Art Cards for the turning year.
I’m sitting in my studio looking out at a bare tree and a dormant garden. Everything feels paused. The borders are stripped back, the ground is resting, and the shapes of things are suddenly clear without their leaves. It’s a view that feels honest at this time of year — nothing performing, nothing rushing, just the slow holding pattern of winter.
This midwinter art card grew directly from that view. I used dark blue paper, letting it stand in for night, cold, and stillness. In white pen I drew a simple bare tree — no decoration, no flourish — just branches reaching and waiting. I added a scattering of stars behind it, quiet points of light that remind me that even when the garden looks empty, it isn’t. There is life moving, resting, watching.
On one branch I placed a small bird in gold. A single warm presence in the cold. It isn’t flying or singing. It’s simply there.
As the practical action for this card, I went out into the garden and refilled all the bird feeders. It felt like the most honest response to midwinter: a small, tangible act of care. No grand gesture, just making sure there is food available during a season when it’s hardest to find. Standing in the cold, listening to the quiet, I was reminded how quickly life responds to kindness — how feeding the birds is really about attention as much as nourishment.
Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself wanting to nurture and encourage as many wildlife visitors as possible. Feeding the birds, noticing who returns, paying attention to the small rhythms of the garden rather than the big plans of the year ahead. It feels like the right response to midwinter — care instead of productivity, attention instead of urgency.
This season has also nudged me into reassessing priorities. When someone you love is unwell, everything else softens around the edges. The noise drops away. What matters becomes simpler and clearer. Midwinter, for me, is about hunkering down, protecting energy, and tending what is close: home, garden, people, memories.
This card isn’t about growth yet. It’s about rest. About trusting that the garden knows what it’s doing even when it looks bare. About understanding that tending life in small, quiet ways — refilling feeders, pausing to look out of the window, choosing presence — is enough.
Spring will come. But for now, this is the work:
to notice, to care, and to let things sleep.
Ena Green Designs 