Commission: Keepsake Tree for Clara

Our transition from spring to summer has been such a whirlwind and I’ve not had time to reflect on the biggest commission project I worked on this year! In early spring, I was asked to help plan my God-daughter, Clara’s dedication.

I helped with everything from event signage to menu designs along with decoration and floral arrangements on the day.

Planning and painting started weeks before the event and reminded me of when I used to work with various clients designing graphics for websites, flyers, and planning outreach events! It was exhilarating, exciting and the rush of it all definitely put my creative skills to the test. 

Like all wonderful things, the theme was florals, spring pinks, tulips and romantic whimsy lettering. For bigger projects, I find it easiest to work in small chunks and break down big tasks into small manageable ones. The project that took the most time, I tackled first. It was a tree keepsake to remember the event and all in attendance that would be hung up in Clara’s room. This required lots of back and forth to get it just right. I painted this on my biggest sheet of archival watercolour paper arches HP paper, which I purchased just for this project. I didn’t stretch the paper for this project as there wasn’t enough space to do, but it came out well. It was even too big for my tracing paper and I tried to use baking paper unsuccessfully.

Definitely, learned not to try that again. In the end, the tree was a show stopper especially with the addition of everyone's fingerprints acting as the blossoms.

After the tree, everything else seemed like a breeze. I handmade small signs by cutting rounded edges, painted the menus with pink tulips buds and added hand lettering. I am blessed to have been given the opportunity to push my skills in this way and discovered I seem to work best under a bit of pressure!