Winter birds for Christmas 2015

I went for a Leo Lionni paper cutting inspired Christmas card design this year, and I've always gotten a kick out of collage as some of you may know.

I took these lovely winter birds as my starting point.

 










I have a relatively new set of watercolours – Kuretake : Gansai Tambi Japanese Watercolours – and it has been a little challenging to get used to the richness of each pan (which beats any watercolours I've ever dabbled with). But I'm acclimatising...

I really enjoyed building these birds up, and taking my time over the tones and shapes. 

I had the cards printed with Solopress who are always super-swift and produce a high standard print job.

Here's the stack of cards which wended their way to various addresses and hands. 

I gifted the original collage to my parents, in a letterbox red frame which suited the handsome red northern cardinal particularly.

Please note – It may appear that I only have Christmas cards to say for myself lately, but now I've caught the collage bug again I'll try to keep the momentum up!