GREETING CARD - HAPPIEST TIME
This card
describes my personal sentiments but those sentiments are significant for
everyone of us. We all remember our happiest time in our lives when we were happy,
young, careless, when we thought that world will be the perfect place to fulfill
our dreams and we all want to cherish those memories deep inside and to carry
them trough whole life.
Keywords: Retro,
vintage, photography, travelling, beautiful landscapes, catching moments, enjoy,
freedom, careless, happiness, relaxing, memories
I listed what I
could use in working process, I wrote down whatever crossed my mind
Thumbnails |
I started this
project by experimenting with watercolor which I used for a background. In
first case I played with aluminum foil which I first painted with watercolors
and then I put it on a brown paper for drawing and left to dry. I was delighted
with a result. Next thing I did was to play further in order to get more
interesting patterns so I took a red color and painted over bubble bag and then
stuck to the corner of the same paper. The result was interesting retro style
pattern. Later I torn that corner down. I drew with a pencil a retro style
camera ,cut it from my sketchbook and glued to the background. Then I searched
all through various magazines and found this vintage suitcases with some cloths
on them and merged them with an old black and white photo that shows cats on
some old chairs and table. That photo was taken long time ago in summerhouse. I
also put the bamboos, which I painted in watercolors because they are symbol of
strength and happiness and I simply love them. I added them a few flowers drawn
with fiber pens to get liveliness to collage. I put a picture of deer because
in the places where I often travelled I came across them so it brings some
memories and girl developing photos from the journey. At the bottom of collage
I placed an image of an dream place. This a first version of this collage which
I later changed a bit.
As I went trough
working process I liked the idea to scan a fabric bag as an background so I
made some changes. I added a few colorful stripes beneath the suitcases to
brighten the design since this is about careless time and precious memories. I
added more patterns in a background and old clipping of a woman travelling in
the car.
GREETING CARD - ENJOY SMALL THINGS IN LIFE
Using mind
mapping helped me identifying keywords, so for this design beside the words
written on the paper above, I would add fresh, colorful, energy, richness
Mood board |
From the sketchbook |
I used a watercolor paper and did the same experiment with painted aluminum foil and I liked the effect very much. It was something like bright sky and in some part of paper it even looked like ray of lights through the clouds. I decided to build my design on that background.
Idea was to point of our lack to enjoy in
simple small everyday things, something that is crucial for our souls but we
often diminish it. I made a collage where I put a cup of coffee with a small
cookie which I previously painted in watercolor and cut it. Then I used
magazine clipping of girl floating with her umbrella with a smile on her face.
I also added a cuttings of birds on a blossomed trees, painted orchids, bamboo
leaves, and water lilies. As for the cup of coffee I added tablecloth cutting
from magazines underneath it. I also used cotton fabric slightly painted with
watercolor which I found interesting as a sort of wallpaper behind the coffee
cup. I did it on a big paper size so I had to scale it down. This collage was completely
hand made, and only scanned.
GREETING CARD - ALL I NEED IS A REAL FUN
The theme for
this greeting card is simply fun. Word that is very often mentioned but in real
life it seems that is often missing despite all TV shows and movies.
Mood board |
Main inspiration came from art journaling which I found amazing. Regarding the theme of fun, I created two greeting cards with slight differences in design. During the internet research I discovered some amazing examples of art journal which inspired me so it made experiment more and more. First I painted the dark gray paper with oil pastel using horizontal stripes in bright colors. Then I took a plain white paper which I put on the patterned wall and started to rub pastels using different colors. I ended with a very interesting background which I painted with yellowish watercolor. When it was dry, I scanned it and used in Photoshop.
At the same time
I used thin recycled paper from my notebook and painted with many shades of
watercolors by swirling the brush and blowing the color with straw. I like the
effect and how paper looked a little bit scuffed.
I played by
scribbling various shapes such as hearts, flowers, triangles, rectangles and
added one small cutting on the corner. I
was trying to collect as much old newspaper and magazines as I could so I used
clipping of Geraldine Chaplin on a bike and an old photo. I drew with colored
pencils word “FUN” and pasted it.
Creating patterns and backgrounds |
Working process |
Version #1
Here are the
second version of this greeting card.
All elements remain the same except background with stripes and I played with different
brushes in Photoshop.
Version #2
Version #2
GREETING CARD – DON'T FALL FOR BEAUTY TERROR
By creating this
greeting card I wanted to express my feelings towards nowadays industry and beauty standards which are in my opinion
little distorted. Aggressive
marketing, Hollywood beauty terror and standards in fashion world, made women natural look and aging are considered as a
worst faults. It seems that most beautiful
icon back in 1950’ and 1960’ would increase salary of plastic sergeants. Physical appearance has never been much
important, so women struggled with the pressure of being always young and perfectly
shaped. We read advice every day in every magazine how to prevent aging, what not to eat
and do if we want to achieve that everlasting young look. It seems that whole world
is spinning only around that. So that is what bothers me. That obsession with perfectly flat belly, artificially
smooth face without lines and hips without one gram of fat or a cellulite. So I am going
to create greeting card for people who, just like me, think
that this brainwashing have gone too far.
I had an idea to portrait a modern woman (perfectly shaped, young and
fit) who is laughing at image of former beauties whose body was naturally
curved, who had an extra fat, legs that were not perfectly long and shaped,
dressed in bathing suits that cover much more for today standards.
I got the idea
from the moment I saw package for cereals. I knew that I will use the model
from the box, and I needed to picture the rest. I got some old newspaper with
image of beauty contestants so I basically didn’t wander a lot in this case. My
first idea was to present “perfect model” who are laughing and a big picture of former beauty
contestants below. That would give me a good contrast between bright and
colorful image and sepia tone of old magazine clipping. As I played further I
decided to draw vintage TV and to place old image on screen. I added watercolor
background, simple drawn shapes as a path beneath the TV. For the upper part of
design I made drawing with a fiber pen, which I wanted to color but it looked
better to me if I leave it like that. I put that drawing on embossed glass I
created pattern with oil pastels. For this design I was playing with doodle art
so I am going to show some experiments.
This was
randomly rough scribbling with charcoal but at the end I didn't like it. It
turns to be raw and childish.
Yet another try
that could be used for something different but not in this design.
Final result