2021 Christmas Collection
For a while, I’ve been feeling the need to have a decent chunk of time to work on personal projects and experiment for myself. With so much of my time devoted to client deadlines, my day-to-day practice can easily start to feel a bit stale if I’m not consciously making the effort to keep personal work going. It’s easy to forget how essential it is but every time I feel stuck, I’ve found that personal work is the well where creativity and experimentation comes from.
The irony of freelancing is that despite all of these realities, I’ve found it absolutely impossible to keep a consistent balance between client and personal work, and life! I’ve accepted this and just fit it in when I can- sometimes that means scribbling a sketch down that I might explore in more depth in three months time. When that rare and precious bit of spare time arrives, it’s also very easy to immediately feel guilty and self-indulgent for focusing on personal projects. But after a last minute change to my October schedule, I found myself with some extra time. I knew that I needed to get back to the reason why I spend so much time making things, and find the joy again.
Christmas seemed like the perfect theme to explore, as the endless possibilities of personal work and a blank page can keep me from producing anything at all! I started with the goal of just making new images, without worrying whether they were any good, and seeing where the process took me.
Although I had plenty of fairly vague thumbnail sketches to give me some direction, most of these Christmas designs evolved as I experimented with mixed media. I usually create loads of different textures before scanning and layering them in photoshop to see what I can make. I found that I especially enjoyed using collage and ink textures to build from. It’s taken me a long time to realise that messing around with a paint brush is often where ideas start, rather than just a pencil and a sketchbook.
Sketchbook shapes and textures
My 2021 Christmas card collection is a result of a few weeks of finding happiness in the process of making again. It’s ended up being quite a varied collection, and I’ve tried to retain a more tactile quality to some of these designs. There’s also an addition to my London City Life range, which was lovely to return to after so long. I’m really intrigued to see which cards resonate with people, as it’s often not the ones that I expect. They are available to browse and buy here.
From the 17th of November to the 1st of December, you’ll also get 20% off if you spend £30 or over, and your order is going to somewhere in the UK.
