I drew this county Monaghan wedding before Christmas 2025. The drawing was a commissioned portrait given to the couple in the photo as a Christmas gift. My client, Jennifer, wanted me to capture her cousin and her new husband on their big day. Jennifer’s husband previously commissioned a pencil drawing of St’ Brigid’s Boys National School in Foxrock in Dublin. Jennifer loved the drawing so much that she got an idea of me creating this gift for her cousin.
She was delighted with the finished portrait and wrote her reaction in an email after she received a scanned image from me:
Hi Ivana! Ohhhhhh myyyyy goodddddd it’s stunning! Thank you so so much! I’m so excited to give it to them! They are going to love it! Really appreciate your work on this! Such a special special piece!
Jennifer upon seeing the scanned image of the drawing after I emailed it over to her in December 2025
The couple got married at the beautiful Castle Leslie Estate in Glaslough in county Monaghan. Jennifer wanted me to capture the hotel building and emailed me a gorgeous photo of the couple walking towards it.
There is a lot of detail in the photo and it was important to capture this in the drawing I felt. The building creates an anchor in the composition, while the couple adds movement. There are some hotel guests at the main building too. The texture of the manicured trees on each side of the image creates a soft contrast to the sharp outlines of the building.
It was very interesting for me to capture all these different textures, the distant trees, the stone and angles of the building, the soft grass and of course the main couple. The detail I used on the wedding dress was minimal to make sure it stays as white as possible. I wanted it to be the main focus of the portrait. I decided to shade the sky a little to create a very soft overcast grey as a means for the white dress to pop even more.
I started with a very detailed sketch of the building and the couple. The drawing is 30 x 40 cm in size and couple’s faces worked out quite small. I had to be very careful to capture their likeness at such a small scale. Once I was happy with the initial sketch, I moved on to shading. I detailed the background first before finishing off the foreground.
I sign every drawing on the bottom below the finish line. This is hidden by the mount. I add my initials “IL” to the bottom right hand corner of every artwork within the bounds of the portrait. I often add the name or location of the commissioned piece below the finish line too.
