Save the Date!

Hello one and all!

I apologize for my absence. But I wanted to share some art that I have been working on lately. My cousin, Julie is getting married next Fall in beautiful Durango, Colorado (SO excited for this wedding because I've never been to Colorado!) and she asked me to design her Save the Date cards! How could I say no?!

She was kind enough to let me post some of the work I've done so far for the cards, so here it is.

About a month ago, Julie and I got together to discuss rough ideas of what she wanted the cards to look like.  Since her wedding is going to be in Colorado, she wanted a rustic and natural theme. To represent nature, she thought a tree would work well as a central image. She also wanted to incorporate herself and her fiance, Jake, into the tree somehow. This is the first idea I came up with. A tree with their initials carved into the bark surrounded by a heart. Very rustic and cute, indeed.

She mentioned that she was thinking about her wedding colors being navy blue, lime green and blush pink so I tried to add those into the composition as well.

As for text, I plan on doing hand-written lettering. At this point, I'm still unsure of the exact date of the wedding so I can't go ahead with that part yet.

I also did another variation on the tree. Instead of the names carved in, I did the initials as part of the branches themselves.

I like this one, but I personally think the other one will look better once the text is added.

Julie did make the suggestion to simplify and just use navy for the trunk of the tree and the branches and lime green for the leaves. Simplifying usually makes things look more polished and it did. It was a great suggestion! And for a card that is mostly for informational purposes, simplifying is always a good idea. So here is the first variation after I made changes.

This one pops just so much more against the white of the paper. I really like it! In the end, it is Julie's decision, though.

I plan on working some more on these. I'd like to re-do the second variation in just blue and green as well.

Congrats to the happy couple!

Oh, and my mom is commissioning me again to do the 2012 family Christmas card. So stay tuned for that! And as usual, the card will be up on my Online Shop for purchase before the Christmas season!