will be laying on top of. The card category is "everyday/encouragement". Not for children, though, as the inside copy says something about having margaritas!