Cards

Not long after I started drawing and painting I started making cards for people.  This has been a mixed blessing overall.  It's bad in that folks have come to expect it to some degree, and I would feel a little bad about giving them a "store bought" card (although there have been a few occasions when out of necessity I did just that...and felt bad about it.)  On the other hand it's been good as it more or less forces me to paint something on a deadline so it can arrive at the appropriate time.  Sometimes it's easy to think of a subject and get it done.  Other times it's a struggle just to knock one out, and I am the first to admit I have made some stinkers.  Many times I will make a card out of a subject that I had good luck with on canvas, and there are a few subjects that I've done multiple times.  Sometimes I try a subject out on a card and then do it larger on canvas.  Over the years I have borrowed a little money from my parents a couple of times, and have sent monthly checks to my mother to repay the loan for a lot of months, nearly always in a hand made card. i could pay off the loan pretty easily now, but I kind of like making her cards, and I know she likes getting them--she has an entire drawer full of them at her place in Arizona.  I'm always curious when I visit her to see which ones have made it to the front of her refrigerator, and which ones are relegated to the drawer.  They are not always the ones I personally would consider refrigerator material, and vice versa.  Here are some of the cards I've done over the past few years, some of which a few readers of this blog may find familiar.