This 4.5” x 6.5” card was a gift for my grandmother’s birthday. Working from the many references I have of the cabin, I sketched out a composition for the cabin’s front, with room on the left for a handwritten written note.

   The sketch was transferred to 140lb watercolor paper. I knew I wanted to watercolor the illustration, but I wanted to play with a simplified Grisaille method of defining the shades and lights before adding color. First, the linework was done, and then I pushed the shadows with the inks and grey Zig pen, blending with the T1 Copic marker.

   I added watercolor flats and then pushed the vibrancy of the shadows with darker paints.

   Though I left room for adding text to the right of the card’s interior illustration, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pen in something or not. I ended up doing so.

   For the exterior of the card, I decided to paint, from reference photos, some of the lilies my grandmother has planted around the house.

   Originally, I had planned on just watercoloring the flowers, but somewhere I made the decision to go bold with inkwork after the illustration was painted. In hindsight, I wish I had stayed more consistent to the interior illustration’s linework.

   This is both illustrations digitally seen on the same image. The real card was designed on 140lbs watercolor paper, with one illustration measured out on either side of the paper. After the illustrations were complete, I carefully cut out the card and scored the exterior side of the illustration to help the fold. Lastly, unpictured, I wrote a poem in the interior of the card, on the left-hand side.