Christmas Cards

I've recently rediscovered the delights of linocuts. So this year I've decided to have a go at printing the family Christmas card instead of using the photocopier. I knew I wanted to do a bird, but was having problems making it in the style of my previous designs. Most things come with trial and error, so when my inspiration finally came I sketched my design with a pencil straight onto the lino's surface and began to cut. I printed the result onto bright card using a two colour ink fade then hung them up to dry. This took about 2 days, after which I cut, scored and folded each one. Finally, I tucked my message into a slit in the beak. 
Looking at the birds together I think I'm most pleased with the variation and folksy look of them.
For those of you who are interested in linocutting, I used a relatively new material which comes from Japan. It doesn't bow like lino, it's easy to cut and it takes the ink exceptionally well. I found it at Intaglio.
Season's greetings to you all!

Greeting Card Animals

The advent of spring is upon us and winter is nearly gone, so forgive me for being unseasonal here in showing my last two years' Christmas cards. The Reindeer and the Polar bear + baby are the result of a long term project I've been working on for years now. 
My aim is to design 3D paper animals that can easily be cut out and folded, yet involve no sticking. These Christmas card designs differed from the ones in the pipeline, as they needed to fit into an envelope for easy posting.

Polar bear Christmas 2009

Baby bear was designed for the recipient to cut out and fold for themselves.

Reindeer Christmas 2008

All artwork was designed to fit onto one piece of A4 120gsm white photocopy paper, (which included the greeting) and was printed off on the home printer.

More 3D sculptural animals are currently in production.