Christmas is coming

For the past few years I've always had the serious intention of painting my own Christmas cards. Every year I am determined that this will be the year ... and every year I fail to get started early enough and finish up complaining that I've no longer got enough time to sit and do them.

Last year was the nearest I got and I actually painted a couple of scenes before running out of time to incorporate them into a card design and deal with the printing. This is one scene. I used a photograph I took of a shop front in the high street in Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds. It was a hot summers day and the sun was beaming down - a long way from the cold wintery scene I needed for my card. But some artistic licence soon converted the scene into a more festive one.

I used my Image Editing software of choice (Paint Shop Pro) to create a suitable 'card' design based around my painting, allowing me to 'frame' the picture and add a festive greeting. The result is a passable card though I'm hoping to do better with the rest. I intend to do about five paintings which will be incorporated into various designs and that should give me enough combinations to print off a reasonable quantity to send around my family and friends.

Anyway, this post was done as a friendly 'nudge' to all my cyber artist friends out there to say Christmas is coming and if you're thinking of making your own cards this year, it's time to get started.