greeting cards - alissa duke

Very early in September I started drawing my next range of greeting cards, which would include some Christmas cards and also some drawn of the Supreme Court of Victoria and its architectural features. In hindsight I should have started a lot earlier as I have felt a bit of pressure to get these done to be ready for the Christmas season.

I am going to take you on the journey from an idea sketch to the printed card that can be purchased in stores. I am using my Koala and Gumnut Blossoms as an example.

After deciding to draw Australian animals on Christmas card I had the ‘lightbulb’ moment of including red and green in the gumnut blossoms. The design grew from there,

I decided on five new cards and had the final drawings completed in watercolour pencil on A4 watercolour paper by the end of September.

At the same time I reordered some of my previous card designs as stocks were getting low and Christmas is coming up and I have a stall at a big market at Etsy Made Local Melbourne in late November. Before sending my order to the local printing company for my new designs to be scanned and cards printed , I had to decide how many to print of each. I was very fortunate to have two of local stockists Law Institute of Victoria bookshop and Paperpoint stationery preorder 10 of some of my cards, including the Christmas koala and possum. I decided on 70 of each . Altogether I ordered 500 cards.

I dropped my originals off to the printer on 25 September and received the cards on 18 October. The timeframe was so long because I had received one set of hardcopy proofs to approve but I wanted to change the colour balance on some of them. I was then sent another set of hardcopy proofs which I approved . Hence the delay.

In the meantime I ordered 500 envelopes from my usual local stationery store and 500 cello bags to put each card in.

Saturday afternoon on my lounge chair’

Top Row : cello bags, cards, envelopes

Bottom Row: cards in cello bags with envelopes, strips from cello bags .

(hint learned from google searching. Put stickytape sticky side up on put cello strips on this. Otherwise they are full of static and stick to everything and anything . This keeps them in one place. )

They took all afternoon to package. But it was a nice way to occupy a chilly Melbourne Saturday afternoon.

Today, Sunday, I took some very basic photographs so that I could put my greeting cards for sale on my Etsy online store. This also involves writing descriptions and choosing keyword tags. I will need to take better photographs to showcase the cards. But the aim today was just to get them up online.

When I am not sketching I am drawing. Over the past nine years that I have been sketching almost daily in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbooks ( I am sketching in my 71st at the moment). More recently I have become involved in other sketching projects that are not recorded in my sketchbook. They involve drawing on loose sheets of paper. This change in my habits and time spent putting pencil to paper requires an entire blogpost of its own.

Today’s blog shows what I have been working on over the last month. I plan to have a new range of greeting cards printed in October. There will be five or six. Two are Australian animals which can be given at Christmas, but also used throughout the year.

Taken at angle . This card will be in landscape format . This is what he looks like now. Needs a bit more work

Here is my possum with gumnut leaves and blossoms. He is not finished yet, as I still need to add his little claws, finish the blossoms and add a bit more depth to the leaves. We have a few difference species of possums in Australia. They are not all this cute, and anyone who has one living in their roof will not think possums are cute at all !

These photos were taken with my camera, when I remembered. Hence, the strange angles and shadows on the paper. I will show you the finished drawing and cards when he returns from the printers.

And here is how he came into being. Last year I had comments asking for Australian drawings. I have a cute squirrel, and Plum Pudding and Mince Pies, but nothing Australian. I originally planned the two cards as Christmas cards, I wanted something Christmassy in the drawing, but wanted to avoid putting Santa hats on them. I also thought about the red and green Australian flora we have .