Custom Ketubot
When my twin sister asked me to make her a watercolor and calligraphy ketubah for her wedding I was thrilled…and a bit apprehensive. Yes, I’ve made plenty of Jewish marriage certificates just like this, an illustrated watercolor border with Hebrew and English calligraphy for the vows in the middle. In the past couple years the custom Ketubot I’ve been making have mostly been wooden designs with either hand carved or lasered text. So, I broke out my paints and began warming up with some smaller paintings of trees and landscapes, what a joy! My sketchbooks are often filled of pen and ink, graphite and drawings that deal more with value than color, but in no time I had filled up a watercolor sketchbook with vibrant hues on each page.
It took me a while to figure out the branch structure of the tree in the painting, but late one night I was working on thumbnail sketches and stumbled upon this composition. Sketching the entire tree really helped even though I would be cropping in so heavily on the final piece.
