I'm playing around with some more five-petal flowers today in some moody spring flowers (doesn't that sound like an oxymoron??).

In this video, I'll talk through a little about my painting process, but we'll also chat openly about creating a unique style and how to compete in a saturated market on value rather than price.

I hope these tips for watercolor painting as well as showing you a small example of what's it's like being a working artist and will be useful to you. If you enjoy my artwork and crave more glimpses behind the scenes, please subscribe to my channel and hit the like button.

Also, please leave a comment on the video with questions and requests. Design House of Moira on the Web:

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Websites - www.designhouseofmoira.com | www.designhouseprepschool.com

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Once we have our sketch finalized and our lettering style selected, we begin creating the artwork that will be included in the invitation suite.

It is our goal and part of our business philosophy that we never want a client to feel limited or concerned that their design won’t be everything they had hoped because they’re limited on how much artwork they can have created for them.

All of our projects include unlimited artwork, regardless of what type of artwork it is. For this suite, we had a watercolor floral pattern, two watercolor wash patterns, a modern landscape piece, and line botanicals.

This is the longest portion of our process without contact with our client. Once they’ve approved the sketch and calligraphy style, we set about creating all the artwork, scanning it into the computer, digitizing the artwork and calligraphy, and getting it ready for their design.

The proof is the next step in the process and is also the next thing the client sees after the sketch (unless they follow us on instagram, in that case, they’ve seen the entire creative process along the way as their design comes to life!).

Aubrey & Adam

Courchevel, France

The proofs shows the overall layout of the suite, as well as each individual piece. A proof is usually about 9 pages long, but can get up to 14 if the suite includes several additional pieces.

I personally love the proofing point in the process. It’s the first point that the client sees their sketch come to life in full color.

Similar to artwork, we do not limit how many proofing rounds each client is allowed. We want the design to be perfection, and we’ll tweak it as much as needed.

Two to three rounds tends to be the average, so that is how we timeline out the clients project. If more rounds are needed, we always make sure to keep an eye on our mail date, since that will get pushed back based on how long proofing takes.

Following the sketch, we create a sheet of lettering and calligraphy samples for our clients to review. We based the styles we provide on the couple’s overall style and the formality of the wedding as well as any personal preferences. Our calligraphy styles are not a generic sheet we give to each client, but created individually for each project. We also prefer to show calligraphy styles shows in the couple’s names, since seeing one’s own name is so much more exciting than seeing a generic style name.

For Aubrey, we created a calligraphy sample sheet with six styles. We knew she preferred minimal and modern, so we showed several variations of that style.

Aubrey selected a delicate monoline style for her lettering. We liked the minimal visual impact it had, while still being interesting and unique.

Sometimes we nail the style on the first try and sometimes it takes some tweaking. For Aubrey, she loved it right away.

Once we’ve selected the style, the Design House team sits down to see where in the sketch the calligraphy falls and what words or phrases we’ll need for the design. Once we have a list of what needs to be written, we write their lettering or calligraphy out by hand.

Aubrey & Adam

Courchevel, France

Aubrey & Adam

Courchevel, France

Aubrey and Adam were married at a gorgeous chalet in Courchevel, France and came to us with some specific ideas in mind. They wanted to incorporate ochre into the design, but dit not want the overall look and feel to be summery and cheerful, but moody and modern. They came to us specifically because of our use of original artwork and lettering designed for each client. As with all our clients, we began the process with a sketch, detailing out our overall ideas for their suite, mixing media and multiple styles of artwork.

We love beginning with a sketch for several reasons:

• It helps a client envision the overall look and feel by putting thoughts onto visual mediums

• It allows the client to visualize how we see the art moving from one piece to another throughout the suite. We rarely do pieces that all match exactly, but vary the art across multiple elements of the invitation suite.

• It creates a point from which we can create and generate all the artwork. As artists and creators, we avoid redoing repetitious work, which consumes a massive amount of time and energy. We want to create your artwork once and do it correctly the first time, rather than missing the mark. This is where the sketch comes in.

• We can make adjustments to the art while the art is still theoretical to allow for more time during the proofing rounds and on assembly details.

shown here: the final pieces of artwork used in the printed pieces of the suite, generated from our original sketch

 

 

Creative: Sketching for Creatives

Since I'm obviously a stationer, this is a perfect course for those creatives looking to hone in their paper process with their clients, but it's also a great course for all creatives looking to smooth out their customer experience.  We'll talk about why having a sketching stage is important, how transparent to be with your clients, it's advantages as well as how to go about adding a sketching stage into your own process.