Oh So Beautiful Paper

Last year, I featured the stunningly gorgeous hand-painted letterpress Save the Dates for the 10-year vow renewal of Kristy Rice from Momental Designs.  Today, I’m thrilled that Kristy is back with her equally beautiful watercolor wedding invitations — with a design inspired by the majesty of Zion National Park, where Kristy’s vow renewal will take place:

From Kristy: The save the date design was meant to introduce our guests to the beauty of Zion National Park in Utah but the invitations were meant to immerse them!

After many, many trips to Zion I have developed a serious collection of watercolor sketches and paintings.  A full color watercolor painting worked into the actual invitation layout seemed the perfect option.

The particular painting chosen for the invitation was created on one very sunny October day at a quiet spot near the crystal waters of the Virgin River.

I sat on the cool rocks near the water and proceeded to paint for nearly 3 hours, leaving with a detailed and expressive painting and also a bit of a sunburn!

After each invitation was reproduced, shimmering copper and cobalt blue hand painted strokes of color were added to each individual card.  I wanted to give our guests a sense of how the water reflects light on the towering rocks and dances shadows in every direction.

The calligraphy for the names and addresses on the outer envelopes, as well as our names on the main invitation, was done by the talented Betsy Dunlap.  I used the print ready image that Betsy created for our save the dates everywhere I could, from the invitation to the rsvp response and outer envelope backflap.

Size and scale were important in this design since the redrock landscape of Zion is so towering and massive.  The finished invite measured nearly 6.5 x 9.5 inches!

You can check out Kristy’s letterpress save the dates right here, and you can see lots more of her beautiful work over on Momental Designs.  Thank you so much Kristy!

{image credits: kristy rice}

1. Amanda says:

   03/25/2010 at 1:59 PM

   These are stunning. The calligraphy compliments the paintings so well. Really nice!
2. Kristy R.
   Twitter: riceink
   says:

   03/24/2010 at 9:30 AM

   Thank you for the lovely post. Happy to share my labor of love with these invitations!
3. Kristen says:

   03/23/2010 at 1:32 PM

   Oooooh my! As a frequent visitor to Zion, all I can say is “WOW!”
   Amazing.
4. Jenn says:

   03/23/2010 at 11:43 AM

   I always love personalized details and.. the individual watercolor paintings!!? How beautiful!

Trackbacks

1. My Story is Art - 2011 Intentions and a look back | Momental Designs – Unique Handmade Wedding Invitations, Custom Invitations by Artist, Kristy Rice says:

   01/02/2011 at 2:07 PM

   [...] trips to Utah this past year gave me a certain peace and verve for creating new art.  Read more here, here and [...]