Ketubot in Vivid Colors
If you’ve explored my ketubah collections, you’ll notice that color is kinda the name of the game around here. Nothing is music to my ears more than a client telling me that they want “all the colors” for their ketubah or painting. It is so much fun combining vibrant artistic media in sophisticated ways to create color effects that surprise and delight the eye – and the soul.
Colorful Mystical Forest Ketubah
I have always been drawn to unique color combinations and I don’t shy away from risky bold color statements.
Shhhh… here is a secret.
Sailboat Ketubah by Anna Abramzon
I never actually learned the proper basics. Once upon a time, I substitute taught a high school art class for 8 weeks (I was replacing a friend who was on maternity leave). This experience put me, for the first time, in a position of having to teach the basics of color theory – and what I realized was that I never learned this stuff! You know the color wheel? It was probably your very first kindergarten art project. I had no idea what that was. With all my artistic training, including my fancy BFA degree, and I never learned the basics of color mixing and combinations. That’s because coloristic effects always came naturally to me. Orange being the opposite of green and red and blue combining to make purple is as intuitive to me as 2 + 2 equaling 4 may be to someone mathematically inclined. Color theory comes to me instinctively and I have learned that my art turns out the best when I sit back and allow my intuition to guide me.
So, you ask, how do you decide which color to use where?
Nothing is more intimidating than a blank piece of paper or canvas, so to get started I like to choose either one hue or one shade as a launch point. For example, a ketubah or painting can have a combination of many bright, vibrant colors, but the piece will come together better if the hues are cohesive – so the colors are all the same level of brightness.
Love Story from the Homeward Collection
Alternatively, I may also choose to limit my color palette to a few different shades. In this case I can use a whole range of hues, from the darkest to the lightest version of any color, but the color itself is limited.
Blue Period from Intimate Moments Collection
I have several ketubot in my collection that are available in different palettes (color combinations), but they are each a restricted palette. For example, the Jerusalem Love Tree is available in shades of blue and in earth tones.
Jerusalem Love Tree in shades of Blue
Jerusalem Love Tree in Earth Tones
Similarly the Classic Love Tree is available in turquoise, earth tones, violet, and the classic black and white.
Never Have I Ever Skimped on Quality Media
Do you have a foodie friend? I have a few, and while I (confession!) may not be able to taste the difference between Kraft and handmade fusilli, I can definitely tell you the difference between a student grade Yellow Ochre and a professional grade one. Just like your foodie friends would die before buying off-the-shelf tomato sauce and non-artisan olive oil, I would never ever buy cheap paint. In fact back in art school, I happily lived on ramen noodles to splurge on the Burnt Siena and Cadmium Red of my dreams.
Another secret -- I would also never use a paint color straight out of a tube. Just like a foodie friend would never use a sauce without doctoring it, I am religious about mixing my own colors. Growing up, I was fortunate enough to be mentored by an incredible art teacher named Yuri Kanzburg. He was an elderly man, roughly the age of my grandparents, who had lived in the Soviet Union for most of his life. As such, he had received the most high-quality artistic training –if you know anything about the Soviet culture, you know we take our art very seriously. He was fond of taking me on painting excursions into nature. He loved to tell my fifteen year old self to set up my easel in front of a dense landscape of green trees and tell me to go for it, but with one caveat – I was not allowed to use green. Talk about testing a teenager’s patience!
With exercises like these, he taught me to see that there is no such thing as out of the tube green – every shade of green in nature is a combination of other colors, and no two leaves are ever the same hue. To this day, the green paints that come standard in my paint sets remain untouched, along with black and white (also drilled into me: never ever use black or white in watercolor, always darken using other colors and lighten with water by making the paint more transparent).
What if we want our art to match our décor?
All the ketubahs in my collection come with a “custom color” option. You can select it right in each product listing. If you go this route, I will digitally edit the colors of whatever art you choose to make it your own. You can match your ketubah to your wedding colors, or your living room décor – totally up to you! With the custom color option I will always make a digital proof of your ketubah with her new color scheme, so you have input into the final product.
If you’re commissioning original art for your ketubah, you get to choose your color palette (along with everything else!). So whether your vibe is jewel tones, blushing rose, rustic terracotta or sophisticated monochrome, your ketubah will be sure to not only fit in, but be the life of the color party! So what are you waiting for? Get in touch and let my art add a splash of color to your special moment – and to your home long after.
These special collections of ketubot may also interest you:
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