I recently completed an illustration for my good friend Meghan Hers who married her long-time friend and now-husband Nicholas Schuurman. Out of a desire to dedicate something to their union, I asked them to give me a list of items, themes, and/or people that they both cherished throughout their lives. From this list, I would then create an original illustration to represent this tapestry of items. Knowing that they were two people both incredibly invested in literature, the arts, and urban issues, it would be quite an undertaking to compile all the details into a singular composition.

I started by handpicking the items and themes that were seemingly the most significant, in other words, paring down the list to make it more manageable. At this point, my mind was still somewhat stuck in the look of most wedding imagery i.e. script typefaces, cross imagery and colours. Although potentially serviceable, I wasn’t really satisfied with this direction.

I then remembered that after finishing my thesis, I had intended on taking one of my pieces about demolition into a more accessible context. The fact that it was in Chinese brought some concern over its ability to communicate its meaning to a broader audience. Keeping this in mind, I realized this project could be a launching point for future illustrations using this approach with English characters. First playing with the Aramaic word “Maranatha”, I soon realized that visually-speaking, the word itself was a little complicated. Discovering that the acronyms “M&N” would be much more iconic, I began sketching out could be the foundation of a structure or building if you will that housed all these objects of affection. Also, I believe an ampersand is such a beautiful visual form and I knew incorporating it would be a boon.

Using the typeface “Intro” for the letters and “Playfair Display” for the ampersand.

I then used InDesign to typeset the three characters and subsequently brought it into Photoshop to create a 3D extrusion of the letters. This process was interesting as I previously used Google Sketchup to adjust lighting/viewing angles and found Photoshop to do a significanlty better job at handling what I imagined.

The linear begins. This is by far the most enjoyable part of this process. Somehow incorporating a burrito restaurant against Hamilton-esque buildings made for an interesting and humorous exercise in perspective and type. Somewhere along the way, I realized I could make this a floating island, emphasizing the idea of the couple being on their own isolated haven with all the things that have enriched their lives.

Somewhere quite further along in the process. By this point I had incorporated most of the quotes and elements into the piece. The rock faces were interesting to craft and the ampersand is given extra dimension with all the scaffolding; symbolizing the idea of being a “work in progress.”

The final sketch, scanned and adjusted.

Colouring was the next step, always the defining step in bringing the piece to completion. I had about 72 hours to colour the whole thing. Arming myself with some refreshers from good friend Nimit Malavia and Richie Pope’s blog, I dove in.

The browns were pretty displeasing visually—far too many midtones. Note my shoddy “palette” in the bottom-left corner, I eventually made a new one that was much more organized.

Getting closer; Kyle Webster’s brushes were essential in adding layers of texture.

After much deliberation and many adjustment layers later…….

To close, I thought I’d include their list of original list of things that were incorporated. See if you can find everything. Thanks for reading and thank you Meghan and Nick for giving me the opportunity to create such a meaningful composition.

-J

The couple. Photo by Paul Chin.

“Some things we love: — burritos — going for hikes/nature — trees — sparrows — the country/farms — reading theology/poetry (like Annie Dillard/Marie Oliver) — woodcut/linocut art/printmaking — the band The Oh Hellos — folk music (guitars, banjos, etc) — bright colours — Hamilton — gardening — kale — living simply — trees Themes — grace for one another, God having grace for us — The proverb “All will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well” (said by a cloistered nun a couple thousand years ago) It’s something we say when we’re overwhelmed by life, or by events in our lives, or by our own brokenness — the fact that the two of us are just works of progress, and the idea of the Kingdom being yet to come, and also being already here (as expressed in the word “maranatha”) — community, humility, sacrifice and service.”