Painting these cards over the years taught me many lessons on what works, what doesn't and what might be a pitfall. By the end I was pretty good at getting the painting right and we learned that it's better to take a picture of the canvas than try to scan it and all in all I could get usually get it together and in the mail in about a week. Taking the picture was the only thing I didn't mess up this year.
I spent over a week trying to put on paper what I had in my head and finally gave up and started over. From there I thought the new design looked promising and I then proceeded to paint the rest of the card breaking every lesson I learned from the first 20 years of painting cards. Every. last. lesson.
Two of the issues I knew as I was painting that I was doing it wrong...and I did them anyway. I think that's the definition of insanity, right? Expecting a different outcome from repeated actions? The worst mistake was one I didn't even realize until I got it ready to send over to the print shop this morning. 5"x7" is not the same as 8"x10".
I think I learned that in 2004.
I believe I have everything patched up, but I won't know until the printer gets home this evening. I'm still not completely set on the wording on the back, but again, we'll hash that out when he gets home. Tim's only comment so far was "Why isn't Digga Digga on there?"
Digga Digga Daewoo is our skid steer and he should be parked in the barn from where the card is focused. I did think about that. I also moved the horses all down one stall to try to balance out the barn scene a little and I wished I hadn't done that almost as soon as I did it. Same with not adding in the chicken coop. I sadly complained about all that and Tim did what he does best.
"Well, the horses are all in the wrong stalls, you can't find the chickens and the sheep aren't where they are supposed to be, out in the dark, mixing with the horses. I'm not sure what the problem is. Sounds like a normal day to me." ;-)
