drawanyway.com

This is Drawanyway’s 50th post! That’s if you include the round-ups and the weekly links posts and the couple of maintenance announcements. Which, in my desire to unroll the bunting, I ‘m gonna*.

Would you like to send Drawanyway a birthday card? 50 is quite a landmark…

Click to see the whole image - but NOT if you are my friend Natalie!

Here’s the thing. If someone gives you a shop-bought greetings card, it doesn’t matter how exquisite it is, it’ll sit on their mantelpiece for a while and then it will almost certainly be discarded. No pun intended.
But if you receive a unique card that has been drawn just for you, you’re far more likely to keep it, aren’t you? You might even put it in an album or on the wall. Given this fact, it’s quite strange that the greetings card industry thrives as much as it does, really. Until you remember that no-one has the time to draw cards any more. Which is probably why the ones you do draw are so valued. Complicated.

You might be a bit shy to hand over your own artwork in this way, but you shouldn’t be. This is a situation in which you get so many brownie points for ‘making an effort’ that your effort has to be pretty darn shoddy before it’s not welcomed.

Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

No-brainers

(once you’ve done it the wrong way once, that is):

• Use fairly rigid card, because anything too thin will not stand up properly, especially if you are planning on sticking bits on.
• If you are using expensive high-grade card and you don’t want to run the risk of spoiling it, you can always draw your picture on paper and glue it on.
• If there’s no card at hand, you can use a piece of paper folded into four, of course. Go over the folds with a ruler if you can, to make them crisp. You can also dab some glue between the folds to make it more likely to stay in the card position.
• If you will be sending the card through the post, be sure your card will fit inside a standard-sized envelope.

Ideas

• All parents know that the best reason for having a child is that you will never have to shell out for a shop-bought card again. Get your kid to draw a picture and write a cute message, and bingo. Ah yes, but that’s not actually you doing the drawing, is it? How about drawing something together?
• Collage can work well! Or a mixture of collage and drawing - draw over your stuck-on background, or draw on a separate piece of paper and tear round it before sticking it on.
• The best possible subject matters are ones that relate to the recipient. How about little drawings of everything you know they like? Or a flattering portrait/cartoon of them with their family/their pets/their friends? Or a mock-up cover of their favourite magaine with fake story headlines?
• If that all sounds quite difficult, go for something simple. A heart shape, a flower, a few bits cut out of a magazine.
• If you’re feeling cocky, it’d be fun to explore some simple pop-up card ideas. The easiest pop-ups are made by glueing two sides of a creased insert to the interior of your card, or by cutting a slit and inserting a drawing on a card stick that can be made to move up and down. Hmm, this is quite hard to explain - I might have to do a post on pop-ups soon.
• Ooh! Don’t stop at the card! Make the envelope too, or at least decorate it! Tip: a card made by folding an A4 piece of paper into four will fit perfectly into another piece of A4 paper wrapped around it, envelope-style.

* It is a shame that on this day of celebration I have managed to create a bundle of technical ‘issues’ that need to be ironed out, sigh. Please bear with me if you have noticed that things aren’t quite the same as they used to be. And, strangely, that some things are a load better - also by complete accident.