"Just Paint a Card"

With this e-card, my wife and I wish you a joyful Christmastide. Making this card for our friends reminded me of why I started painting.The card is a joint project with my wife. She created the lovely grapevine wreath earlier this month in a workshop sponsored by master gardeners at our county library. We mounted the wreath on our front porch in the style that locals call “Colonial Williamsburg Christmas,” and she faithfully spritzed its branches of English Holly, Boxwood, and Eastern Cedar, and Magnolia leaves to keep them fresh-looking.

I painted the digital watercolor of the wreath in Rebelle 3 software and added the text in Photoshop Elements 2019.

As I made this card, I was reminded of why I started painting watercolors in the 1980s. In her retirement my mother had taken up her watercolor painting again. Her favorite subject was flowers from her garden or still-life arrangements of the small pitchers and whatnots she collected. She painted many watercolor cards for holidays, friends’ birthdays, or get-well sentiments. I treasure the few that I have.

I started painting watercolors so that I could share a hobby with her. I remember driving to Walmart, buying a cheap watercolor set, and making a disastrous first painting: it was a three-point perspective, bird’s-eye view of a grain elevator. Well, sort of. It was awful, but it was a place to start….

The hobby of painting has been a great blessing during my life. Sometimes, however, I hit a ‘dry’ spell and don’t want to paint anything. Mom once said, “When I’m not motivated to paint, I just paint a card for someone.” That was a good practice for her, and it remains good advice for me.

So, here’s a card. May you have a joyful Christmas season! 

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Thanks for reading!

I hope that you enjoyed this post and that it inspires you to enjoy digital painting. If you find this post helpful, please share it with your friends. And please send me your insights on digital painting and suggestions for Digital Paint Spot.

Bob Kruschwitz