Art to Cards!

From original art to cards! This week, I received my order from Moo.com (the referral link), and I want to share how I picked my paintings and drawings for the cards.

This year, I am going to attend the Christmas fair of the local artists’ association. They also sell my cards in their little store in my hometown, Vantaa, Finland. I am going to give the small cards away for free at the fair and then sell the postcards and bigger art cards, and I also take some original art with me.

My art is mostly sold in galleries, and it has its own customer base and price category that doesn’t always align with smaller fairs. But I love to see people and talk about art with them now and then, and selling cards is a great way to widen the level of recognition.

It’s also interesting to see which paintings work well as cards, and which don’t. The 1-minute video shows a glimpse of what I ordered.

Art to Cards – Watch the Video!

Choosing Paintings for Cards

When I chose which paintings to print, I tried to look at my pieces as an outsider and imagine that I am handing a card to someone. A card can be quite abstract, but it also has to be quite cheerful. This oil painting has been popular, and I chose to print it again.

My floral watercolor paintings also work well as cards. This is one of my favorites.

The size of my watercolor paintings is usually A3, and when scaled down, the picture still looks great. It’s always a good idea to make the picture in a larger size and then print it smaller. You can include both small and big details in a larger picture, and that variation of size always looks great on cards.

My big oil paintings are not the best pieces for postcards. They have many small details that don’t show well at postcard size. Their subjects also go deeper than what is needed for greeting someone. But they look like mini-paintings in a bigger A5 size with a matte finish. Many buy them to put them in a small frame and hang on the wall.

I didn’t print the same painting in different sizes, but tried to find the best size for each. There were also many pieces that I am fond of, but that weren’t printed because I had a hard time seeing them as cards. For example, I like this oil painting a lot, but I don’t think it would be great as a card.

This piece is also square and hard to crop in a way that would look great on cards.

Art for Mini Cards – My Idea of Faces

The mini cards were different, because they mostly had faces only. I am not a portrait painter, but I love dolls, including paper dolls, and I can’t be the only one. So I decided to have a bunch of characters for the mini cards and went through my art photo archive. It was surprising how many faces I have drawn or painted over the years! I tried to choose a variety so that many could find a picture that would please them.

In my experience, this kind of free little gift breaks the ice and starts the conversation.

Most of my art is photographed and organized by year. Having a good photo is a necessity when you want to print art cards. Despite having the photos, it took three days to select the pieces and make all the print files! Much longer than I expected.

Have you ever made cards from your art?