Art Deco Envelope Art Tutorial

I made this envelope art tutorial for two reasons: the first is that people seemed to like the last envelope art tutorial {which, like this post, includes a printable template}; and the second is that I finally flew too close to the sun for the post office’s taste, and effectively needed to re-send a letter. My Icarus moment was this: I had made a lovely paper cut art envelope for the Letter Writer’s Alliance …

And, well, let’s just say that the envelope didn’t fare too well when it went through the sorting machines. At least I received my letter back with the vintage stamps unscathed. It was a real bummer because I was expecting some watercolors in the mail from Greenleaf & Blueberry that day, and instead of my beloved watercolors, I got this:

Fail.

I sulked for a while, but eventually I came to the realization that perhaps a somewhat-delicate paper-cut art envelope was not the brightest idea I have had. It was time to roll with the punches and come up with envelope art that was beautiful, but also strong enough for the sorting machines. Since I’m feeling the Art Deco lately, I decided to create an Art Deco template — both for me and for you.

You can download the printable Art Deco envelope template by clicking here. It is intended for A7 envelopes {7.25″x5.25″; 133.35mm x 184.15mm}, but you can play around with using it in other sizes of envelopes as well.

Once you print off the template, you’ll want to choose a pretty light envelope. Cream, white, or light pink would work best. Hold it against a sunny window, and trace over the template with a pencil.

You can trace as much or as little as you want; you’ll notice that in the example below, I didn’t trace all the crazy crisscrosses in the leaves.

So, you know sometimes on YouTube, you’ll see crazy {as in: really impressive} videos of a lady transforming what appears to be a scarf into a skirt, then a turban, then a shirt, then a dress, etc.? This envelope art template is the paper equivalent of that scarf. You can make it into whatever you want it to be. Use whatever colors and mediums you want! Put as much or as little detail into the leaves as you desire. Write in the middle address portion with the font/calligraphy style that you love the most, and either write your address in the upper left corner or don’t. Once you trace over your template in pencil, the envelope art becomes yours, and whatever route you go is totally up to you. I’m going to show you the two envelopes I made with this template to give you some inspiration, but don’t let that limit you!

The first envelope I made has a lot of stuff going on. To make it, I watercolored everything but the flowers a reddish-pink color.

Next, I chose two shades of red colored pencils, and used those to color in my flowers.

Then, I used Finetec golds to paint on the leaves and inside the flowers. {To learn how to use these golds, check out this blog post.}

Notice that I only did the parallel lines on the leaves; I opted out of the criss-cross pattern.

At this point, I had expected to be finished. However, the envelope looked “off” to me. There wasn’t enough contrast, and I didn’t like that the colored pencils didn’t cover the area well. Obstacles like this really aren’t a big deal, though: in art, there’s always a solution. The remedy to this problem was to paint over the colored pencil with red ink and red watercolor.

Then, still not quite satisfied with the overall aesthetic of the envelope, I decided to loosely outline the elements in black.

All of my additions came together; and I ended up loving the look of this envelope …

… Particularly the way the gold reacts to the light!

My next envelope was ridiculously simple. I drew over my pencil lines with walnut ink, leaving out any decorative elements in the leaves except for the center lines. Then, I watercolored over the leaves in green.

I wrote the address using typography {Learn Typography for a Latté is going to be added to the Learn for a Latté series next week!}, and then I found these awesome John Hanson stamps to place on the envelope. I say “awesome” because John Hanson happens to match the envelope color scheme, not because I am a particularly big fan of John Hanson — though I’m sure he was a great person.

And that’s it! Pretty easy, right? Just print off the Art Deco Envelope Template, and you’re good to go. I’d love to see what variations of this design you come up with! You can share on Facebook, or hashtag/tag thepostmansknock on Instagram.

Warmest wishes always!