Creative Challenge 6 Results

I kicked off the year by sharing some goals and dreams for 2015. One of the most important of these was to get back in touch with my artistic roots, which I quickly decided would be much more fun to do with friends. And so began the Creative Challenge— a way for creatives from around the world, to come together online and tackle one artistic project per month.

Challenge #6: Calligraphy and Hand lettering
Of all the challenges planned for the year, this is the one that I was most looking forward to. In fact, the entire concept of the Creative Challenge really evolved from my desire to learn calligraphy this year. My sub-goal was/is to design some new printables using my own hand-lettering! You all know how much I love fonts, but there’s something extra special and unique about typography that can’t be duplicated.

I started hunting around for a good online calligraphy course— one that would tell me exactly which tools I needed to purchase, that would educate me on the foundation of calligraphy, and lead me into some advanced techniques. I came across I Still Love Calligraphy, a program that fit exactly what I was looking for, and then some! The package I purchased included a 34-day workshop subscription (videos and how-to guides), plus a kit that came with several holders, nibs, a writing pad, ink, a cleaning cloth, a cute mechanical pencil and some lettering guides. The convenience of having everything shipped to me, without having to go on a treasure hunt through the art store was priceless.

My course started out with some educational background on calligraphy and hand lettering. What struck me immediately was that Melissa, the instructor, was super passionate about what she was teaching. I really loved hearing her background on how she came to love calligraphy and how her business was formed. As someone who absolutely loved learning cursive in school (and was pretty good at it, if I may add) I could definitely relate to her love of handwriting and typography.

The first assignment was to learn strokes— essentially the forms that make up the letters that I’d be learning later in the course. I was really anxious to start learning the alphabet, which made it hard for me to completely understand why it was so important to learn these foundation strokes. This is why Melissa was the instructor, and not me— the lesson paid off big time once I got to the next stage!

Before even starting with the nib and ink, Melissa instructed us to use the mechanical pencil to get the feel and direction of each stroke. She also emphasized the importance of knowing when to press hard and when to have a lighter touch (which is essentially what gives calligraphy it’s character). Once I filled a few pages with pencil practice, I moved onto using the ink. Eek!

The nib and holder felt a little more awkward in my hand than I had expected and my first page of practice was kind of a disaster, but I kept going. Practice really does make perfect. While I was still a little wobbly, my movements started to feel more natural and fluid.

At last, I had reached my alphabet lesson. Feeling pretty amped after completing the foundation strokes, I thought that I could breeze through these letters and be done, right? Wrong. So wrong. I did my first run of letters in pencil, and I have to tell you that even that was a struggle. Once I got over the hump of learning the directions of each stroke, and realized that almost every mark I was making on the page was made up of those foundation strokes, it became instantly easier.

Once I got into the groove of repeating those letters over and over, I was transported back to my third grade classroom where I first learned cursive. It felt almost therapeutic and I definitely felt intuition take over to a point where I was no longer referencing the guide and was just letting my hand do the work. Now don’t get me wrong, I am far from having this whole calligraphy thing down. If you ever take this course, you will repeatedly hear Melissa say, consistency is key— and that is the part that I am still working on.

At the time I am writing this, this is the part of the course I have completed so far. Next up is learning how to connect letters, swashes and flourishes and a tutorial on addressing envelopes. I know this Creative Challenge is a little bit different in that I don’t have a finished product to show off at the end of it. I am considering my calligraphy and hand lettering a journey that I hope to continue for many years. Don’t tell Melissa, but just for the purposes of this blog post I skipped ahead just a wee bit to attempt some writing. I know, I still have a long way to go!

What makes these challenges so fun is not just exploring new art mediums, but sharing the experience with fellow creatives from around the globe. Here’s a look at some of the fantastically creative hand-lettering projects from the Creative Challenge Community:

Our group is full of not only artists, but also writers! Here are blog posts shared by community members about this challenge:

Adventures Worth Noting // Beauteeful Living // Tiny Ray of Sunshine

I can’t tell you how much I love this group of creatives! How talented are they?

The seventh challenge (oil and acrylic painting) is already underway! If you’d like to join in on this challenge, or any of the other challenges planned for the year, we would LOVE to have you on board. Until next month…#gocreatives