Wander Color Studio Live Event Painting and Custom Watercolor Artist

Art by Stephanie Ervin

WANDER COLOR STUDIO CREATES live wedding and event paintings, ALONG WITH custom artwork and stationery, DESIGNED TO CAPTURE THE FEELING OF A MOMENT AS IT UNFOLDS.

LIVE WEDDING ART and EVENT PAINTING

IN WASHINGTON, DC and BEYOND

Color, movement, and the feeling of being fully present. Travel, place, and the particular magic of stepping into a space that already means something to you. The kind of moments you wish you could reach back into and stay inside just a little longer. This work lives somewhere between art and experience. Some paintings are born in real time, surrounded by music and laughter and people who love each other. Others take shape slowly, layered with intention, built from memory and detail. Both are rooted in story.

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Everything here is made to feel personal. Not polished to a distance, but expressive, human, and full of life. Art that exists to be looked at, to make you happy, and to bring you back to a moment worth remembering.

This is art as celebration. Art as keepsake. Art as a way of holding onto the feeling just a little bit longer.

TRUSTED BY COUPLES, BRANDS, AND HOSPITALITY SPACES ACROSS WASHINGTON, DC AND BEYOND TO create art that feels AS MEANINGFUL AS THE MOMENT ITSELF.

STEP INSIDE

LIVE EVENT PAINTING

LIVE EVENT PAINTING IN WASHINGTON, DC.

Live painting transforms your celebration into an experience, creating artwork your guests watch come to life and never forget.

MAKE IT A MOMENT

CUSTOM ART and

STATIONERY

HAND-PAINTED STATIONERY AND CUSTOM ARTWORK

From invitation suites to venue illustrations, every piece is designed to feel incredibly personal and visually unforgettable.

MAKE IT MINE

"Stephanie turned our awards event into something guests are still talking about. Her portraits were the hit of the night - we'll have her back in a heartbeat."

RYAN

I’m a watercolor artist based in Washington, DC, creating live event paintings and custom artwork for clients who believe beauty is worth investing in.

I’ve been at this for over a decade, and this work is the most alive I’ve ever felt in a career. I’m glad you’re here.

Hello!

I'M STEPHANIE ERVIN

Art by Stephanie Ervin

LIVE WEDDING ART and EVENT PAINTING

IN WASHINGTON, DC and BEYOND

One week from tonight.

Girlism, presented by the Consortium, opens Friday, September 25, 7 to 11pm, in a private mansion in Upper Georgetown. Black tie. Open bar, music, and fifty-five women artists standing next to their work.

Tickets at the link in my bio. The painting is Peril at the Dream House by @goodwitchdc. @sarahjanejamison

Fashion croquis, painted at an event table while people stand there watching.

A stack of cards, a small palette, and one person at a time. I look at what someone is wearing and pick the thing that matters, the coat or the shoes or the way a skirt moves.

The handoff is my favorite part. Somebody walks off holding a little painting of exactly what they wore that night.

Two halves of a bagel, painted in the sketchbook.

The specks are the whole problem. Paint them one at a time and it turns into a pattern, so I dropped them in while the tan was still damp and let them spread on their own.

Wet paper does that part for you if you leave it alone.

@callyourmotherdeli

166 pieces are going up in the house.

Fifty-five women artists, floor to ceiling, salon style. Paintings, photography, sculpture, and fiber.

This one is Ouch! by @kattyhuertas. Girlism opens Friday, September 25, and tickets are at the link in my bio. @sarahjanejamison

The Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the White House, all broken into mosaic tiles.

I wanted DC to look like something you would find on a floor in an old room. Every landmark built out of little chips of color with grout lines between them, cherry blossoms around the edges, and the city laid out flat like a map you could walk across.

Curves are the fiddly part. In mosaic everything wants to be a straight edge, and a dome does not.

@fioladc

A girl, a horse, and a ram standing in a mountain stream under stars.

Small worlds are the paintings where I get to decide everything. The animals, the water, the color of the sky. Two parrots with hearts and stars around them. A sea turtle in a teal that is greener than any water I have actually swum in.

They are quick, and they keep my hand loose for everything else.

Last slide is where small worlds like these belong: a nursery, a book, a wall of them framed together.

Girlism opens in eleven days.

It is the Consortium's first annual art show, and I co-founded it with @sarahjanejamison. Fifty-five women artists, 166 pieces, hung salon style through a private mansion in Upper Georgetown. Paintings, photography, sculpture, and fiber.

Friday, September 25, 7 to 11pm. Black tie, open bar, music, and the artists in the room next to their work.

Tickets are at the link in my bio. This piece is The Hedgehog's Dilemma by @namioshiro, one of the works you will see on the wall.

Two swans facing each other, with hearts and bows around them.

No deadline on this one, just a small card and a lot of pink.

The blue behind them stayed soft at the edges where it ran into the wet pink.

Herbs, a crest, a glass of wine, and then four pages of flowers.

That is what my sketchbook actually looks like. One page is somewhere I was sitting. The next ones are a peony, a few roses, a hydrangea, and a spray of orchids.

I put the shape down first and keep the petals loose, then let it sit while the edges do their own thing. A good amount of the work happens after I put the brush down.

Last slide is where florals like this end up: a menu, a save the date, a wall somebody walks past every morning.

Bloody Mary, watercolor on paper.

Some drinks are basically a plate. The garnish took longer than the glass.

Gouache, all of it, out at once.

I reach for gouache when something needs to be opaque and final, and for watercolor when I want the light coming from underneath. Most days both are open on the desk and I'm going back and forth without thinking about it much.

What do you want to know about live painting?

How long one painting takes. What happens when there are more guests than hours. Whether people sit for it. What it costs. Ask me any of them, including the ones that feel too basic to ask.

Nothing is off the table this week. Leave it in the comments and I will answer every one.

Live illustration for @dcmagazine.

Guests sat down, I painted them fast and loose, and they walked away holding it. That is the part I like most about this work. There is a version where the art arrives framed three weeks later, and there is this version, where somebody carries it out to the car at the end of the night.

The rooftop photo at sunset is still my favorite picture.

Thank you for having me, @dcmagazine.

Sometimes I bring a sketchbook to dinner.

It started as a habit and it turned into most of my business. I love painting Michelin-starred meals because the plates are already works of art. Somebody spent a very long time making that plate look the way it looks, and painting it feels like the right response.

Same with the bottles. The label catches your eye long before the bubbles hit your tongue.

Pink blossoms, one petal at a time.

The brush goes down loaded, the color spreads further than you planned, and then you decide whether to chase it or leave it. I almost always leave it. Especially when somebody is standing right there waiting to take it home.

This was Earth Day at the Rosewood. Everything I painted that day went home framed with the person it was painted for.

@rosewoodwashingtondc

Shrimp in the roasting dish, watercolor and gouache, 2024.

Some plates ask for a quiet background. This one asked for magenta. @riverclubdc

The first ten minutes of the salad you saw yesterday.

Greens go down first, wet into wet, and at this stage it looks like almost nothing. A few loose shapes, a lot of white paper, and a plan you hold in your head because the pencil lines are barely there.

I love this stage, when the whole thing could still become anything. (The radishes arrived about ten minutes later.)

One salade verte, painted at the window table at @labonnevachedc.

A throwback to a very good lunch at my favorite restaurant in Georgetown: I ordered, I painted while the radishes were still cold, and I yapped through all of it with @onthemovewithmad. Then we photographed the finished piece against the etched glass with the light coming through.

Sophie followed me the whole morning with her camera, and Maddie grabbed one or two herself. They both really made me look good. (Usually it's my phone propped against a water glass.)

Maddie, we are overdue. Where should we eat next?

📷 @sophiemacphoto

Painted during lunch in Mendoza, with the Andes doing most of the work.

Plein air is humbling. The light moves, the wind flips your page, and the mountains do not care how your wash is behaving. You put down what you can catch and let the rest stay loose.

Holding it up against the view afterward is my favorite part. It never matches the view exactly. I love it anyway.

A wine country trip, built out page by page.

The crest first, then the vines heavy with fruit, then the plates as they landed: salmon crudo, asparagus, a tin of little fish I would fly back for. By the last afternoon the sketchbook held the whole place, the garden, the glasses, even the herbs hanging over the doorway.

This is my favorite way to know a place. A long lunch goes by, the pages fill up, and I get to carry the whole afternoon home in my bag.

Painted on site in Mendoza, Argentina, between courses.

Six gougères and a little pot of whipped paprika cream cheese, painted before they went cold.

Warm colors are the fastest ones to paint. You load the brush with yellow, touch it down, and drop the orange in while everything is still wet, so the two blur into that baked golden edge. Wait even a minute and the paper dries and the window closes.

(I ate every single one after this. Painter's privilege.)

Oysters on ice, watercolor, 2026.

Grey is the hardest thing to paint and the most satisfying when it lands.

What's it cost? Great question. With handmade art, each project is different, but typically...

Custom commissions start at $1,000. Live event painting runs $2,000+ What moves the number is the size of the piece, how many hours I'm painting in the room, and how much work happens before and after everyone goes home.

That covers the planning, the materials, the hours on site painting in front of your guests, and the finished work afterward. A 50 percent deposit reserves the date.

I'm taking six more live events this year, so if you're thinking about adding art to your event, let's chat!

There are no wrong questions here, and no pressure.

Le Diplomate, painted the way I see it at noon on a busy Saturday brunch shift.

I've been going since I moved back to DC in 2020, and I'm so obsessed with the warm shrimp salad that I eventually just painted it. The bread basket is a genuine problem (of the most deliciously addictive kind.) The whole room is loud and warm and alive in exactly the way I want a painting to be.

@lediplomatedc

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WANDER COLOR STUDIO CREATES live wedding and event paintings, ALONG WITH custom artwork and stationery, DESIGNED TO CAPTURE THE FEELING OF A MOMENT AS IT UNFOLDS.

PHOTOGRAPHY // MAGGIE MORRIS • VITA DI NINA • SOPHIE MAC PHOTO • XIAO QI LI

Art by Stephanie Ervin

Hello!

Art by Stephanie Ervin

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