Looking Back - Part III - Valentine's Day

In 2006, I decided to make a nice gesture and send out Valentine's Day cards to my fellow lady coworkers. I really don't know why I decided to do it, I suppose I just caught the art bug. My coworkers seemed to really like them, though. I really had fun making these, so I decided to do it again the following year. For now, here is the complete set of 12 cards I designed:

Any fan of The Beatles would recognize where I got the inspiration for this piece. This went through many drafts before I even came up with The Beatles design, however. Some of may favorite images came to be from a last minute idea.

I think I wrote something really cheesy on the back of this one. Something like, "This Valentine's Day, Make the Commitment." Yeah, I'm a dork. Anyway, I was still finding my footing with computer graphic design. I think this one came out pretty good considering how unskilled I was at the time.

I cringe when I see this one now. My line work needed well, "work". If I were to recreate this one now, I would remove the lines and put more detail into the hearts. Maybe I'd even spruce up the background a bit as well. On the positive side, I do still think the idea is pretty good. I like to think of myself as a hopeless romantic. You'll notice a theme for this series; I'm always alone in the pictures.

This is my take on an old idea from a classic photograph. The photographer's name escapes me right now. This is another one that I would like to redo at some point. Hmm. I'm starting to not like my earlier work when I look at it now. And this was only about four years ago. I suppose I've grown quite a bit as an artist in that time.

To be honest, this was a last-minute addition to the series. I needed 12 and threw this one in to complete the set. It's a cute idea, albeit unoriginal.

This one looked better in my head. Not that I don't like this one, I just wish I were more talented when I drew it. There's about a million different things I can do now that I couldn't do then. When did this become a critique's corner?

This is my favorite piece from this collection. I love the design and the use of color. Also, the story depicted here is all too familiar to me. I've tried to recreate the magic of this design in some of my other works, however, this one remains the best. I'd put it on a t-shirt if I could.

Seriously, I got the idea for this one while waiting for my car to be serviced. The design is totally out of my comfort zone, but I think I pulled it off.

This one should be familiar to anyone who's been to a museum or leafed through an art book. It's a recreation of one of my favorite paintings by one of my favorite artists, Rene Magritte. I love how this came out, as I was experimenting with a new technique and I was unsure how it would turn out. I'd say that this was my second favorite of this series.

This was a silly idea but I'm proud of the result. I like the idea of love being something tangible. That's a running theme in this series. At the time that I created these pieces, I was having a difficult time understanding what love truly is. So through my art, I was able to interpret love in many different ways. Every day I had a new idea of what love could actually be. I don't think I found the solution, but It was a fulfilling experience. Here I go talking like it's the closing piece, but I got two more!

A lot of people liked this one. I even contemplated submitting this to the USPS to make this into a real stamp. I never did though. For some reason, I just like keeping these things small. It's nice design though. A little abstract. My mind works in such a way that things have to make sense, so I didn't go as crazy as most abstract pieces tend to be.

I really wish I hadn't done this one. And look, it's the last piece, too. This is another example of the idea in my head being better than the finished result. Even the tagline on it is a lame takeoff of the phrase, "It's a real love". Jeez. When I get cheesy, I get cheesy. I hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane. It was an "interesting" trip for me.