Live Painting PGH by Jaison & Stephanie

Sydney & Mike 🤎

I was in a Tuscan state of mind while painting this! I've never been to Italy, but I bet it's the kind of place where time slows down and the stress of life melts away. is a beautiful Tuscan inspired venue, and you better believe we carved out some time after the ceremony to take a few pictures in front of the pink, Mediterranean style exterior!

You could tell when Sydney & Mike looked at each other, time absolutely slowed down. I've never seen two people so happy to be married!

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy
Venue:

Alexis & Jacob 🎄

Jaison and I have somewhat of a ritual at every wedding. Before guests arrive, we'll sit down with a cup of coffee, take a beat, a deep breath, and just observe. We take in every square inch of your wedding. It's important for us to have some quiet before the actual painting begins. In the quiet, we're visualizing the composition on the canvas. The 'bones' of the painting are so important. We won't paint until we're 100% confident in our drawing.

When we start painting, everything happens so fast. The coffee kicks in and the painting magically comes together. ...with some hard work and a lot of forethought sprinkled in there, too. 🙃

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy
Venue:

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Amber & Chris 🤎

Jaison has 2 modes when he's painting. Mode one is a frenzy. He's attacking the canvas with his brush. Mode two is quiet contemplation. He takes a lot of breaks to critique his work, and he's most likely biting his nails lol. thank you for capturing Jaison in action! 😄

Artist: Jaison Schafer
Venue;
Photographer:

Golden hour with Tina & Roisin 🤎

First and foremost, I want to thank for her beautiful work. This painting would not be possible without her keen eye.

Jaison and I are working on a new portrait series! These portraits will strictly be on a 9x12" handmade panel and beautifully framed in a one of a kind, hand-crafted

Why a 9x12" panel? It's a magical size. It's smaller, yet it still leaves an impact.. especially when it has a beautiful frame. This size helps us apply the golden ratio to our compositions! This is an easy hack for artists! 🤭 We also just love the way the paint glides over the smooth surface of the panel.

SO excited to show you more of this series. We have so many ideas and not enough time!

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy

Isabelle & Mark 🤎

Inspired by 'A Jewish Wedding' by Jozef Israels

The tallit is a prayer shawl that is wrapped around the couple’s shoulders as a symbol of unity and being surrounded by love. Isabelle and Mark are also surrounded by loved ones who have passed away. It gets even more emotional...

The little girl on the left represents the children of Israel - those before and after who do not get to grow up. The couple wanted her to act as a symbol for all the children lost in this recent war on both sides.

Artist: Jaison Schafer
Venue:

Angela & Daniel 🧡

Some beautiful words from the couple... 🥹

"First, I just wanted to say THANK YOUUUU!!! 💗 Daniel and I are still on such a HIGH from our wedding day! We spent the last two years planning the details of our wedding, and it turned out 10x more than we could have ever expected. It was genuinely our dream wedding and so much more! 💗 Part of that was having YOU be a part of our special day!! It was so amazing to work with you on choosing the portrait for our painting! It is amazing how you can piece together different angles to create the perfect painting for us! We got so many compliments after the wedding about how cool the painting was! Everyone thought it was the coolest addition to our wedding day! Most people thought it was completed, but little do they know - it was just the start of it. We can not wait to see the final product! Our videographers and photographer both mentioned that they have seen paintings done of the star barn, but yours was their favorite that they have seen! Thank you so much for coming and creating another beautiful piece to always help us remember the best day of our lives!!"

Artist: Jaison Schafer
Venue:
Photographs:
Videographer:
Wedding dress:

Colleen & Joe 🩵

This commission was a gift from Colleen's parents! These two were married in sunny Clearwater, Florida 🌞 I was sadly already booked for their wedding date, but I would have GLADLY traveled to the sunshine state to live paint this scene!

If we're booked for your wedding and you prefer our style, we also offer commission paintings completed in our studio from photos from your photographer (non-live, after the wedding). We could even have a painting done beforehand to display at the wedding if you already have some favorite photos for us to work from. OR if you're local, we can even schedule a day to have a quick photoshoot to get reference pictures for a painting!

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy

Officially introducing.. Bouquet Portraits! 💐

We have wanted to formally offer bouquet portraits for a loonnngggg time. Painting flowers offers us a more expressive (and therapeutic, to be honest) avenue for painting! We've been playing with new ways to approach bouquets this past year, and we couldn't be happier or more excited for this new offering.

Our style is... a little wild, a little ambiguous, only adding detail where it's needed. Just like our live paintings, it's a mix of expressionism, impressionism, and realism.The painting tells us what it needs. The focus is heavy on color harmonies and movement. We want the flowers to look as if they're dancing.

A bouquet is a work of art all on its own. Let's take it a step further and turn your bouquet into fine art for your home ..A work of art that never fades. 🙂

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy & Jaison Schafer

Catt & Kyler 🩵

Our first ever bubble ceremony exit! I've also been patiently waiting to paint the outdoor ceremony space at for YEARS!! As you can see, this is one of our more detailed paintings. It has a yin and yang composition where all of the detail is reserved for the bottom half of the painting, and the sky is simplified at the top, giving your eyes room to breathe!

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy
Venue:

Kelly & Cameron 🤎

Any peice of art that really 'moves' you contains... MAGIC. Magic is instantly recognized, yet infinitely elusive and nearly impossible to describe. We do know that diligence, experience, a clear focus, openness, and 'nowness' are prerequisites to set ourselves up for every chance to ride the magic train 🚉 When it comes to painting, the ride is often short & sweet. It feels limitless, boundless, and beyond our understanding. So we pay attention to moments that take our breath away...moments that inspire us to paint... then we surrender to the creative impulse and jump on that train!

Artist: Jaison Schafer

Can we share something kind of crazy? 

Our craft predates the wedding photograph. 

Before the camera was invented–and centuries before we could all record videos with a click– Live painters were the original gangsters of wedding portraiture. They were the ones preserving the great loves and unions and legacies to hang on the wall. 

In the entire history of weddings themselves, painters were the vessel absorbing the energy throughout the wedding day, and transferring it onto the canvas to live forever.

…That’s kind of crazy!

Artist: Jaison Schafer
Venue:

Betcha thought we were already married!

Jaison and I have felt married for a very long time, but we're SO excited to make everything official! We're not ones to do life in the 'correct order', I guess 😄

Should we have a live painter at our wedding?!?! Lol

Aubrey & Nickolas ❤️

Jaison captured the big dip on the dance floor! **sealed with a dramatic kiss** 🤗 Major props to Aubrey & Nickolas for mastering the dip kiss combo!

Artist: Jaison Schafer
Venue:

Lacey & Emilio 🤍

Our couples are people who appreciate fine art.. or are artists themselves! Lacey is an artist, and I so enjoyed picking her brain throughout the planning process.

Lacey & Emilio had their heart set on the ceremony exit for the painting. The is so beautiful it would be silly to do anything else. Unfortunately, it was a gray, rainy day and we needed to have a back-up plan. Fortunately, rainy days = an amazing sky with beautiful and interesting clouds. As the sun was setting, I went outside and must have taken over 100 pictures of the clouds ☁️

Even though these two had a BEAUTIFUL indoor ceremony, I was able to peice together a few different photos to paint their initial vision for the painting as an outdoor landscape!

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy
Venue:

Anthony & Brittany 🩶

We are SO excited to paint more commissions this year. For this particular commission, Jaison combined two photos together to highlight Brittany's dress during their first dance. The fountain obviously needed to be added in the background as well!!

I love how you can see the sun peeking out in the top corner, yet everything is in shadow from the trees, making this a very cool painting. It's simply amazing. Snaps for Jaison. 🫰

Artist: Jaison Schafer
Venue:

Caitlyn & Eric 🤎🧡💛

I wanted to spend forever at 🥰 It was a perfect day with perfect weather for Caitlyn & Eric's ceremony, which was far and few in 2023. I know now to always prepare for rain no matter how nice it looks in the morning.

The flower girls (included in the painting) were my shadow at the reception. They helped me quite a bit with this painting. They had no qualms sharing pointers with me throughout the night 😅

I've said this a few times... J and I are a little bit biased when it comes to painting landscapes. It's our favorite. We still love our first dances and church ceremonies. But we're crunchy nature people. What can we say.

I LOVE the landscape at this winery. I really enjoyed painting the rolling hills, the trees, and the sunrays peeking through those trees. I even managed to include the pond!

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy
Venue:

The bride had a special request for this painting! To include 7 red cardinals in the painting to represent loved ones who are no longer with us 🥹 I wanted to include a lot of the woods in the background to make 7 cardinals look natural. If you look closely, some are flying, hopping around on the ground, or resting in tree branches!

Congrats to the newlyweds!!! 🥂

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy
Venue:

The artist and his artwork 😍

"One of the biggest highlights of our wedding day was having Jaison come paint our first dance. He is not only unimaginably talented with the magic he creates on a canvas, but he truly is one of the most kind and genuine individuals we have ever worked with."

The Bellisarios 🖤

The iconic stained glass windows at
helped shed some light on this moody and romantic wedding. The flowers alone took my breath away. These two had quite the vision for their wedding, creating the most amazing atmosphere!

I'm so excited and honored that they invited me to paint their portrait! I especially enjoyed painting Lauren's BEAUTIFUL dress 😊

Thank you for taking the best photographs!

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy
Venue:
Photographer:
Dress:
....Are you kidding me with these flowers? 😄

NEW FRAME!

The natural warm tones in this cherry wood frame will look beautiful around any painting! A frame should complete the piece and make it whole without taking too much attention away from the painting. The subtle beauty of this frame will do just that!

This frame is being offered along with our standard black hardwood frame for our 20x30" canvases. We can build this frame for larger canvases, though... just ask!

I know some of you out there think ornate frames are too gaudy, so this frame is for you!

Paws down the BEST painting buddy ❤️

Breann & Zach 💙

This painting feels dreamy, moody, and magical.

I love how Jaison captured so much movement in one painting. You can feel the slight dip, the rhythm of water, the stillness of the rocks, the formation of the clouds, the wind in her hair... and so on and so on.

Artist: Jaison Schafer
Venue:

Katie & Zach 🤎

From the beginning, Katie & Zach knew they wanted an intimate portrait of just the two of them in the church. Immediately following the ceremony, I took some photos of them in the middle of the aisle. We stress the importance of taking good reference photos for the painting. We want photos that have a strong sense of perspective and accurate lighting! For church portraits, we use a lower perspective for the composition almost every time. We do this to include more of the background. So don't be alarmed when you see us lying on the ground to take the perfect photo lol.

We, of course, want to get perfect photos of the couple as well! Before we run off to start our painting, we'll make sure you like everything about the photo... your pose, your smiles, etc.!

In this painting, I love the posture of Katie & Zach. To me, it reflects the confidence that they have in each other 🙂 I also love the warmth of the church and the statues!

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy
Church: Epiphany Catholic Church

Sarah & Luis 🤎

Cheers to the newlyweds! 🥂 **clink**

During their first dance, everyone surrounded Sarah and Luis for a champagne toast. As everyone raised their glasses, that's when Jaison jumped in and started taking photos to officially start the painting! What an amazing moment to capture for a painting!

Artist: Jaison Schafer
Venue:

Casey & Shawn 🤍

These two got married on their family farm!!! Once a 300-acre dairy farm... now a beautiful wedding venue. Casey's grandfather transformed one of their bank barns into what it is today, and now they're busy with weddings!

If you are having your wedding on your property, farm, or backyard.. we're in! We're immediately in.

You can really feel the sun in this painting. If you look closely, you can see the sun rays peaking through the tree, making Casey & Shawn glow!

Artist: Jaison Schafer
Venue:

Johnna & Shane 💚

Rainy days turn into some of the most beautiful paintings! Pair that with a ceremony exit... **chef's kiss** 😘🤌

We also just want to thank all of our couples for bearing with us as we wrap up all of our paintings from 2023. We're in the studio working around the clock!

Venue:
Artist: Jaison Schafer

Growing up, Jaison filled up stacks and stacks of sketch books (and still does). In those sketch books are drawings of the human form, faces, made-up characters, and drawings from everyday life. This reflects his personality. He is always practicing, always trying to improve and learn as much as he possibly can about art and life. He owns SO MANY books on so many different subjects and participates in all things creative - drawing, painting, woodworking, all mediums, song writing, and gardening. He’s trying to focus on just 3 things this year: recording an album, painting, and finding land to homestead on.

He went to the University of Pittsburgh for Fine Art & Painting, but he's an art student for life. After college, he was a WWOOFer for a few years, which is where you travel and work on organic farms for free room and board. At no time did Jaison ever stop painting, though. Jaison is also an amazing teacher. He genuinely wants to help others. He's the kind of person that tears up when he sees acts of kindness.

Jaison’s biggest inspiration is John Singer Sargeant, along with Monet and the impressionists. His original paintings, however, are extremely interesting, very dark, and out of this world. Jaison hopes to enter his work into a few galleries around Pittsburgh in the next few years.

Some fun facts:

**He's an insomniac. He truly believes that he's absorbing all the creative energy during the night while everyone else is sleeping. This is also a huge reason why Jaison can't be anything other than an artist- his schedule won't allow him to function in everyday society 🙂

**I'm convinced there's music playing in his head at all times.

**His favorite thing to do is to disappear deep into the Clarion woods at his camp.

**He loves cats. His goal is to be a stay at home cat dad.

**He's passionate about organic gardening and wants to homestead ..and make art, wine, and music on that homestead.

💚💚💚

It's not a coincidence that the landscape is my favorite subject to paint. My two passions in life are painting and just flat out being outside. It's always been like that. It's not one without the other. My love for art and painting started at a young age when I would make designs out of leaves, mud, rocks, flowers, sticks.. anything I could get my hands on. I was basically a feral child living in the woods, making art from nature. I wouldn't have it any other way. 🙂

I went to Edinboro University for Art Education, Studio Art, Painting & Printmaking. My biggest takeaway from college is that I also enjoy portraiture. I love trying to find the spirit of the person and being able to translate it onto the canvas. When you successfully paint a portrait, it is the best feeling in the world- and I want more of that! For the past 15 years, I've been working so hard to be the best painter that I can be. They say you're not a painter until you turn 40 - up until then, you're just doing research.

Over the years, I've kept a curious mind, a keen eye, and a lively hand. I experimented with almost every medium, and nothing speaks to me like painting does. When I met Jaison, I fell in love with Plein Air painting (and with him), which is painting landscapes from life. This was a natural progression into live wedding painting. For the first time, I was able to merge landscapes and portraiture together. I'm so grateful that I met Jaison, and we were able to join forces and build this amazing career!

Some fun facts:

**I love the slowness of winter
**I love ending the day with a glass of syrah wine to help calm my nerves after a particularly hard day of painting
**Walking/hiking- it's my therapy.
**I'm a natural introvert and need lots of time alone to feel centered (Jaison is the same way).
**I go on a lot of solo trips and explore small towns :)
**I love gardening
**And I, of course, love our cats.

Photograph by

Athena & Allen 🧡

When Jaison brought this painting back to the studio, I made him promise me that he wouldn't add too much more detail. You can really feel the energy in this painting. The brushstrokes are bold and juicy. Sometimes, in painting, if you add too much detail, things can start to look stagnant.

We, of course, want to realistically portray our couples, but there's a reason for the abstraction and the dreaminess within our paintings... to create balance and to open up participation within the viewer. By creating ambiguity, each viewer can see the painting a little differently. We want our paintings to provoke emotion!

Artist: Stephanie Cassidy
Venue:

Amanda & Dominic 🧡

Something you may not know... we paint and paint and paint until your painting is just right! We insist on bringing each painting back to our studio because every work of art has a messy middle- the uncertain stage of the creative process. In the studio, we spend a lot of time simmering on our paintings. It's essential and we embrace it. Somehow, almost magically, we always forge ahead to create a harmonious painting that is 100% unique to you and your wedding day.

This painting is a great example of how we let bits of the underpainting show through.. in this case, alotabit. We have many goals for 2024. One goal is to make our paintings dreamier with color.

Artist: Jaison Schafer
Venue: