Veggies, Dogs, and Pretty Flowers: A Trio of Calendars for 2020

Guess what’s new in the shop? Yep, THREE different calendars for 2020!

The first is an updated Flowers calendar (same illustrations and calligraphy as 2019, just new days for 2020). Folks love the colors, art, simplicity, and the clean white background on this one. Me too!

The second is my little labor of love project that took many months to finally get it ready for the shop. The “Herbage a Trois” calendar is a simple-ingredient “recipe” of ideas. It’s perfect for those who are experienced in the kitchen and like to experiment with new combinations. Some combos you may recognize, some you may not know. Try them all. I explain below my process of creating this very colorful calendar.

The third calendar was a bit of an idea added to another bit of idea and added to another. It all came together quite logically (not necessarily the same thing as “easily”). You can read about it in the next blog post. I think you’ll enjoy that one too.

So, I do hope you enjoy the back stories and tidbits of geeky info about these new calendars. If you have any questions, please ask!

Would you like to know how I created the Herbage a Trois calendar?

Creating the new Herbage a Trois calendar design was quite a challenge and yet enjoyable once I saw it all coming together. Working from a previously discarded idea (from a pile of discarded ideas!), I kept one question for my design process: what flavors can you create with just two vegetables and an herb? That’s where the trio idea came from, and it was definitely a challenge. I prefer “suggested dinner options” and ideas over a specific, measured recipe (unless I’m baking, of course). So really this calendar is more of idea starters than a collection of recipes. I began the sketches last winter and worked on it in between commission work in the spring, summer, and my own autumn designs in early September. The final work was sent to the printers in early October. Whew!

Each suggested vegetable and herb was painted in watercolor (usually on scraps of watercolor paper), sometimes more than once! Most of my “models” were purchased from my local corner vegetable stand. The tomatoes, mint, oregano, lavender, and basil were from my own garden at the edge of the patio.  I only resorted to reference photos when needed.

Then each was digitized and prepped for use in Photoshop. The lettering was done a little differently this year in that I made a little font for the names of the vegetables/herbs surrounding the calendar months! So, yes, it’s my hand lettering but made into a font. The names of the month were created using a ruling pen and deep, black gouache on a highly textured calligraphy paper (MBM). Oh, that was a fun day! I could have spent a week just playing with the pen and ink. So, except for my logo, the entire calendar is my own lettering, calligraphy, and illustrations. I hope to create a new logo someday soon with my hand lettering and calligraphy.

I opted this year to have the veggie calendar commercially and locally printed. I like the color saturation and the slightly thicker 110# paper. I loved being able to have the months printed on both sides, reducing the number of pages. The slightly satin finish is an extra fine touch, I think. Let me know if you prefer the satin finish or the matte finish. The matte finish edition is one-sided only. I may experiment with giclee printing on both sides next year.

I hope this illustrated calendar helps you discover new, flavorful combinations to create your best dishes yet this year. Some of these combos were submitted by friends and family (bless their hearts for entertaining my odd requests!) Let me know which combo is your favorite!