Thank you to all the artists that gave me or sent me cards this year. I was going to post them all in this newsletter but there are way too many of them and if I missed posting someone's card I would feel really bad.
Some day I need to have an exhibit with all the cards that I have been saving over the years. Something I can now do when I finally finish my
gallery.
This year I received so many wonderful cards that it got me thinking about how important cards are to an artist.
Everywhere I went this year when visiting galleries, art exhibits, art fairs or tourist traps I would always come across greeting cards or postcards and I wouldn't think twice about buying some.
When it comes to painting greeting cards there are 2 ways artists go about creating them. They either do a full- size
painting and then scan the original and have the card or postcard printed with that image or the artist paints an original small sketch on the actual card or postcard. I think either way you create a card is well worth it for the artist.
If you have your cards printed from original watercolors it is good for you because you are painting and my students know that to get better at painting you have to paint a lot, and if painting to create cards is making you paint them
paint away. The cards are also great for those people that can't afford original art but would like to have a memory of your work or of a place that is painted on your card.
If you are doing small original cards you are basically sketching like you would when painting in your sketchbook to learn your craft. As I was watching my students this last month paint small watercolor sketches that were going to be donated to the charity, Cards for Kids, I realized those students
were painting with more confidence. I believe they were more confident because of the size and because they were painting many cards and if one didn't turn out as good as the others it didn't matter to them because they had many others that they were happy with.
So I suggest to all my students paint, paint, paint big and small, do it all!
Have a Happy New Year!
David