I’ve been trying to get some pieces ready for the Sunshine & Shenanigans store for some time now. I have hundreds of ideas, but not a lot of time, my daughter is now a year old and between her and my freelance work I’ve been busy busy busy! I have felt like I’ve needed to get my act together, and needed a push in the right direction…
I have started feeling very inspired though, and really want to branch out into some different creative fields. I’ve been drawing, sketching and painting more in the evenings when I have a spare half hour and have been feeling drawn (excuse the pun) back to lettering – something that has always been a passion, right from when I was a young child. I used to spend hours with my mum’s calligraphy book, copy out and tracing letters, writing out stories and making cards. At university I chose a course which specialised in typography and spent a lot of time in the letterpress studio. I spend hours poring over calligraphy and blackboards, wedding invitations and posters on Pinterest. So I’ve decided to do a few refresher courses, and branch out into more work in this area.
To compliment this, to help me get my ideas down on paper, and for practice, I have set myself a challenge… 100 days of lettering. Everyday for 100 days I am hoping to post a picture of a piece of hand-drawn lettering. It might be calligraphy, it might be hand drawn letters in pencil, it might be a chalkboard, a poster, a letter… it might be a personal piece of work, a gift, something for a client, something I’m trying to practice or master, a word, a quote, a phrase, a whole page. It might be just a sketch, or a finished piece. It might be illustrated, it might be just text. It might be ink, pencil, paint, chalk, crayons… you get the idea!
The only rules I have set myself:
- It has to be hand drawn – the finished final piece may well become digital but the piece must start as hand- drawn and what I post must be hand drawn.
- I have to post something everyday.
- It has to be at least one letter.
So there you have it. I have committed it to the internet, so I’ll look a bit daft if I don’t do it now. Hopefully this will help me improve, and be a bit of fun! I’ll post everyday on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and once a week I’ll put the week’s pictures in a blog post, along with my comments and thoughts on it all.
So to start us off today I have hand drawn the title of this challenge… original drawing in pencil, final drawing in fine liner and black marker.
