Two of my oldest and dearest friends, Joni and Charles, got hitched this summer. For their wedding gift, I wanted to do something special. Something permanent and long lasting. Something that would remind them of their love for eachother, and something they could keep enjoy for the rest of their lives.

First I had Joni come over with their engagement photos and I chose one that would be suitable for their wedding portrait. It had to be a clear shot of their faces with not a whole lot of background detail. This one worked.

Oh, by the way, if you just wanna see the finished product, go ahead and skip down to the end. No really, I don’t mind.

Next I wanted to tie in the portrait to a running theme on their wedding day, which was a damask pattern like this one..

This will be part of the border of the image. But we don’t need the whole thing, so let’s go ahead and block out a section in the middle for their faces.

For the medium I decided to use canvas board this time. Canvas board has the same texture as stretched canvas on the surface but has the advantage of being slim enough to slip into a small frame (which I will be doing later).

Next I stencil and cut out the damask later using an exacto knife. Here’s how that looks when it’s done.

Now that that’s ready to go, we might as well spray this damask border onto the canvas board.

Their faces have more detail and therefore are composed of 3 layers. Black, Medium Grey, and White. Cut them all out carefully with the exacto knife. Especially medium grey and white facial layers because this is really the most important part of the whole thing and if it’s not detailed enough people won’t be able to tell it’s them.

I sprayed the layers one at a time of course. Starting with black.

Then grey..

And finally white..

Now I want to put a secondary straight edge border to help clean up the image a bit. For this we use masking tape to get a straight edge.

Looks like this up close when finished.

Now I’m going to stencil the words “Love Lives Here” along with their wedding date. That way, nobody has any excuse for forgetting their anniversary!

So on to the frame. Since this is being displayed in the atrium of their wedding reception, it’s important that it’s framed and classy looking. I decided to use this old antique frame I found in my parent’s garage.

I painted it matte white. That’s classy right?

Here’s how it looks up close.

Now we just gotta mount the finished canvas board into the frame. But first, I have to sign the back..

‘Happily Ever After’ by Danskee. 2010.
Number 1 of 1 !! super limited!

Oh, I almost forgot… here’s the finished product!
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Congratulations guys! May you both live happily ever after.

And if you read this whole thing, thanks for reading.

-Danskee