Calligraphellie

At the beginning of March I had the amazing opportunity to fly east to visit my friend Wendy.  Wendy is a good friend and the magic behind Wendy Harrop Events.  She was also my own wedding planner way back when, and recently uprooted from California to the Boston area.  Wendy and her husband Keith are now the proprietors of the Phineas Wright House and are currently in the process of renovating their gorgeous red barn where Wendy holds seasonal barn dinners.  For a while now Wendy has been joking with me to paint calligraphy on all of their extra barn wood, so I can hardly believe that it actually became reality when Wendy generously hosted me for a long weekend.  If there was ever any question, Wendy is truly the hostest with the mostest.  I could not have asked for more delightful company nor a more beautiful setting to make some event signage!  

This was my "studio".  A major upgrade from my kitchen table!  My first task was to write a heavily flourished "Menu" for this vintage frame Wendy bought in France to adorn a wall of framed menus Wendy found at the Paris Flea Market.  Oh la la! 

Here some more chalkboards!

We also went rummaging through Wendy's barn in 20 degree temperatures to pick out wood to paint on.  Some of this wood is more than 150 years old!  

Here are some of the finished painted signs.  It was hard for me to take a picture of the larger ones because it wouldn't fit my camera.  Wendy has promised that once the weather warms up and she uses the signs for an event she will send me some pictures.

Throughout this trip I needed to keep pinching myself that I was actually there.  Here are just a few last shots of the Phineas Wright House at dusk.  If you are in the Boston area and looking for an event planner or venue, I hope you will think of Wendy - you will not be disappointed!  And if you're lucky, you might get to use some of my signs. ;)

It's been kind of quiet around this blog.  That's because for the past few months I've been spending most of my dwindling calligraphy time to helping my friends Dzung and Nate with their wedding!  Dzung and Nate are friends from church, but also the masterminds behind their respective businesses, Honeysuckle Catering and Fotomokio.  Together, they also produce cooking demonstration videos on Honeysuckle Catering's YouTube channel.  (How adorable is Dzung in those videos!)  Since this was the only wedding I committed to in 2014, I really wanted to be open to whatever they wanted to do.  

First, I created a "logo" and did some spot calligraphy for them to use on their Save the Date cards, invitations, and website.  Oh la la!  

For day-of wedding things, I started by painting these wooden arrow signs:

Here is a sign I did as the ceremony program:

This is the seating chart I did.  This is definitely the biggest chalkboard I've done up to this point.

Also, they needed a lot of menus and food signage.  With Dzung's passion for food, you can imagine that the menu for this wedding was going to be extensive and delicious!  To begin, I wrote on these little tags for the crostini bar:

Here are the two bar menus I made, including one for signature cocktails.  I'll take one of each!  (Just kidding, I'm a total lightweight.)

For dinner, I created this buffet menu.  Out of all the signs, this one is my personal favorite.

And then I wrote these cute little chalkboard signs for the dessert bar.  Instead of just one wedding cake, they had a whole dessert bar of eight different cakes and pies!  I'll take one slice of each!  (Not kidding.)  Out of everything I did to help with this wedding, I think my favorite was that our other artist friend, Aislin, took the wedding logo I designed and laser cut it into a spectacular wooden cake topper! (Sorry about the blurry pics.)

Also, here is the sign for a fun photo booth.

And of course, what young, modern wedding isn't complete without its own Instagram hashtag?  I wrote it in sidewalk chalk near the entry way.

It was also fun to see how Dzung and Nate incorporated the logo I made into different aspects of the wedding day, from a bag for throwing flower petals to the little recipe books that they made as wedding favors to adorn the table settings.

So as you can see, I've been busy for the past couple of months.  I had such a wonderful experience working with Dzung and Nate.  Their wedding day was so joyous and fun.  I loved seeing them use their creativity and style to create a truly beautiful and memorable wedding.  Cheers!

I was asked to make another chalkboard for my church for our weekly community nights.  It's kind of fun having this repeat church gig - good practice and I get to design it to look any way I want! :)

The major challenge for this piece was actually figuring out how to erase the old chalkboard that I had set with hairspray.  After a few attempts, I was successfully able to get most of it off with a magic eraser.  And I found out that the top of a pack n' play makes a great place to balance a big chalkboard if you need to keep an eye on precious littles while you work.  :)

My church wanted a sign so people who came to our mid-week dinners would know to find us on the back lawn.  This is what I came up with!  

My dear and wonderful friends Emily and David were married on July 13th in Berkeley.  It was a truly joyous occasion that combined 3 of my favorite things: calligraphy, Berkeley, and Emily&David!  The reception site was about 0.5 miles from the church, so they thought it would be fun for guests to take a scenic stroll through campus and asked me to write some sidewalk chalk signs to help guide their way.  Writing these signs throughout campus was so thrilling for me because it had been years since I'd been back.  If anyone told me 10 (er....15?) years ago as a student that I'd be back doing calligraphy signage, I think I would have been thoroughly confused.  Just goes to show you that life is always wide open.  Join me on our walk...

I just received these shots of some of the signs I did for Christina and Seth's wedding.  There's nothing like a good photographer to make your work look even better!

Photos courtesy of Em the Gem

One of my best friends got married on Saturday!  She wanted the chalkboard look for table signs and a menu, so I thought I'd take a stab at it.  This was my first time using a chalkboard pen, but it turned out to be pretty easy and I'm quite pleased with how the signs turned out.  Who knew I could produce such good looking signs?

For escort cards, I wanted to experiment with a more modern yet elegant style.  I could not be more happy for Christina & Seth!

Paper: Paper Source (Gravel)

Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin's Pen-White

Nib: Nikko G