Greetings from 2012: Amsterdam

Throughout November I've been visiting the inspiration behind the designs for our 2012 postcard wall calendar, which features sketches from twelve cities from around the world.

 

I love visiting Amsterdam. I still want to do more traveling around the Dutch countryside (during tulip season would be amazing!) but there is still so much more of Amsterdam to explore.

Oh the row houses! The beautiful diversity of the slanted, narrow canal houses! The plethora of peeping windows! How could I not draw those marvelous buildings!?

Our 2012 postcard calendar is now for sale in our Etsy shop. There are discounts for multiple purchases. We will also it for sale at all of our holiday markets and events listed in the sidebar.

Greetings from 2012 - Tokyo

I have been itching to go to Tokyo and Japan for years and years. Honestly, I want to go there with an empty suitcase and return with it full of papers, tapes, and other fabulous stationery products. But aside from that, I find it a fascinating, beautiful country and look forward to an anniversary trip with my husband some day.

I slotted Tokyo for April since it's the height of cherry blossom season, a wonderful welcome to deep spring, and included a drape of blossom branches over the city skyline in the sketch.

Though the illustration didn't address it, the traditional and religious architecture of Japan draws you in. I adore the sweeping roof corners and how they seem to embrace the sky.

I even find the lights and busy-ness of the entertainment district captivating and love especially how the natural verticality of Japanese signage creates this amazing tunnel of lights and life (in an entirely different sort of way than the cherry blossoms).

What are some of your favorite places in Tokyo? What about Japan?

Our 2012 postcard calendar is now for sale in our Etsy shop. We will also it for sale at all of our holiday markets and events listed in the sidebar.

Greetings from 2012 - Rio

I wanted a South American city to round out the calendar and Matt suggested Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Everything I found added up to an impossibly complicated and inspirational place.

The favelas, or shanty towns, have a captivating quality to them that I find somehow beautiful, but for the representative postcard image of the place, I didn't feel it quite appropriate. And with so many other gorgeous options, I was okay with that.

Also Matt's suggestion, I took a good hard look at the tiled boardwalks of the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. How amazing is this?

If there are songs about it, then a nice beach-y scene seemed a great place to land for our postcard image - especially for December (cold up north, but full on summer down in Brazil).

Our 2012 postcard calendar is now for sale in our Etsy shop. We will also it for sale at all of our holiday markets listed in the sidebar.