That Time I Live Sketched A Wedding

In November I travelled back to my hometown, Chilliwack, BC, to be with family at my cousin’s wedding. I was there for more than a week and the wedding day was the only day without rain! Not too sure if I miss west coast winters or not, though it’s -15C outside my window in Montreal as I write this – but it at least it’s sunny!!

I went to the wedding with the intention to live-sketch it. I bought a 5×8 Moleskin watercolour book but hadn’t a hope in heck of filling ALL of those pages (72), so I set my goal at half full. And even that had me sketching nearly all day and night long. What a hoot! I wandered around, not too unlike the photographers, capturing little sketched snapshots of the day. Being my first live-sketch wedding, I didn’t make too much of a plan as to the chronology of the sketches, I just followed the day and flipped the pages. After, I added in a few sketches here and there, like one of the Little White Chapel, and “The Chad”,  from photos I took throughout the day. Scroll down to see a video flip through of the entire sketchbook. 

I had hoped I’d have time on location to finish the sketches, but things moved so quickly that I found myself sketching frantically in ink and moving to the next page. Over the course of my week-long west coast visit, I added watercolour to the drawings while watching cable TV with my dad and stepmom in the evenings (cable TV? Haha, hadn’t watched cable in awhile. Commercials are so weird and painful).  I looked for a place to have the spine embossed with the names of the bride and groom but came up short. And so I delivered it as a wedding gift, made with love, as it was.

Here is a little flip through video I made at the Starbucks on Yale Rd (for those Chilliwackians who would care), before dropping off the book.

It was really a lot of fun for me. People were so curious about what I was doing that they buzzed around me trying to get a glimpse. I thought it might be distracting, but it wasn’t. I got a few, “hey, draw me!” requests, but as it is with quick sketching, there was never any real guarantee that it would look just like them. The goal was to catch the essence of the event and I hope I accomplished that.

I’m available for hire for your next event. Head over to my contact page and let me know what your plans are.

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