I recently was asked to take a painting done by
Robin Lee and write out a couple's wedding vows. They had been intrigued by the
Ketubah tradition and wanted something similar that could be signed during the ceremony. Since they liked Robin's work, they commissioned a painting from her that was then sent to me to write on. I've written on canvas with metal pens before but not on surfaces done by others, so I had to do a little research to make sure it would work. I ended up spraying lightly with a fixative to give the acrylic paint surface a bit of "grab" and then used acrylic gouache so I could have more control over flow. It was still a little erratic but did OK. I worked out a style that seemed to fit the painting style and could be done at a size to fit the wording (it is a the shorter of two versions sent me, fitting in more just wasn't going to work)
You see the signatures added on Robin's
facebook page
And here's a closer look at the lettering, done with a clipped EF66 nib and acrylic gouache with a little acrylic black ink added to get it dark enough since I usually only have red, yellow and blue in acrylic gouache. Of course, to ensure the fairly "flush right" margin I had to do some extra layout and tracing work.
I had to varnish it since the painter kindly didn't make me write over varnish, and since the gouache didn't adhere as tightly as painting acrylic paint on, I used a conservation quality spray varnish to make sure not to disturb the lettering while adding protection. It did make me realize that some of my previous canvas work probably should not have gone out of here without a protective coat!
Here's an
example of a Ketubah by a calligrapher I know, and a
gallery-full by another . I have done a wedding certificate or two where all the guests sign it, such as for Quaker weddings.
