Christmas card commission

 This is work not related to the course, but is part of what I’m making at the moment. 

I’ve been making my own cards for about 16 or 17 years. Initially I used to make every single Christmas card with collage and purchased or home made embellishments. It took a LOT of time. In more recent years I’ve done a single design and then either had cards printed or printed them myself. 

I settled down one day in November and drew this year’s design. I did a bit of Google images searching for ideas on how to draw an angel, then just sat and drew. I then took it into Photoshop to redraw the word ‘Peace’ as it had become a bit blurred with the dark greens of the grass. I also redefined the angel’s mouth as it had come somewhat adrift of the face! Other than these small adjustments the design was simply an ink outline coloured with a number of layers of coloured pencil. 

I thought I’d finished with designing Christmas cards for 2021, then I received an email from Penny, one of the Guardians of the Community of Aidan and Hilda, asking me if I would design the Christmas card for the Community Guardians to email out to all members and friends of the Community, so maybe 400-500 people. Penny had already written some words for the card so my task was to respond visually to what she had written. 

This was quite a challenge, because Penny’s beautiful words called forth an image in my mind that I then struggled to bring to birth. Here are her words:

 The gift of love made visible

There is none too young, too small, too weak, too old

to receive this gift of love.

 

There is none too great, too rich, with too much power

to stoop and receive this gift of love

 

There is none too cold, too wrong, too far away

to receive this gift of love.

 

May you know blessing and peace this Christmas

(Warren, P, 2021, via email.)

I wanted to draw a variation on a Nativity scene. The one with too much power who needs to “stoop to receive this gift of love” is suggestive of the wise men/kings of the story as told in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt 2:1-12). I had the idea of the toddler Jesus (given the historical markers included by the Gospel writers it’s most internally coherent to suppose that the Magi didn’t arrive on the scene until a year or two after Jesus’ birth) with arms open wide, welcoming those described in Penny’s words. But how to draw it?

I began with images of toddlers sitting with their arms outstretched. I used elements of three images to create my own toddler line drawing, then used coloured pencil to colour the boy and create a background. At this point a lot of swirling lines appeared, encompassing the child. I didn’t plan to draw these and was a bit perplexed at their appearance as it made me wonder how I could on with my idea about those gathered around. 

I took the drawing into Photoshop and, with various layers, I added blue line drawings of five people, which I intended as representations of the people in Penny’s words. I then added more layers working on the image as a whole, and added the words of greeting in the bottom right hand corner. 

I wasn’t happy with it. I spent a lot of time and effort getting to this point, only to realise that the image didn’t work, and what I had in my head I hadn’t been able to translate onto the page. I sent it to Penny along with an alternative option and asked for her to decide. She came back to me very positively about the idea for this image and suggested that it might work better with a less realistic baby. This was exactly the advice I needed and I had a renewed vision and excitement for the card. 

I’d kept all the layers open in Photoshop in case any changes were needed, however the toddler image was right on the bottom layer along with all the swirly bits I wanted to keep. I created yet more layers, reintroducing my original ink line drawing of the toddler, and painting out the realistic one. I found that I needed several layers in order to apply different colours into the white space I’d created by rubbing out the realistic baby, and that I needed to reduce their opacity to blend them. The image started to glow, as if I’d painted it with a series of glazes. I then added very simple, almost transparent, colour to the toddler and halo. I had to restack the layers so that the blue people would stay on top. Finally I changed the colour of the text to complement the child’s clothing. 

I’m really pleased with how it turned out. It’s a very different way of working for me, juggling so many layers and working almost entirely in digital. It doesn’t entirely look like my work in the way that my personal Christmas card does. I’m excited by this and I want to pursue this way of working into other images when the opportunity arises.