For my father’s birthday, I designed him a vertical trifold card that would give the illusion of depth when folded. The colorful deer was comically questioning about it being his birthday, and then comically questions how old he is in the interior, with enough space to handwrite a note. Since the finished card was going to be the original painting, I needed to plan out exactly where the handcut elements would overlap to create the dimensional scene. I accomplished this with at least two paper mockups.

   Tracing the base position of the narrative elements on a length of 144lbs of watercolor paper, I proceeded to ink the elements on the front and the back of the paper with basic linework. Then, I painted the washes, starting with one side and then waiting until that dried to do the other in order to keep the wash colors consistent. Once the important painted elements were finished, I waited for the whole thing to dry before attempting the first folds for the card, and then I carefully cut the outlines by hand. Once everything seemed in place, the folds were creased and the whole card’s edges trimmed.

   The final dimensions of the card were 3” x 7.5” closed, and 9” x 7.5” fully opened.