Design Spotlight: Dianna Conlon Helm

Our Design Spotlight falls on Dianna Conlon Helm of Coneja Cards– she joined GCU in July 2013 and her very colorful, humorous designs are fantastic!

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My name is Dianna Conlon Helm and I am a self-taught artist who has been designing greeting cards  for family and friends since I was a child. During my last year in college, I started putting together card lines to group my cards because they have different personalities. After a few years, I got published by Fantus Paper Products. That all came to a halt when I started my family and my time commitments were too great.

I am a nurse by career, but an artist at heart. I am married, have 3 children and live in Pennsylvania. This year I decided to pull my designs out of storage and I joined Greeting Card Universe. I have two lines displayed in my store, My “From the Carrot Patch” cards” and my “Aunt Mella” cards.

I have a weird and quirky humor. I never like to be too serious and I love to make people laugh and smile. My cards reflect my personality and ideas come into my head continuously. I run around with a little note pad to jot down my ideas, even if they wake me from sleep. My house is filled with sketch books that have my cartoon and card ideas. My husband or children can occasionally hear me laughing to myself, and they know a silly idea has popped into my head.

My “From the Carrot Patch” cards are the ones that feature cute animals, mostly bunnies. As you can see, my store is called “Coneja Cards”. Coneja, in Spanish, means rabbit. Coneja is my family nick name. These cards are painted on watercolor paper in gouache water colors to give a rich, vibrant look. I finish them off in Photoshop to add the borders. They are cards where I have fun with a pun.

My “Aunt Mella” cards are painted on Bristol board. The background designs are done in airbrush and my Aunt Mella character is painted in gouache water colors. I am learning how to use Illustrator to do my background designs instead of using the airbrush, which is a long process. My Aunt Mella is quirky and a bit odd, but I love her to death.

The card I chose to be featured is one of my first bunny designs. It is one of my favorites. It’s one of those cards that makes people say, “Awwwwwwww”.

What I love about greeting cards is that they’re a little piece of art that you can send to someone to make their day a little more special. Opening up a card is like getting a little present!