Variations on a Theme, Christmas Sweater Design Project

The idea of this first one is creating a Christmas Tree made out of Sunflowers for all of the people I know that have Christmases without snow.

This time I was just trying to come up with as many different designs as I could at once.

 This one was designed for the computer so that I can use all the drawings and paintings I've already got on the green one.

 I'm showing this design at 2 different stages because there are times that I just don't know when to quit and looking at it a few different ways can help me decide what I like and improve my judgement in the future.

  A lot of my work goes right out in the mail so I play with borders, backgrounds and edgings as well.

This project just keeps on coming.

The holly design is done in marker and the snowflakes are done in gouache and outlined in marker.

I've decided that gouache is really the best medium to use when designing a project like this. It avoids all of the uneveness that you get when using marker on large areas.

I'm posting this design with and without the outlining. I can't decide which I like best do I though I'd ask you Dear Reader, which do you like?

Well, it's on to the other sweater and I thought I'd use a design I haven't done before. I used to do the light blue with snow flakes all of the time on my knitting machines.

 I hadn't done a red and green striped sweater with contrasting cuffs before so I thought that was a good place to start.

The snow globe was added to make it tie in with the other sweater and as long as I was trying new things I added the gold too and thought that really set things off beautifully. What do you think?