Design
Hand-Drawn Botanical Branches Holiday Card
by Anne Kostecki
I like to design my family holiday card, and almost every year, I realize in early November that I haven't started the design yet! I like to wait until the season is in the air (and in the storefronts) before I feel inspired. For this design, I wanted to center a professional family photo with an illustrated border. I had trouble in the past when I've hand-drawn illustrations and the measurements never seemed right, or the illustration was lop-sided, so I decided to use my iPad and illustrate it directly on a 5x7 inch template.
I used a rough-textured, pastel-like brush to design various leaves in various shades of green. I punctuated the branches with bright red berries, and decided to reference a Christmas tree by adding a bright yellow star at the top. I illustrated a yellow banner with curved text at the bottom with holiday greetings to balance the composition.
