40TH ANNIVERSARY: Thank-You's

It started with a VW Bug idea during Junelle Jacobsen's Art Retreat.....and grew into an idea for my parents' 40th Anniversary gift. (well second gift)

After the sketch, I copied and glued in the vehicle into my book (yes the easy way out, but I didn't have the desire to redraw something I liked on the sketch)

painted it in with some Daniel Smith's watercolors (can't really see it, but there is a shimmer to the yellow parts of the car)

I made a few copies in case I needed them to cover up a mistake.  (probably wasn't the wisest idea to do this idea on a book page...yet, I will get to keep the original for life or simply rip out the page)

I played around with ideas to fill in some of the white space...and with colors I wanted to use.

I thought about an orange, but I think it made the photo too busy and took away from the vehicle, but I loved the year in the background.

I thought about a simple heart with the date...but it just wasn't right.

Then it came to me while looking at inspiration online to add a bird with a Thank-You card next to a mailbox with the day of the month of the anniversary.

I then painted in various elements with beachy/pastel tones...and other areas with more watercolor.  I highlighted elements with a sharpie pen and uniball white pen.

-also whitned out some words that weren't the most flattering on the book text but left some that were complimentary to the occassion. Originally, there was the word husband coming down from the car handle, and I thought to leave it since the "Bug" was my dad's car....but again, it seemed too busy.

Added some reds and orange to the mix on the mailbox, but after a while, the colors were a bit too bold.

So I added some pastel paint and lightened them up.

adding in details again...

and signed and ready to develop into a card.

Since the page was in a book, scanning it was not really my first choice...so I waited for a sunny day and took a picture I liked....then headed over to Shutterfly to create the card.

To see the final card design, you can go here:

40th Anniversary Thank-You Card