The personalized touch of a live guest portrait as a wedding favor!
What is a live guest portrait?
A live guest portrait is just what it sounds like- a drawing done by an artist working at an event. Some do it by taking a photo and drawing the person from the photo, while others do it while the guest sits in the chair (I chose the latter method as I feel it provides a more interactive and memorable experience).
I would say weddings are the most popular event to hire a live artist. And thankfully, I love weddings! If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have so much fun working at them. They celebrate love and the union of not just the couple, but their friends and family. It’s so lovely to be able to give the friends and family of the couple a tangible, hand-made memory of that milestone in the couple’s lives.
Working my first wedding at the lovely Abigail’s Garden in Oregon City, OR.
The unique quality of live portraits for wedding favors…
I think part of what makes this work so meaningful is to be able to capture the emotions of the wedding itself in the drawings. Every sketch expresses the support of the love that everyone came to celebrate, and kind of like how the wedding couple tends to have photographic prints of their day and other mementos, now their friends and family can have a physical keepsake as well.
Guests holding their portrait!
It’s also much more personal than a wedding name and date printed favor like a candle or a matchbox- it’s literally you! Seeing people’s faces light up when they get to see the culmination of what I was creating is really the magic of what I do.
I really try my best to get the nuances of their physical characteristics so it actually looks like the person. I keep getting better and faster since I started, too, so it’s really fun to watch my own progress. It’s also exciting to think about the different styles I could try. I’m thinking about offering a smaller option, adding some color, doing watercolor… There are such a variety of favors I could add to potential packages.
Adding the finishing touches with marker.
I can’t wait to keep drawing new people and expressing their individuality through my work while maintaining a consistent style that really says this was drawn by me. Warmth, love, expression, beauty. Those are the things that have always been my favorite to portray in art - whether it has been character work or landscapes - and I find through my interactions with people while drawing them, I get to portray all of those things. The fact that it’s at a wedding, a day of love (and if you work in weddings, you probably love love) just makes it better.
