Merry Christmas to you! For this year's family Christmas card I tried to digitize for the first time and put it over a family picture we took at Lake Tahoe. Since I didn't have Photoshop or Illustrator, my techie husband suggested I try an open sourced software called GIMP. Since I am by no means a graphic designer, it was pretty tricky for me to figure out - thank goodness for youtube tutorials! It took many tries to get it right; I almost gave up. In the end it worked out pretty well, and I even added some Santa hats!
Also, I couldn't decide on one color for envelopes, so I picked three! I wanted to try mixing and writing with gouache, so I used a dark green on light green envelopes and used our new address stamp. I don't know if it's because I bought cheap gouache, but it was really tricky for me to write with. Now I have to buy some nice gouache to find out the answer. This is why they say you should buy good materials even just for practicing! Oh well, the envelopes still looked nice.
I also decided to use white ink on green and red envelopes. I was really digging the green, but there really is something breathtaking about white on red.
Getting these envelopes addressed took a lot longer than I had planned. Our family kept getting sick and it was hard to find extra time when I just didn't want to zone out or take a nap. Can I share some personal thoughts? Ever since I started this calligraphy thing it's been really tempting to want to start my own business. Maybe it's because I live in Silicon Valley, or maybe it's just our American capitalistic culture, but it's really common for people to ask why I haven't started my own business yet and make some money off of it. It's also easy to feel that if I don't say yes to every opportunity now, I might lose my chance. Of course I take it as a compliment that people think I'm talented enough, but I also started doing calligraphy for the sheer joy of it. Anyway, trying to get these Christmas cards addressed really confirmed to me that as tempting as it is, I am in no place right now to be starting a business. Maybe someday I will, but right now I am up to my exhausted eyeballs taking care of my kids and family and I don't want to get myself into situations where I'm staying up late to fill calligraphy orders when I barely have enough bandwitdth to begin with. It can be hard to be where you are and not rush things, but I'm trusting God that when the timing is right, opportunity can reappear.
Nib: Brause 66EF
Ink: cheap gouache (you don't wanna know), Dr. Ph Martin's Pen White
Envelopes: Paper Source (mint, clover, red)