Greeting Cards

Two of my latest greeting cards for personal use. I love being able to do this for friends and family. This style is something I've seen and admired on Facebook and Pinterest and it's fairly easy to do. In this case I used Yupo rather than paper so there would be no buckling. I laid down a layer of indigo fluid acrylic with a sponge roller. When it was dry several small stencils and a few homemade stamps were used to cover the entire surface with patterns using 3-4 harmonious colors of fluid acrylic. I used white chalk to outline my subjects and filled in the surrounding areas with more acrylic, this time in a solid color. After the basic designs were in place I went back in to tweak and clean up. Voila!

Frame Cards

My latest acrylic painting. No title yet but I was in the mood for tulips. Wait! There's the title!

I'm trying something new at the moment. Paintings don't seem to be moving this summer at the gallery but card sales are up. The trouble is there is not as much profit to be had so I need to get creative in more ways than one. I recently ordered a box of frame cards w/envelopes from Clearbags  and I'm working on more 5" x 7" paintings to frame in these little cards. They look quite nice when completed. Now we'll see if folks are willing to pay $20 for a card with an original piece of artwork  included. I have some customized stickers I ordered from Zazzle last year that I will apply to the back of the cards to personalize them even more. 

Back to the Inks

Red I

Red II

Red III

I made a trip to the gallery recently to drop off 50 greeting cards to sell. Moo.com was having their 20% sale last month so I had a collection of my favorite cat paintings made into cards. Moo does an amazing job and their quality is superb. I did a review a few years ago on their cards if anyone would care to read it. FYI, even though I think their greeting cards are an odd size, Clearbags carries an acetate sleeve (B46) that fits them perfectly. Another FYI...Moo is currently running a 25% sale which ends midnight Nov. 10th. But I digress....

While I was at the gallery I was asked to produce more ink paintings and other small works. They've proven to be quite popular. I love creating small works. Anything in the 5"x7" range or thereabouts. They go fast and I can try out all sorts of ideas without ruining reams of expensive paper if an idea fails. I've been working on some free form alcohol ink paintings and I just completed a small series focusing on the color red which I'd like to share. These were scanned so the colors are a bit off but not too bad. 

Moo.com Greeting Cards~Product Review

I was saddened to discover Imagekind no longer offers greeting cards so I decided to try Moo.com . I received my first order today and am pleased to report the quality is excellent. All pertinent information regarding the paper quality, dimensions of the cards, etc. is readily available on the site however I'd like to add my own list of pros and cons:

Pros

• Quality of the images on the cards is excellent, colors true to life.

• Each card comes with a standard white envelope or you can chose from an alternative assortment at extra cost.

• Images are easily uploaded to the site, extra large files are not required.

• Moo offers an image editing and preview feature so the customer has more control over any cropping that may occur.

• Regular cost is very reasonable. Moo.com is currently running a 25% off sale on all printed products which unfortunately ends today.

• Moo requires a minimum order of 25 cards but the customer can include more than one image in the 25 cards.

• Moo allows the customer to remove their logo from the back of the cards and replace it with their own or any text or image they chose.

• Customer service is great. I emailed Moo twice with questions and they got back to me in a very timely manner.

_________________________Cons________________________

• The cards are an odd size, smaller than a standard 5" x 7" greeting card and slightly larger than a notecard. I like to present my cards in an acetate sleeve and was unable to find a sleeve that would fit these cards correctly. I had to order 5" x 7" sleeves from another source and will have to make some adjustments with tape.

• When creating your cards using multiple images per batch of 25 it's not possible to edit the back of each card so including separate titles for each image is not possible.