Easter Egg Basket Card | Zazzle

Size: Greeting Card

Birthdays or holidays, good days or hard days, Zazzle’s customized greeting cards are the perfect way to convey your wishes on any occasion. Add a photo or pick a design and brighten someone’s day with a simple “hi”!

• Dimensions: 5″ x 7″ (portrait) or 7″ x 5″ (landscape)
• Full color CMYK print process
• All-sided printing for no additional cost
• Printable area on the back of the card is 3″ x 4″ (portrait) or 4″ x 3″ (landscape)

Standard white envelopes included

Paper Type: Matte

The most popular paper choice, Matte’s eggshell texture is soft to the touch with a smooth finish that provides the perfect backdrop for your chosen designs.

• Light white, uncoated matte finish with an eggshell texture
• Paper is easy to write on and won’t smudge
• Made and printed in the USA

Source: Easter Egg Basket Card | Zazzle

Take care and keep laughing!

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First Night Design | Chinese Empress on Her Throne #Repost

FROM THE ARCHIVE 13th May 2014

Chinese Empress on Her Throne © First Night Design

While I have not specified which empress this is in the title, she was actually the Dowager Empress Tzu-Hsi  or Cixi (1835-1908) and one of the most formidable of figures. According to King’s…

Source: First Night Design | Chinese Empress on Her Throne | First Night Design

Tangle Mountain: Playing with Textures

ONE FROM THE ARCHIVE — OCTOBER 2013

Originally posted on First Night Design.

Tangle Mountain © First Night Design

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

So says Ratty to Mole in the first chapter of Kenneth Grahame’s classic tale, only to  crash straight into the river bank.  Ah, bliss.

I feel much the same when it comes to messing about with photographs and textures to create something unique. Sometimes I crash; sometimes something wonderful and unexpected happens.  Such was the case with Tangle Mountain.

I began with this intriguing photograph of a castle in Liechtenstein by Karpati Gabor downloaded from Morguefile. I was particularly struck by the seemingly painted effect of the land and castle. The latter looks as though it has come from a Tim Burton animation.

Often I will try countless photographs and textures before…

via Tangle Mountain: Playing with Textures.

First Night Design | Interval at the Circus

Originally posted on First Night Design

Interval at the Circus © First Night Design – available as prints, posters & cards at Fine Art America

Forget Ancient Rome, often cited as the origin of circus entertainment. A certain Englishman, Philip Astley (1742 – 1814), who had been a sergeant major in the Cavalry, was responsible for the entertainment we know today. It was Astley who found that if he galloped in circles he could produce such a centrifugal force that it enabled him to perform extraordinary stunts upon the horse and thus outdo other trick riders of the day.

Philip Astley

Astley performed in public for the first time on 9th January, 1768. He was so successful that he gathered other equestrians to him and, later, acrobats, musicians…

via First Night Design | Interval at the Circus

First Night Design | Soft Pastels for Easter

Another re-run for my Easter Egg Basket. Have a lovely Wednesday and keep smiling!
Sarah

First Night Design

Easter Egg Basket © First Night Design—Available on cards, prints & posters

New for Easter.

Take care and keep laughing!

View original post

First Night Design | Save the Elephant

Here’s an elephant design in place of a new computer!

Take care and keep laughing, just as I’m trying to do!

Sarah x

First Night Design

‘Another elephant?’ I hear you cry. Or even, ‘Yet another elephant?’ Yes, yet another elephant but very different from the last. One day soon, when poaching, trafficking and killing for pleasure have  been eradicated from the planet and the herds are increasing, I hope we’ll be saying the same thing with delighted relief.

Save the Elephant © First Night Design

This magnificent creature comes originally from Wikimedia, that great repository of public domain images.

Elephants [Wikimedia]

You might imagine that I added a layer of black in Photoshop to create the effect, this is not so. I duplicated the elephant to the power of four and used several of my backgrounds and textures. By playing around with blending modes, I was able to create the effect of an elephant coming out of the darkness.

I just might do something with the baby elephant next!

Related articles

• Save the Elephants

Take care and keep…

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First Night Design | 50% off Gift Bags, Tissue Paper & More + 20% Off Everything Else

Our Merry English Robin Medium Gift Bag

Black Friday may be gone but there are still deals to be had to lessen the Christmas burden. Zazzle (US) & Zazzle (UK) are offering 50% off Gift Bags, Tissue Paper & More + 20% Off Everything Else!

Dear Deer Large Gift Bag

Neither of the above are my creations but come from the hand and eye of Mr FND. He drew the robin and photographed one of the deer in Richmond Park which was, until we moved to Crete, our nearest and dearest green space.

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‘I might give my life for my friend, but he had better not ask me to do up a parcel.’
Logan Pearsall Smith [1865–1946]

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Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Undiscovered Country #Art

Undiscovered Country © Sarah Vernon

What do I call this? An abstract? A collage? I’m going for an ‘abstract collage’. It was playtime when I combined a texture layer from Kerstin Frank, a page of text with a clock from my 1920s Children’s Encyclopaedia, and owls and doric columns from The Graphics Fairy. I bet you didn’t guess there were owls in there!

Available to buy @
Crated
Fine Art America
Fine Art England
Redbubble
Saatchi Art
Zazzle UK
Zazzle US

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | A Bar at the Folies-Bergère – Édouard Manet

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère – Édouard Manet Gallery Wrap Canvas

Painted in 1882, a year before his death, Edouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is a beautiful and somewhat unsettling piece of art when you realise the reflections in the mirror don’t make sense.

‘This is not a realistic painting of the Folies-Bergère. Suzon did work there, but she posed for the painting in Manet’s studio, behind a table laden with bottles. He merged this image with rapid painted sketches he made at the Folies-Bergère. There is no attempt to make the image cohere: there is, as contemporary critics pointed out, an inconsistency to the relationship between the reflections in the mirror and the real things. The man in the top hat approaching Suzon in a sinister way in the top right hand corner of the mirror would in reality have to be standing with his back to us in front of the bar, and Suzon herself should be reflected in an entirely different place.’  The Guardian

A visit to the Courtauld Gallery is a must to see this masterpiece in person. When the painting was on loan to the Getty Center, the curators installed a mirror so that the visitor could ponder the inconsistencies.

In 1934, Ninette de Valois choreographed a ballet based on Bar at the Folies-Bergère, which was accompanied by the music of Emmanuel Chabrier who had  been a neighbour of Manet’s and had once owned the painting.

Related

• Courtauld Gallery
• The Guardian
• Wikipedia
• The J Paul Getty Museum

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Bridge of Sighs

Bridge of Sighs © First Night Design

Not that Bridge of Sighs, of course, but mine own. It comprises several layers including a background from EKDuncan, a texture from 2 Lil Owls, a family photo and one from Wikimedia to create a watercolour effect. I would love to be able to work in watercolour but short of that I like to get as close as I can with digital art.

Fellow British artist Jean Haines not only produces exquisite watercolours but also writes fabulous how-to books.

Colour and Light in Water Colour (How to Paint) by Jean Haines

Related

• Bridge of Sighs in Venice
• Watercolours by Jean Haines
• Watercolours with Life

Have a beautiful week!

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | When I Hear the Cry of the Peacock…

The Cry of the Peacock © Sarah Vernon

When I prepared this post last night, the title of the artwork was Marmalade Peacock. Marmalade Peacock? It’s the first phrase that came to mind because of the background. And I’m thinking Frank Cooper’s Original Oxford Coarse Marmalade! It was my father’s favourite but what he didn’t realise was that my mother used to get a cheaper equivalent and transfer it into a Cooper’s jar. Of course.

When I woke up this morning, a song from Sandy Wilson’s musical, Valmouth, sung by Cleo Laine, was playing on an endless loop in my head and I knew I would change the title to The Cry of the Peacock. Valmouth was based on Valmouth and Other Stories by Ronald Firbank, which was about an imaginary spa resort frequented by those of a certain age. It was not well-received with ‘reactions ranging from outrage to derision’ when it opened in Liverpool in 1958. This was doubtless because the satire covered subjects like homosexual as well as heterosexual love and sex, not to mention religion. Nevertheless, it did transfer to London with loud murmurings about what the Lord Chamberlain was doing giving it a licence.

Valmouth and Other Stories by Ronald Firbank

I was far too young to see it at the time but I was brought up on the music, which I love. It was revived at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2000, a production that included one original cast member, Fenella Fielding. In the original, Fielding and Laine had starred alongside the likes of Doris Hare, Peter Gilmore and Aubrey Woods. The All Music website describes it as ahead of its time and prefiguring the work of Stephen Sondheim and I agree there are similarities.

In terms of creation, I blended the handwritten document from my Mallards and Swan Collage with a friend’s photo of a Sri Lankan cave painting. The peacock, which long-term visitors will know I’ve used before, is from The Graphics Fairy.

Sadly, YouTube does not have the great Cleo Laine singing Cry of the Peacock so here she is singing another number from Valmouth called Big Best Shoes.

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | The Birds, The Birds!

Mallards and Swan Collage © First Night Design

Any followers who have visited my new blog, First Night History, will doubtless have known that sooner or later I would create a piece that used the handwritten header image for the blog, which I found on Wikimedia.

And so I have! The mallards, swan, and the butterflies hovering around some flowers, are all from The Graphics Fairy.

Enjoy! And let’s protect all our birds, particularly the eggs and nests of such as English robins and starlings since Natural England has proposed that their destruction be allowed without special licence. See Tom Pride’s blog post listed below.

Related

• The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
• Here’s the real reason the Tories are allowing the destruction of robin eggs and nests

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | I’m Lounging Around Again

Never let it be said that my passions fade. Here are some more cushions for your delectation, some old, some new.

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Vassily Kandinsky: Art is Free

Romantic Landscape by Wassily Kandinsky © First Night Vintage

Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)

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“There is no must in art because art is free.”

“Colour is the key. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano with its many chords. The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically.”

“The more frightening the world becomes … the more art becomes abstract.”

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Related Articles

• Wassily-Kandinsky.org
• Wikipedia
• WassilyKandinsky.net
• Guggenheim

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Save the Elephant

‘Another elephant?’ I hear you cry. Or even, ‘Yet another elephant?’ Yes, yet another elephant but very different from the last. One day soon, when poaching, trafficking and killing for pleasure have  been eradicated from the planet and the herds are increasing, I hope we’ll be saying the same thing with delighted relief.

Save the Elephant © First Night Design

This magnificent creature comes originally from Wikimedia, that great repository of public domain images.

Elephants [Wikimedia]

You might imagine that I added a layer of black in Photoshop to create the effect, this is not so. I duplicated the elephant to the power of four and used several of my backgrounds and textures. By playing around with blending modes, I was able to create the effect of an elephant coming out of the darkness.

I just might do something with the baby elephant next!

Related articles

• Save the Elephants

Take care and keep laughing!