Not many people may know the difference between a live wedding painter and a wedding illustrator as both create artistic representations of your special day. However, if you delve deeper there are a few factors which separate the two such as techniques, mediums and the nature of their work. All of which we will explore below.
A wedding illustrator is an artist at heart, who creates masterpieces using traditional mediums like pen, ink, markers, watercolours and quite often digital tools such as tablets or styluses. Typically, their preferred style focuses on creating swift, smaller portraits of you and your guests. These portraits are stylized, whimsical, or cartoon-like, capturing a likeness while being less detailed than a traditional portrait but no less impressive! This technique allows wedding illustrators to complete several illustrations per hour, making them exceptional entertainment for you and your guests while providing cherished keepsakes and small handouts. Often at times wedding illustrators will also create bespoke illustrations of other occasions such as customer portraits, wedding invitations and stationary designs.
Digital illustrators can provide a digital file for you and your loved ones, allowing each image to be printed or shared online. As a bonus, they can also create animations, add interactive illustrations for social media, or include special loved ones who were unable to be there on your special day. This is the biggest advantage of having a digital illustrator over someone who offers the more traditional style.
As an alternative, a live wedding painter creates their masterpieces using more traditional mediums such as oil, acrylic, or watercolour painted directly onto canvas. These specialised artists deploy a classical and realistic style to their artwork, able to produce very intricate and detailed depictions of your special day. This is done through techniques that involve layering paint, blending colours, and creating unique textures with their brushwork. A live wedding painter often focuses on one aspect of the ceremony, capturing the atmosphere, venue, and emotions of the event as it unfolds in a timeless and traditional style.
The final pieces from a live wedding painter are usually varnished for protection, so they can be directly displayed as a unique keepsake in your home. Each piece is one-of-a-kind, meticulously crafted live at your event, ensuring it is completely unique to you and the love shared on your wedding day.
So, what are the differences? Well for starters, one of the main differences is the medium which the artist uses to craft their masterpieces. Live wedding painters use traditional mediums such as oils or acrylic, whereas a wedding illustrator chooses pen, pencil, or digital mediums. A live wedding painter has the ability to create a much more realistic painting than an illustrator, but this comes at the cost of speed, as an illustrator can produce 5-10 illustrations per hour. The size of their artwork also differs as illustrations are typically A5 sized, whereas a canvas for a live wedding painting can be as large as 30”x40”.
In summary, a wedding illustrator provides more modern, digital, and customisable artwork, while a wedding painter offers a hand-crafted, unique, and traditional painting that captures the essence of the wedding in a classic style.
A wedding illustrator brings several benefits to your special day, including versatility, customisation, and speed. This enables them to produce large amounts of beautifully bespoke art pieces to be handed out as wedding favours to your guests as they watch the magic unfold. Providing them with a memorable keepsake, completely unique to them as a cherished reminder of the love shared that special day. Those who create digitally also provide the benefit of being able to download the files, share them on websites or social media or print out any images to proudly display in your home. This combination of modern tools, unique artistic styles, and versatile output makes wedding illustrators a popular choice for capturing the special moments of a wedding day.
Having a wedding painter provides several notable benefits, including the creation of timeless keepsakes, the ability to capture atmosphere, and the depth of artistic expression. Their traditional paintings offer a classic and elegant representation of your wedding, serving as lasting keepsakes that can be prominently displayed in your home. Each painting is a unique piece of art, adding sentimental value and a sense of timelessness to the wedding memories. Painters have the ability to capture the ambiance, lighting, and emotion of the wedding in a rich and textured manner. The presence of a live painter can also add an element of performance art to the event, engaging guests and creating a memorable experience.