Birds, flowers, hops and a teacup
I meet a lot of awesome people at shows in the DMV area. This particularly awesome couple asked me to design stationary for their wedding on a fairly short timeframe, but I was absolutely up for the challenge. They shared their interests and ideas with me, and then let me loose to come up with a save the date, invitation, rsvp card, table numbers and thank you cards.
Since they are Maryland people, we incorporated a lot of Maryland things, like Baltimore Orioles, Black-eyed Susans and a custom monogram that echoes the state flag. Tea and beer also made the list of top favorites, so the save the date card became a fun and unusual combination of hops and a teacup.
I started with pencil sketches on paper, as usual, then moved to Procreateon my iPad to make the final drawings. This was helpful for both making changes and saving time, since we were on a bit of a compressed schedule.
I didn’t think this project could get any better, but it did when the couple asked me to create a custom Ketubah for their ceremony. A Ketubah is a beautiful tradition that captures the promises of marriage in both Hebrew and English within a piece of artwork. It gets signed by the bride and groom, witnesses and officiant during the ceremony, so it plays a central role in the celebration and then becomes a treasured piece of artwork for the couple to display in their home. No pressure! So of course I agreed, and got to design and hand-paint a pair of Baltimore Orioles and entwining Black-eyed Susans and cherry blossoms surrounding the circular shape of text in the center using acrylic paint and ink pens.
Left: The finished Save the Date card features an Art Nouveau-inspired teacup and hops vine.
Right: A look at the entire wedding suite together.
Here are the initial pencil sketch ideas I sent to the couple first. We ended up using all of these elements in the final designs but the overall concept was to keep things organic and beautiful with sublte nods to the couple’s Maryland story.
Left: Detail of the finished placecards. I got to print and cut these all myself, so I had control over the paper selection and print quality. Being the control freak that I am when it comes to these kinds of things, this was a really great arrangement.
Right: Detail of the invitation and RSVP card, which features a male Baltimore Oriole and Black-eyed Susans.
Here are two sketches showing the development of the Ketubah design. I started with some of the elements we had already created, like the Baltimore Oriole couple and the Black-eyed Susans, then took our new element, cherry blossoms, and worked it in as organically as possible to create a balanced composition. These sketches were creates with Procreate, which allowed me to try a lot of different things in a short time.
The finished Ketubah. The couple had the text printed on archival paper and sent directly to me so I could hand-paint the design directly on it.
Closeup details of the Oriole couple and flowers. After I transferred the design to the paper, I used acrylic paint and ink pens to finish the project.
