Concertina greetings card with little bees by Rebecca Yoxall

Hello again,

I love to make hand painted cards for birthdays and greetings (when I have the time of course)
and I think these concertina cards are really great to give to someone special. They are free standing and show off all of your design/painting when placed on a windowsill or mantle piece rather than a traditional flat card.

I generally start by cutting an A3 piece of watercolour paper in half length ways, you can of course buy panoramic paper. I then make sure to measure out equal sections and mark lightly with a pencil. I do not fold until after I have painted it as this enables a smoother painting. I tend to mark out 3 or 4 folds but it depends on how big your paper is.

 My design is fairly simple and based on a method I talked about in a previous blog post. I try to place my flowers in an interesting and balanced composition, leaving plenty of space in between for me to fit in the buzzy bees :-)

Hopefully the next images will show you in a little more detail how I create my little bees.

I have provided a few of my bee photographs at the bottom of the page for you to use as reference, but there are lots of royalty free images online.

I usually begin with a drawing using an HB pencil. I try and keep the line as light and free as possible. I hope the image is clear enough for you to see, as the pencil line is so light the camera doesn't always pick it up well.

I've placed Mr buzzy bee so that he is heading straight for the flower. 

Using the Yellow Brusho mixed up on a palette I painted the yellow areas with a small brush.

Whilst the yellow is still a little bit damp (this helps create the fuzzy look) I painted in the dark areas of the body and head using Black and Dark brown Brusho mixed together on the palette.

With just a few grains of Ultramarine Blue Brusho mixed with water I applied a soft coat of colour to the wings and finished the legs with the Black brown mix.

Additional details can be added with a pen.

I continued to paint in 2 more bees and decided to add a few leaves and bee trail to show them buzzing on a little journey along the paper :-)

After allowing to dry I began to score gently along my fold lines. I use a bone folder, but any hard/sharp implement will help to achieve a clean straight fold.

Concertina it up and it's done!!! 

Maybe you could add a some poetry or even put a backing on to make it into a book. 

I loved creating these cards and if you have a go I would love to see what you create too.

                                                                       Bee Happy
                                                                           Bec x