Penny Newman takes us through her card making challenge

Receiving a hand made card is very special. Hopefully Helen Clarke’s beautiful Autumnal and Winter images have inspired you to paint a card that you can give. Or having your own images printed to make cards using one of the many suggested print centres, will enable  you to give one of your own favourite paintings to many lucky members of your family and friends.

But if time is short or you would like to try a different technique or produce a very simple card or even a bookmark why not try one of these ideas.

Make a bookmark or a card using a simple repeated painted design

Simple watercolour flowers were painted allowing the colours to flow with each other. When dry,acrylic posca pens added simple dots as decoration, and then tiny pieces of Easter egg wrapper were screwed up and stuck on to make the centres and offcuts of ribbon added. Well I did say that I was using what I had to hand!

Printing

These cards were made by placing masking tape around the outside of each card. A couple of variegated washes of watercolour were then painted onto the whole surface. When completely dry, garden leaves were dipped into various mixes of creamy green watercolor and then printed to make simple designs.

Collage

Or have some fun – try out different colours, cut the resulting paper up into different shapes and make something new. Bits of ribbon can add interest.

Here, various mixes of red and yellow watercolours were added to dry paper, allowed to dry and the process repeated. This allowed a mix of hard and soft edges. Simple balloon shapes were cut out and stuck onto the folded card, a white acrylic posca pen added dots for detail, and finally, wrapping ribbon was added to make the strings of the balloons.

These are just a few of the simple cards that I have made over the recent period of lockdown when I had to come up with something to give from whatever I had to hand. But sometimes, having limited resources is good – it forces our hand to use whatever  we have in a creative way.

For a professional touch, there is the option of buying pre-folded blank watercolour  cards in different sizes with matching envelopes.  Jackson’s art offers a wide range of sizes and brands of paper, Amazon has a selection as do the SAA, who also offer a card making kit which includes a quality mount so that receivers can display your  art work long after the cards have been taken down.

Why not think about who is next on your card list this year? And use a few bits and pieces that you already have to make a card for them? As always, we would love to see what you produce – and what the recipient thought? Our  Members and Friends Facebook page is the perfect place to post images and show us. We look forward to hearing from you!