Personalised Leaving Card

One of the other projects I was playing with over last Bank Holiday weekend was a leaving card for an Italian student, Debora I have been working with for the past few months.  During her stay we have been trying to show her that Britain has some great food and beer and Nottingham has some great places to visit.  We have also enjoyed working our way through the Wallace and Gromit short films.

I had a brief for the card, which a little unusual.  Most people that ask me to make cards, know my work and just tell me to get on with it.  This one had to be A4, have lots of 'stuff' she has experienced since being here on the front as well as a 'Wish you were here' postcard of Nottingham.

How do you create a piece of work with so many elements and not overdo it?

I started off with some card, slightly smaller than A4 and applied strips of different brown papers, trimming the excess from the edges once the glue was dry. 

I knew Debora was a fan of the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' image so I used that stamp along with a union flag, English postal mark and London Bridge ticket - all in sepia Versafine ink (permanent ink) randomly all over the papered base card. 

 

To complete the 'paper blended' background and tone it all down, I applied two very thin coats of white gesso over the top.  This gives a pale whitewash effect.

While the gesso was drying I got to work on finding some images for the background.  Printing off some random images from the internet of Robin Hood and other Nottingham sites, baked beans, cheese, local beers etc. I cut them into triangle shapes, not necessarily the whole image, often just part of it.  Some of the images were more easily identifiable than others.

I applied the triangles from one side of the card to other to give the effect of bunting.  This way I was able to get all the different elements required on the card and bring them together without making it look too busy (hopefully).

One final thin application of gesso over the top of the bunting, gluing the background to the base card, positioning of the postcard with kraft photo corners to the front and the card was finished.  Hopefully I fulfilled the brief!