Santa in the off season

I was painting some figures today & this is one of them... I wanted to check out a few skin tones for a fairy I'm planning to paint tomorrow. I attend an Open studio where 12 professional artists get together once a week and work on thier projecst together.. well in the same room. We don't usually work together on our projects, I said that wrong... After looking at this little 4 by 6 card I decided this old gentleman looked like a Santa, thus the name.

I will say this, don't use cheap paper, this painting would have been so much easier if I'd used my good paper. Its difficult to soften lines on this lesser quality paper. I like Arches myself but teach beginners with Fabriano because of the lifting properties. I think this was a swathmore ( brand) watercolor card pre packaged & precut card kit which comes with envelopes.
It was a gift so I decided to use them. After painting on them, I wouldn't buy them, its just as easy to cut the cards to size & use double sided tape. After painting your card, you just tape the card onto the front of nice paper which has been folded tent style. Also... They can still be framed later if you give them out as Christmas or birthday cards.
Cio