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

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.

At the beginning of this year I decided I needed to make a wedding version of my logo. I commissioned my graphic designer friend Jesse to update the original logo he made with some wedding elements, such as a gauzy veil over the cat’s head maybe, or a bouquet being tossed, flying across the “fat orange cat” text. Or have flowers petals flying in the breeze. He tried everything I asked and through no fault of his, none of what I requested could be translated very well to a tiny, thumbnail sized logo. The veil over the cat looked like a ghost, the bouquet looked like fly. I was over-complicating things. So I decided I needed to another approach…and turned to calligraphy!

After researching many calligraphers online – some who were very formal and traditional, some who were downright quirky – I discovered the wonderful, wonderful work of Paperfinger.  I instantly fell in love with Bryn’s informal script, her casual flourishes and her beautiful illustrations. Her style fits my aesthetics to a T.

See, so pretty!

Calligraphy by Paperfinger. Visit her blog here to see more delicious hand-written goodies.

Beautiful writing aside, there were several things that I drew me to about Bryn: barely a year in business, she has already been seen in the pages of Martha Stewart Weddings, is self-taught, and has a computer science degree that she doesn’t care to use. Just like me! Well, I don’t know if it’s just like me, but I for one don’t much care to use my degree anyway! I didn’t find any of these things out until after I already knew I wanted to work with her. We were meant to be…

Bottom line is, I think her work is singular, and very fresh. Maybe being self-taught is a reason for that. No constraints, no rules, just what looks right.

I asked Bryn to draw me the cat shape, a tree branch, write the word “weddings” and also my name. As style guides/inspiration I pointed to Edward Gorey and the gnarly limbs of live oaks, aka the sexiest trees on earth. I also asked her if she would give me her sketches after we were done, and she obliged. I’m not sure which I love more, the final product or the rough drafts. If only my name contained more letters!

Sarah of Parrott Design Studio will be incorporating these into more notecards. I’ve asked her to letterpress several varieties and will be providing her with the 100% cotton Crane’s paper which my mother-in-law, who used to work there, was so generous to give to me.  At some point there will be business cards but I haven’t decided yet. I have a feeling I will not want to give away any letterpressed biz cards, because the thought of any crumpled up at the bottom of a purse, or worse, in the trash, is too much!

So in the meantime, notecards. I couldn’t be happier with how well the existing and new hand-drawn elements work together. Simple with just a touch of whimsy. I love how Gorey-esque the cat is, and yet how the curl of the tail still mimics the tail of the g in the “orange” as it did when the cat was digital, and how that flourish is transferred to the “d” in “Ward”.  And the “s” in “weddings.” It’s all deliberate!

On teal, my name blind-embossed (no ink) and no logo.

And Moo cards, which already have the new cat logo.

Be sure to see some more of Paperfinger’s calligraphy in action here, and this great Q&A I just found. Check out her napkin invites. So simple and so lovely it hurts! ~ Thank you Bryn!

I have a corollary to my last “Things I Like” post back in March, regarding calligraphy. I have been keeping up with it, putting in at least one hour of writing every day – calligraphy is such an easy procrastinating device! – that I have gotten much, much better since my first post. I have miles to go before my hand looks strong and sure, and it will be some time more before I feel like I have my own style, but nevertheless I’m feeling confident enough now to offer my hand-lettering services to couples planning a wedding, without too much fear that anyone will laugh in my face.

In fact I have a few couples for whom I’m slated to do some calligraphy work. Some are couples whose wedding I’m photographing, and some are not! There will be menus to write on chalkboard, dessert cards for dessert tables, and even hand-drawn cat and dog portraitures (more on that later). Really, any little bit of writing makes me SO HAPPY.

I always knew I would love calligraphy, if I would just sit down and do it! Why I never did until now, I’ll never know. Well, I’m off and skipping and hopping down this path now, and I hope to talk about my calligraphy progress some more on this blog, as well as my inspiration, so I hope you don’t mind if the topics diverge occasionally from that of pet photography!

Here are some samples of fictitious addresses that I had a grand time concocting. (Except for Edward Gorey. He’s real and his illustrations are another source of inspiration.) My stock pile of Crane’s stationery is finally being put to good use. And yes, Jane Austen et al. are totally #1 on the list of Things I Like. I kind of localized all the characters. It is not hard to picture Emma Woodhouse as a Connecticut-suburb kind of gal, or that Rochester might be found brooding away in the bayous of Louisiana…

So if you or anyone you know is looking for calligraphy needs, and you don’t think I stink, let me know! My fingers are itching to write.