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

Between photographing pets and weddings, and starting my little calligraphy offshoot, I’ve been keeping myself extremely busy this summer. Here are some more calligraphy pieces I had the pleasure of working on lately.

Lisa and David are having their wedding in New York state this fall. Their invitation suite is being crafted in letterpress by Parrott Design Studio in Providence, RI. They didn’t have a particular calligraphy style they wanted to use, so this was a great chance for me to come up with something new. Even so I didn’t have the courage to do anything too crazy or unconventional, though I wanted to! Instead I decided to have flourishes that swoop under instead of over, and to add little curlicues at the ends.

Anna and Jeremy are getting married on a private island off South Caroline this fall. Their invitation suite is being made by Goosefish Press, who just won Best of Boston 2010 for best stationer!

Aside: I really, really, really very badly really want to photograph a wedding in the South. Savannah, Charleston, Georgia Islands, anywhere in Louisiana. Want it so badly my teeth hurt. I almost had my own wedding in Vacherie, Louisiana just outside New Orleans where I spent some of my childhood. I wanted the ceremony under ancient live oaks that are so prevalent in the south, its canopy of arms so gnarly and dripping with Spanish moss. I wanted a camelia and Spanish moss bouquet, a crawfish boil for dinner and beignets for dessert. Ah too bad I was too lazy about planning an involved destination wedding, so hopefully one day I can crash someone else’s, heh.

Anna is having a live oak letterpressed onto the main invite. Their invitation suite is a little more formal with both outer and inner envelopes. Her wedding is going to be amazing. I’m jealous!

This is the first time I’ve written in white ink on kraft paper. I tried about 4 different brands of white ink, each less opaque than the last. The one I settled on is extremely opaque, almost too thick that it gooped in some spots. But I bent it to my will.

The envelopes will house save-the-date invites that stationer Sarah Parrott will be creating. The couple is having their wedding this fall on a tiny island off North Carolina (I want to be there!!).

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This is the first time I’ve calligraphed Icelandic characters. I met with the groom, who is from Iceland, to go over how to write some of the glyphs, such as Eth’s and Thorn’s. I learned that all Icelanders surnames are literally “Son of Jon” or “Daughter of Jon” – son or daughter of the father’s given name – and that is how lineage is traced. It is very Lord of the Rings! More than a quarter of the guests will be coming from Iceland. It’s only like a 5 hour flight from Boston…hmmm…

Their wedding is this fall in the bride’s hometown of Philadelphia. To go with the fall theme and the colors they chose for the invites, I used an ink color in “burnt sienna.”

Here are more calligraphy items I delivered the last couple of weeks.

Save the Date envelopes for Michele and Freddy’s intimate beach wedding that I’ll be photographing in October. Michele owns a hand-made invitation business and made these cards herself. The envelopes are Kraft-like from Paper Source. She let me do as I pleased (they all did really, yay!) so I went with a mix of cursive and script.

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Justine and Chris’s “In lieu of favors…” sign with illustrations. From top left going clockwise, they are Figaro, Clive the Springer, Lita the Chihuahua (the bride’s dog) and Freddy the Norfolk. Only Figaro spent time in a shelter :)

I just photographed their wedding this past weekend, and caught a couple of young guests studying the sign. One asked the other, “Can you read that?” Ha ha.

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Signs on faux chalk boards galore! When wedding planner Jennifer Cox of Esq. Events asked me if I’d be game to do these for her sister’s wedding, I thought, Why the hecks not? I have never written with chalk ink before – should be interesting. And it was! The only thing I didn’t take into account was how much time this would take. I thought I’d scribble these all out over a World Cup match. Match over, and only 5 boards done. 28+ more to go. Uh oh. Anyway, this was a mix of writing and drawing. I wrote the words in cursive, then drew and filled in the thickness on each letter. Jen gave me plenty of pens and I pretty much used up every single drop of chalk ink.

So we have various signs, table numbers one through twelve which will be inserted into the floral arrangements, main menus that will go on each table, and a couple of hors d’oeuvres menus.

I cannot wait to see how all these look in their final settings!

Hey now! A lot going on here at the studios of Fat Orange Cat. I’m excited to share some calligraphy work I’ve been commissioned to do. So far all my work has been confined to my growing stacks of notebooks. When it’s time to write “for real,” I am suddenly shaking with excess adrenalin. And admittedly, the first 3 envelopes or so ARE a little wobbly. But then pretty soon my arm is gaining some muscle memory, I’m getting into a rhythm, I’ve figured out the whole pen/paper/ink/pressure combination (different papers=different inks=different nibs=different pressure), and I’m all woohoo lookitmemommy I’m calligraphing like a big girl!

Well, not quite. I’ve used up pretty much all the extra envelopes I was given due to mistakes or clumsy smears. But I’ve jumped into the deep end so it’s sink or swim. Luckily, everyone so far has given me free reign to write how I want, so that helps calms the nerves. A lot.

First up, envelopes for Max and Bailey’s backyard wedding in Cambridge, MA, which I will be photographing {can’t wait}. Their friend Travis of Park Life Press made simple letterpress invitations on a really thick and creamy beveled card. Their guest list is small, so this was a great primer.

Next up, calligraphed envelopes for Amanda and Warren’s downtown Boston wedding, with a much bigger guest list. They found me through Rob of Goosefish Press here in the South End.  I found Rob recently myself while strolling through SOWA last month. Rob letterpressed their invitation suite on very soft cotton paper (made by Crane’s of Dalton MA, my favorite stationer). Inks tend to bleed easily on this paper, especially if you dilly dally, but luckily I found a nib and ink combo that kept the ink flowing nice and clean. And with 130 some-odd envelopes to calligraph, I eventually got the hang of it. I loosened up enough to even incorporate flourishes that didn’t look like I had suffered a massive stroke mid-stream.

Ink blot above was an accident. I like it, but rewrote it in case the clients didn’t.

More to come, including chalk boards and illustrations!

Well. I was going to start of this week by talking about our new kitten (!!! yay !!!) but instead I have to make this downer of a public announcement: Please don’t copy other people’s work. It’s lame. And illegal, and blah-dee-copyrighted-intellectual-theft-mumbo-jumbo. But mostly, it’s just lame. Laaaaaame.

Here are the offenders: www.sanberry.cn/wpblog

My blog design is based on this free wordpress theme which I picked apart to oblivion.

So aside from the layout dimensions, fonts, colors, they took my accent images. Next to the post title is my orange beveled square with a watercolor texture, and a 2-pixel high gradient, also with a watercolor texture, that took me forever to make. It’s not like some graphical masterpiece, but I did it myself so it’s mine. It’s mine!

I think the only reason they didn’t take the header image too is because my name and “fat orange cat studio” is on it. They didn’t have any problems using the cat icon. It’s cherry-picking thievery.

They link to me on their blogroll. Did they think I would see this and not be offended by this? I wasn’t able to leave comments to tell them otherwise. So here is this blog post.

I am offended. Be a man and come up with your own stuff.