special event Commissions
I approach my paintings for special events as portraits of celebrations rather than portraits of people, often using the actual plants from special occasions or memorable spaces as my muse. I’ve worked with leaves, flowers, and stones, and whole branches that have come from gardens, weddings, celebrations of life, graduations and other special celebrations.
When you commission a painting we will start by talking about your event, why it is important to you, what kind of plants and flowers you would like to use, the color palette and size of paintings you prefer, and any other details that will help me create my best work for you.
Recently I had the pleasure of making a painting to celebrate a friend’s wedding. Below you can see some of the works in progress, as well as some of the images I collected during the event. I even came back with a string of lights from the stage, but they didn’t end up in the final painting. I just never know where inspiration will come from.
A few images showing the beauty of the wedding flowers. The ceremony was lovely and the bride and groom looked amazing, accented by colorful floral arrangements and Hawaiian lei!
Following the wedding the happy couple gave me a variety of plants to work with, including some of the flowers from the table arrangements, petals from the aisle, and the lei of both partners.
I carefully chose and laid out flower petals, leaves, and little blooms to create a flowing design across the first two canvases. Once the design was laid out I sprayed acrylic and watercolor paint to create a lasting image of these delicate plants.
Above you can see nearly finished paintings focused on the Haku lei the bride wore on her head (seen in the center) surrounded by flowers from her bouquet. The groom’s boutonniere wouldn’t have produced a distinctive shape, but I wanted to include it somehow so I made marks with the thistles instead! Additional layers of both spray and brushed paint accent some of the details and completed the paintings.
Finally, here are the finished paintings in their new home. It always makes me happy to see where my paintings will hang. In this case, these are arranged in a way I hadn’t even thought of and they look great!