Postcard Progress

I've actually been making progress on my postcards for iHanna's Postcard Swap. I've done a little every day, not rushing things or waiting till the last minute, which is completely unlike me. If I'm not careful I may have these sent out this week, barring disaster. Above are some of my early sketches. Here are the final drawings I decided on. I wanted to do them in different styles, so some are pen and ink, some water-soluble graphite pencil (love that!), some very minimalist line drawings, and of course the colorful birds are in watercolor. Oh, there's also a wren card made with some hand-carved stamps, but I didn't take a picture of that one yet. My creative process in action, i.e. spread everything out and see what ends up next to each other.

Cutting out crows.

Starting to put things together. I know most people begin by painting backgrounds, and sometimes I do that too, but but for these I wasn't sure what the birds would end up looking like, so I wanted to do them first and then see what sorts of backgrounds would suit them. Some are simple watercolor washes, stamped or not, some have little paintings or drawings, and a couple will have decorative papers for backings. Then I'll add previously-painted watercolor scraps or stickers or rub-ons, whatever seems appropriate. I would have finished some of them today, but discovered that there was only about two inches left in my glue runner, and some of the thinner papers really need a dry adhesive. At least I'm still ahead of the game so far.