Hello 

I hope you are all having a nice holiday with family and friends or doing whatever you do for the holidays.

I have to admit this year came along so quickly that I didn't get a chance to take in all the wonders of the holidays like I normally do. Since my November birthday and continuing through December I have been receiving loads of greeting cards. As I was looking through those cards this weekend I had come to realize how wonderful they were and not just for what was written in them. Read below for why I think greeting cards are so wonderful.

The sales that have been happening online these last couple of weeks have been amazing. The easel pictured below I purchased from Michaels online for 16.00 dollars and it was shipped to me for free. It was 70% off and then another 20% off the sale price totaling 90% off. Not sure how they can do that, but what a deal.

This week check out all the sale items that many online stores are having, many are trying to sell the rest of this year's inventory. Don't forget eBates.com for rebates on many of the purchases you can get online.
Michaels, Cheap Joes, Dick Blicks, Jerry's Artarama

NO CLASS at the Civic Center Libertyville, Thursday Dec. 28th
NO CLASS at The Antioch Fine Arts Foundation, Thursday Dec. 28th

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