Birthday wishes from a cat looking over a fence
8. May 2023
I created this card in April 2021. It is important to me because it is one my first original card designs. Up to this point my cards were mostly based on images by Johanna Basford.
The idea for the design was born during an online drawing course taught by Ulrike Selders. Ulrike showed us how to create loose line drawings of cats and color them with watercolor. In preparation for the class I searched Unsplash for photos of cats that resonated with me.
When I saw the photo by Manja Vitolic on Unsplash, I knew that it had a lot of potential.
The original card was not all flat. The sign was a separate piece of card stock that I had fixed it with a string to the card front. One of the reasons for this design was that I worried about messing up the card if I made a mistake when I wrote the sentiment. With the sentiment on a separate piece of card stock, I could relax and take as many shots at it as I needed.
There is a second reason why this card is special to me. It was a gift to a relative, who at first thought that my husband and I had bought the card. Her misconception convinced me that my paintings were good enough to share them with a wider audience. In the weeks after this event, I decided to create this website to share my ideas and creations.