Happy Holidays!

© Ellen Blonder

Happy holidays, everyone!

(This is my card this year, from a colored pencil sketch of hellebores--also called Christmas Rose--from the Orto Botanico in Rome, that I showed in earlier posts this year.)

Christmas in September

© Ellen Blonder

One of the weird things about designing holiday greeting cards is that you're always doing them out of season. So here's my upcoming Christmas card preview, finished in a September heat wave. The poinsettia was posted in progress earlier this year, but for Christmas, a brown background didn't seem right. I've silhouetted the flower against layers of text and a repeat pattern that I drew. The red area, when folded, will be the card back.

Christmas Card for 2009

© Ellen Blonder

Here are the Surinam cherries (see November 26 post, below) laid out on what will be my 2009 Christmas card. I've layered black and white patterns that I had hand-drawn a while back, then colorized and layered them in Photoshop. The abstract background pattern is taken from a scan of peeling paint.