Andrea Fryett Portrait And Live Event Painting.

08/28/2026

This little guy was also finished in August.

08/28/2026

Yes I'm still doing pet portraits. I am asked this question often. I still love painting pets 💕 as you can tell from my recent morning dog cuddle video, I understand how important these little beings are to us.

This one finished earlier this month.

08/28/2026

I realized yesterday I forgot to share a still of this final painting. Lots of process videos, no still.

So here it is.

08/28/2026

Every painting has a colour key.

And one of the biggest challenges in live wedding painting is figuring that out quickly.

No two paintings will ever have exactly the same palette, even if I’m using many of the same colours on my palette. Every scene has its own balance of warm and cool, light and shadow, value separation and chroma.

When I begin a live painting, I usually have a general idea of where I want the colour to go. But the exact relationships still need to be established.

How warm are the lights?

How cool are the shadows?

How far apart should they be in value?

How saturated should the overall painting feel?

If you watch my time-lapse videos carefully, you’ll often see me place an early shadow or highlight, only to paint over it again shortly afterward.

That isn’t necessarily because the first colour was “wrong.”

I’m calibrating the painting.

Maybe the shadow is too blue. Maybe the highlight is too yellow. Maybe there isn’t enough value separation between the two. Maybe both colours are individually beautiful, but they don’t belong in the same painting.

What I’m really looking for early on is one light note and one shadow note that work beautifully together.

Once I find that relationship, I have the beginnings of a colour strategy.

From there, every other colour can be judged relative to those anchors.

The greens, skin tones, flowers, architecture, clothing and sky all need to belong to the same colour world. I’m no longer inventing each colour independently. I’m creating variations within an established system.

And interestingly, the colour doesn’t always need to be literally accurate to what I’m seeing.

It needs to be accurate to itself.

A scene could be interpreted with warm peach-gold light and soft violet-grey shadows, or creamy neutral light with cooler blue shadows. Both could work beautifully. They would simply create very different paintings.

I’ve noticed that the live painting days I struggle with most are often the days when I have the hardest time deciding on that colour key.

Until it clicks, every new colour feels like another question.

Once it does, the painting becomes much easier to move through with confidence.

08/28/2026

End-of-the-evening progress ✨ And very much not finished yet.

I spent about 8 hours on the painting itself yesterday, but the work starts before the brush really gets going.

I sifted through the hundreds of photos I took during the recessional, chose 5 different images that could be combined to create the scene I had in my head, loosely sketched the composition onto the canvas with acrylic marker, and then started painting.

Somewhere in there I took three very glamorous 10-minute breaks to grab tiny plates of food and refuel. 😅 Live wedding painting honestly feels a little like running a marathon.

I arrived just before 11:00am and was getting into my Uber at 11:45pm.

When I first started doing these, I used to put a lot of pressure on myself to have the painting completely finished before I left, because I knew some live wedding artists worked that way. I realized pretty quickly, though, that for me, chasing “finished by midnight” was going to mean sacrificing the quality of the finished artwork.

So I changed the goal.

By the end of the wedding, I want the entire canvas established. I want my clients to be able to look at it and clearly see the composition, the moment, the people, the colour and the direction the finished painting is heading.

But there comes a point after that many hours when I can feel my decision-making getting sloppy. And once I’m too tired to make good painting decisions, continuing doesn’t make me faster, it just creates things I’ll have to fix later.

That’s my cue to stop.

Now it comes back to the studio with me, where I can refine the likenesses, strengthen the light, clean up the shapes and give the painting the attention it deserves.

The live portion captures the energy of the day.
The studio portion turns it into the finished artwork they’ll keep.

08/27/2026

Here we go.

A few hours in, arrived at 11am. Watched the ceremony, grabbed my images at 1 :30, headed to the reception venue, went through my photos
Picked my favorites. This will be a composite of about 5 images.
Sketched everything out, blocked in my sky.

It's 3:25

Guests arrive at 6.

I'll paint until about 12:30

08/27/2026

08/27/2026

How to plan a successful painting… with no planning. 😅

Today’s couple wants a grand outdoor recessional, guests gathered outside, newlyweds coming through, big celebratory moment, beautiful venue behind them.

The forecast, however, is currently saying: thunderstorms. ⛈️

And this is one of the strange skills of live wedding painting: I need to arrive with a strong artistic plan while being completely prepared to abandon it.

If the recessional happens, amazing. I’ll be ready.

If the weather starts looking questionable, I may photograph some of the guests outside earlier in the day so I have the ingredients I need to reconstruct the scene.

And if Mother Nature completely vetoes the plan? I’ll come up with something else on the fly that still feels intentional, beautiful, and worthy of being their wedding painting.

Because live wedding painting isn’t really about perfectly following a plan.

It’s about keeping your eye on the goal of the painting, adapting to what actually happens, even when reality is working against you , and somehow making the finished artwork look like this was the plan all along. 😂

Wish me luck. ⛈️🎨💍

08/27/2026

The glamorous life of a live wedding painter 😂🎨

This is what comes with me when I’m heading out to paint a wedding: essentially an entire tiny studio packed into one suitcase.

Canvas, easel, paints, brushes, palettes, paint markers, water containers, palette wetting spray bottle, mediums, paper towel, drop sheet, tablet, tripod, GoPro, four GoPro batteries, backup battery, phone charger with a 10-foot cable… because apparently I’m preparing for both a wedding and a minor expedition.

And then there’s the equally important artist survival kit:

Advil + Tylenol
Antacids
Ear plugs
Protein bar
Sunscreen
Sunglasses

The drop sheet is that big folded canvas-looking thing sitting on top of the suitcase — because as romantic as live wedding painting looks in the finished photos, acrylic paint + somebody else’s beautiful venue floor is not a risk I’m willing to take. 😂

It takes a surprising amount of gear to make the actual painting process feel calm and effortless once I’m there.

Everything packed. Everything charged. Everything backed up.

Then I can just show up, set up my little studio, and paint. ❤️

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08/27/2026

A tiny little 8x8" study of rocks in context. These little paintings are part of my online classes that I'm building to teach how to simplify shapes into large clean/clear masses, how to resist over detailing. Also importantly how to master mixing rich color from limited palettes, how colours interact with colored grounds, and how to create finishing touches and adjustments with glazes.

This video will become available for purchase through my website, but, it will also be included for my mentees in my Mastrius mentorship group for aspiring artists.

Link to sign up in my bio.