Li Ward photographer of pets and weddings. Fat Orange Cat Studio is a fresh and candid boutique photography service in Boston, Massachusetts.

I wrote Valentine’s Day cards this year. Probably the first time since 3rd grade. I loved receiving them!

Trying my hand at Spencerian script…very slow and careful but my favorite type of lettering right now…

So excited to be featured today on Oh So Beautiful Paper, a stationery design blog focused on the art of wedding paper goods. I’ve been working a long time getting this post together…can you tell?  I barely wrote a thing, hoping that you’ll just skim over that anyway and look at the pictures. We went for a more behind-the-scenes feature. If you wonder why it takes me so long to get these projects done, it’s because I write & write & write & write about a million rough drafts…

All photos courtesy of Melanie Mauer Photography

I did a whole bunch of lettering throughout last year for Tiffany & Brandon’s September 2011 wedding in Kentucky. Photographer Melanie Mauer was nice enough to send these photos of a few pieces on the job. In addition to the table cards and escort cards seen above, I also lettered place cards, their Save the Date envelopes and their main invitation envelopes. I wish I could show you some photos of the main invitations but they do not exist. I ran out of time because, as usual, lettering takes about 100x’s longer than I always think it will! So I am really happy to see these in action. You can see more from Tiffany & Brandon’s lovely wedding here.

So, to interested calligraphy parties, I have finally learned my lesson when it comes to estimating these projects. It is so very labor-intensive (an entire season of MI-5 played in the background before I completed a set of envelopes), and as much as I love the whole process (I got paid to watch an entire season of MI-5!), I must keep my priorities on the photography aspect of my business. So I am taking a very limited amount of calligraphy clients this year. They need to be all officially in the books months in advance (ie if you need to get your invites out by July, you will need to book so that I may set aside time for lettering in April or May. If you’re mailing your invites out in March, it’s already too late). So if you’re right now even slightly sort of maybe thinking about incorporating hand-lettering into your wedding, give yourself a day or two to decide if it’s a definite yes, and if it is, contact me ASAP!

I wrote a ton of holiday cards this year! Started early too, thank gawd. There were several different personalized cards, all involving felines in one way or the other, and half a dozen new pens to render half a dozen new lettering styles. Rifle Paper Co. is one of my favorite illustrated stationer and as a little splurge I had personalized cards made, complete with painted likenesses of Dan, the kitties, and me. As you can see up there Bingley has been rendered into a teeny but ferocious were-creature, which on a lot of days is exactly what he is.

For another set of cards, I decided to draw some pet portraits myself using a pointed nib and India ink. Included are Veebs, the fat orange cat himself of course, Bingley the banshee, a Berner, a Cavalier King Charles, and a pug. I chose people who had interesting markings, and gave them something festive to wear. After drawing I scanned them in, added some watercolor textures on their ears and bowties in Photoshop, and used the files to make the Colorblock Card from Pinhole Press. I also made return address labels: one set with my illustrations and another with a festive holiday photo of Veebs wearing a scarf, taken two years ago.

As for the addressing itself I used all pens. No nibs, no dipping ink, just pens. For the red envelopes that came with the Rifle card, I lettered with a Uniball Signo broad pen in white. I painted in the strokes with the pen itself which ended up smearing and looking quite messy, so I won’t do that again. Later I filled in the strokes with a white Galaxy Marker which produces paint-like ink that looks translucent on dark paper. Much better. For white envelopes I used a bunch of different pens: Uniball gel pens in black, strokes filled in with gel pens in gold or silver. Micron pen in black, filled with Le Pen in gray or Uniball gel ink in gold.

A ton of work but so much fun to have my desk completely covered with my favorite things – pets, pens, and paper! On the business side it also gave me a chance to figure out the changes I want to make in my calligraphy services offering. There will be smallish overhaul coming next year, one designed to keep me sane! Anyway, I hope my family, friends, and clients enjoyed receiving these cards!

FA LA LA LA LA LA, LA LA LA LAAAAA! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

It’s already November, and I am still knee-deep in wedding season! I just delivered this wine list board to the bride for her vineyard wedding later this month in Virginia. She purchased the vinyl board with a distressed framing on Etsy, and I lettered using my handy chalk pens. Her Springer Clive was one of my earliest pet clients. We had our shoot just over 2 years ago. It’s hard to believe [how much post-processing I did even after shooting in jpg :-/]. I am happy to have been able to do some more work for Shannon and Mike, and wish them a fabulous, wonderful wedding!