A Blessing on Your Bike

Up at 4, can't sleep. The drawing board.

The design was thumbnailed weeks ago.

The digital sketch done days ago. (I love being able to lay out the sketch in PhotoShop. I used to use layers of tracing paper to adjust a drawing but PS refines faster.)

Now to paint.

I was nervous about this painting. My experience is with little light designs; my intention here was to paint with gouache, heavy coverage. To ensure I painted heavily I used watercolor paper that already had a coverage of paint on it (an earlier, unsuccessful project.)

Still looking at Chagal and a few children's books for illustration inspiration.

Somehow things don't feel complete without calligraphy so I did the calligraphy on a separate paper and overlaid it in PhotoShop.

This painting is now printed on a little gift card (2.5 x 3.5 inches). I was worried that the greens would print muddy in CMYK but the print operator let me work with him while it was on press. He did a great job and it came out well.

Send me a note and I'll mail one to you FREE.