There's a story behind every one of my cards, pick any card of mine and I'll tell you a story, or what the dog or cat is thinking at the very least.
This year's Easter card is a good example, I painted 'Alfred' a few years ago, a watercolour sketch of a scruffy lurcher, it was a personal project and the dog is based loosely on Alfred from the original series of Heartbeat (A UK TV series if you're not familiar with the name)
I still have the original painting and whilst unpacking from Crufts I came across it and remembered why it's still one of my favourites, so much so it's not been available for sale until now, it's available (if interested) - here.
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What happened next is Mr. Dean told me a story of an Irish Wolfhound his mother used to have when he was much younger and they were living in the countryside. A very placid and friendy dog. The details of the story are a bit vague, for reasons that will become appararent, they also had a flock of geese with newly hatched goslings. Someone thought it a good idea to introduce one of the goslings to the wolfhound... the gosling was slowly lifted up to meet the dog head on, you can guess the outcome...in an instant the gosling got gobbled! The geese made such a noise and the humans probably did too...
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You hear stories of dogs adopting kittens, cats befriending budgies and elephants being best friends with labradors (watch here) and with such a lovely friendly dog... Perhaps they were hoping for a similar result with the unfortunate gosling, a cute moment of dog nuzzling chick, perhaps a friendly lick...and it was then that I hit on this image...newly hatched chicks living in Alfred's scruffy mane. |
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This is typical of how my ideas manifest, a connection of stories with something I've recently seen like a photo or a sketch of mine or an image I have in mind to create. Easter cards usually have a theme, the easter bunny, spring flowers or a cross. I think I might be stretching a bit here but I'm going to say this card symbolises, a triumph over death... Here, I've shared my thought process, but if you'd like a more technical insight into how I work with watercolours and how you would merge 2 separate paintings then let me know in the comments The card is available on Thortful here and I'm just thinking, looking at it now, I might make a version for Father's Day too...
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