Grief cards and another

It has been a really wet weekend here so a good chance to head to the studio and hibernate.

One of the things I have as part of a rolling possibilities list  in the back of my mind is a series of grief cards.

Life. Death. Grief.

They aren't really With Sympathy type cards; I am hoping that somehow they reach deeper and speak to the layers of grief and the aching of grief.

I also feel as if they are cards you just continue to send - not only in the days after somebody dies; but a month or so later as a follow up - and again, and again, as folk work their way through the world with grief.

So a while back I was making these cards with two quotes.

They lived and laughed and loved and left (by James Joyce on the outside) and then on the inside - and life will never be the same again.

I letterpress the words, and then hand illustrate the card with a dandelion being blown.

Cards I do for myself to sell I simply de-boss (no ink on the words) whereas ones I send to a local shop to sell are inked (mush easier for customers to understand them that way, whereas most folk who buy from me get that I like quietness, words there and not there and de-bossing so it's good that way).

The second card I did was with an unable-to be-sourced quote May flowers grow in the saddest part of you.

Somehow these words seem to hold out a wee bit of hope that down in the dark depths, beautiful flowers may establish themselves and slowly grow to bring beauty back into life.

And over the weekend I wanted to do another that has been in my mind.  I attempted something for the illustration a month or so ago and got nowhere with it, but I wanted to try to print so off I went.

The words are Grief breaks us and re-makes us. I wrote the words after listening to a friend speak about how she hadn't realised that grief would change her as much as it did.

I was fiddling about and wasn't ready to ink up, so I just de-bossed the words to proof them.  Of course that's a really hard way to check things because white on white isn't easy to spot mistakes within.

So I grabbed a stick of graphite that I had and rubbed it in an attempt to have the words show up in the negative.  This way I could see any errors and decide on the final layout.

But then I looked again and thought, I wonder if I could simply use this idea as a finished card?

I sprayed fixative over the top of it, and popped deckled edge press on the back as well, and the third int the Grief Card series was done.

The first two sets of grief cards in the series are available over at deckled edge press. The cards sell for $8 each and postage is FREE to anywhere in the world.

These most recent cards will be available there soon I hope and in the meantime feel free to email me if you are interested.

And then to lighten the mood I went to town with the birds.

I made five cards, based on the gathering of wee birds with one of a different colour and letterpress de-bossed the word Outstanding!

Which I thought was bit of fun and could be sent to anybody who has done something, achieved something or just been brilliant.

These ones just make me smile.