Wedding Cards

Self Directed has allowed me to come up with my own brief and focus on skills i want to improve and use. I like to create single illustrations and thought about context of posters, single illustrations, and cards. In deciding on a brief i wanted to take greeting card illustration further, i thought of the wedding or male cards for a theme as there were not many at my workplace of Clinton Cards. This was then narrowed down to be the theme of wedding as there can be more concept ideas.


I wanted to experiment with photography as i enjoyed the skills workshop last year and decided to buy a camera recently. I was asked by a friend to photograph a wedding on the 5th of April and thought it would be good experience and relate to the project. I took many photos but personally like those that capture the truly happy moments in the day as this is what weddings are about. I then began to paint in acrylics from these images to get back into painting and experiment.

I began to think of concepts that could be used for the wedding cards and came up with animals that mate for life. I thought of this concept as it can be used for weddings and civil partnerships as these animals will be a symbol of love and are not obviously a man and a woman. Knowing that there are not many civil partnership cards in shops as there are online, my theme needed to be definite.
I decided on the overall wedding theme but to provide 3 concepts in the 3 final card designs:
1) to show swans - animals that mate for life
2) to show love and togetherness - what marriage is all about, through symbols of love eg. hearts.
3) to show general wedding elements not relating specifically to man and a woman eg. confetti. All these can show a general wedding card one suitable for civil partnerships also.

I like the way in which i work with the acrylics layering, and mixing on the material. I've tried to relate all 3 card designs to one another through the method of working, the illustrations all include water and there is the concept of journey running through them, as marriage is a journey in life.