Do It Yourself (DIY) Ketubah

We love Van Gogh’s Starry Night and already had it hanging in our home. We didn’t really like any of the "standard" or even not-so-standard designs. So we decided we could make one ourselves, based on Van Gogh’s Starry Night, so we could enjoy the painting and celebrate our marriage for the rest of our lives.

Select Your Art:

First step is to select your art work and obtain a high resolution as possible. Best place to start is Google’s Cultural Institute where I found a high resolution version of Starry Night, accurate down to where the canvass peeks through and the paint with age has cracked and is available for download from Wikipedia.

Get Your Text:

We used Stephen P. Morse’s “Generating a Jewish Marriage Contract in One Step (A Do-It-Yourself Ketubah)” with confirmation from our Rabbi who was performing the ceremony that it was “kosher” (valid).

Pick Your Font:

We were making this Ketubah in the United States on an English (U.S.) Operating System with a great selection of English fonts but without many if any Hebrew fonts. For the English font we decided on Old English Text MT, a Microsoft font. We downloaded a selection of Hebrew fonts from the Open Siddur Project. We ended up choosing Shlomo Orbach’s Stam Ashkenaz (StamAshkenazCLM.ttf) because it supported Hebrew Cantillation Marks.

Layout:

We laid out the Hebrew and English text in a layer over the original painting artwork. We used Photoshop because GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) had difficulty handling the Hebrew text. We used the Eyedropper tool to select the color for the text as a light shade from the existing work that would stand out but wouldn’t seem as foreign to the piece as a stark white would have. In order to improve the readability of the text we added a layer between the artwork and text with opacity.

Remember to add a layer over the final Qoph so that it is hollow and can be filled in at the Ketubah signing.

Printing:

To print the finalized artwork we decided to go with Giclée, which can be printed on canvass at full size. We used Duggal in New York City who have a strong reputation, accepted a 1.5GB artwork file, provided a test print and worked on our time line.

Backing:

We brought binder clips to secure the Ketubah to large foam boards we brought on which to layout, sign and display the Ketubah during the wedding ceremony. We also brought additional binder clips to secure the foam boards to the easel, which was in turn secured to the Chuppah in order to make sure it didn’t blow away in a gust of wind.

Signing:

In order to add our signatures on top of the Giclée printed artwork printed on the canvas we used the test print to test different colors and pens. We narrowed it down to silver as white looked like whiteout and washed out on drying and gold didn’t standout rather it faded into the painting. As for pens, we tried a bunch and brought multiple of each to the big day. We decided on the Sharpie Oil-Based Paint Marker with an Extra Fine Point and brought a Sanford Uni-Ball Gel Impact Metallic Ink Pen - 1 mm Pen Point Size as backup.

On the big day as we tried to sign on the hot beach, the Sharpie exploded as had been both feared and predicted so we ended up signing with the Uni-Ball, which did a great job.

Good luck with your Do It Yourself (DIY) Ketubah!

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