Christmas Card Design

Every year my mom commissions me to create a design for their Christmas cards. Last year, it was "Little Drummer Boy" themed, in memory of my grandfather who passed away in 1996. This past Christmas season, my mom wanted an angel theme, in memory of my grandma who passed away in July 2017. Because my grandma lived with my parents, the last few years the Christmas cards have been signed by my parents, my brother, and my grandma - this would be the first Christmas since my grandma moved in with them in 2014 that the cards were coming from only my parents and brother again.

My mom wanted the front of the cards to say "Gloria in Excelsis Deo," with a verse from that Christmas hymn on the inside of the card.

I already had various inks and markers out from a previous art project (which I'll make a blog post about next!), so because I had those materials already on hand, I appropriated them for this Christmas card as well. I used black India ink, and high pigment blue and purple inks to start the design:

I then added some metallic gold ink. Once that was dry, I added more details with black Sharpie.

Then, I scanned in this mini-painting I'd created, resized it to fit on a card, and faded it into a lighter background. I reincorporated some of the abstract background swirls in the upper right corner of the design, as well.

I used Adobe Illustrator to add in the text and set it up to print as notecards.

Here is the inside of the card, and the back of the card:

I printed all of the cards for them as I print my typical art notecards. Then, I printed address labels, stuffed envelopes, labeled them, stamped them, and mailed them out in early/mid-December.

I can create custom holiday cards for your family, too! Email me at afrownfe@gmail.com for pricing and other information.