Bonjour

This week's challenge in The Play Date Cafe, PDCC125, features "black, white and brown." Along with the vintage style photo, the color story appeared to have a very elegant and nostalgic feel to me.  After some deliberation, I decided a black and white fashion illustration would make the perfect focal point.


Having worked as a fashion illustrator for a couple of years back in my 20's, I love to sketch women.  (See You are my MuseTe AmoSunshineExplore, and Make it Personal)  I found a recent sketch in my art journal, did a layover to turn it into a line drawing, and scanned it.  I printed the line drawing in a couple of different sizes and decided to turn the smallest one into a stamp.  I felt the size would give my card a much more dramatic feel.  I used a set of gray scale Staedler watercolor brush markers to illustrate the drawing.  Then, I took some white card stock and made a mat with a McGill 1 9/16" stamp punch.  I cropped the image down into a 1 1/4" square with a pair of Fiskars deckle scissors and glued it to the stamp mat.  To enhance the nostalgic feel, I used black and white polka dotted ribbon.  I made a small slit on the bottom area of the card's spine, threaded the ribbon through it, and secured it to the inside with some double sided tape.  I glued a small bow to the front.  As a finishing touch, I wrote the word "Bonjour" with a white Zig chalk writer and highlighted it with a black Sharpie pen.


I'm planning to use the larger format of this illustration in a different card layout in the future.  I'm even thinking about letting some followers borrow one of my black line fashion illustrations to make a card of their own.  Please let me know what you think, as well as follow my blog - Blessings!

Comments

OOO, this looks COOL, I like it a lot!!
Love from The Netherlands,
Leintje*
A said…
bardzo elegancka praca, pozdrawiam!
Marlena M. said…
Beautiful piece! Your penmanship is perfect.
Ooo la la! Your sketch of a Parisian woman is lovely, and looks great against this chocolaty background.

Thanks so much for playing with us again at The Play Date Cafe!
Arnoldo said…
Thank you, Colleen. The Play Date Cafe challenges are always inspirational to me, because I love color. Blessings!
Monika/Buzsy said…
Oh, how pretty! Love how you turned that drawing into a small stamp. The handwriting looks great against the dark background. Very elegant.
Jinny Newlin said…
What a fabulous, little, stamp sketch! She's beautiful! And your polka dot ribbon wraps everything up so beautifully! Thanks so much for playing along with us this week at The Play Date Cafe!
Arnoldo said…
Thank you for the fabulous challenges, Jinny.
Micupoftea said…
Thanks for visiting my blog~ Nice card, I like the handwritten sentiment.
Ruby said…
This is lovely! I love how you've framed her, she looks so pretty and the polka ribbon is the perfect accent. Thanks so much for joining in the fun with us over at The Play Date Cafe this week!
Arnoldo said…
Thank you, Ruby. It was fun drawing her. Blessings!