Pretty Letters

Well, sorta pretty. Still have a lot of practicing to do! Rather than Zentangling today, I took my first go at Dip Pen Calligraphy. No, I haven’t finished all the Fauxligraphy sheets yet, but I just couldn’t resist trying out the dip pen and ink (and truth be told, the dip pen is SO MUCH more fun).

Part of the reason it’s suggested that you start with fauxligraphy is to get the feel for the shape of the letters, so that when you transition to the dip pen, you can concentrate on the differing pressure you need to apply while forming the letters, rather than the letter shapes themselves. I actually found varying the pressure on the pen to be quite natural and easy to learn – the letter shapes are the much more difficult part for me. So I figure I might as well keep going with the dip pen while practicing the letter shapes more.

I’m also going to cut back on the daily Zentangles. As most people who have found they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, I just simply can’t keep up with doing a daily tangle AND practicing calligraphy AND getting all my grading done AND teaching AND writing my dissertation (not to mention sleeping, eating, cleaning, working out, etc). Something’s gotta give. That said, I like my bit of art therapy each day, so for right now I’m going to try to (roughly) alternate between Calligraphy practice and Zentangling. There might be a few days at a time of Calligraphy, or a few days at a time of Tangles – just depends on the day itself and my mood. So I’m still tangling, but it’s gong to take me a bit longer to finish the book than expected.

Tangle Day 1: And Calligraphy?

My Zentangle project stuff arrived today – but not before I had to head off to my weekly dissertation group meeting.

Guys, it’s really hard for me to sit through 2 hours of anything with nothing else to occupy me. In fact, sitting through these long meetings is the main driver for wanting to learn to doodle. Well, this morning I couldn’t help but think how I wish I had splurged for one-day shipping rather than waiting on Prime (what does it say about us that Two Day Free shipping still seems really long?)

Instead, I made another impulsive – but instant delivery – purchase. I bought a set of calligraphy worksheets from The Postman’s Knock.

I fell down the calligraphy rabbit hole when I started dreaming about wedding invitations. Somehow (Pinterest) I got stuck in my head the idea of kraft envelopes with white writing. The only issue? You can’t print in white. I say “print” because my long-term plan has been to pick out some pretty handwritten calligraphy font, mail merge the addresses in Illustrator, and print them all out perfectly onto the envelopes. Because my handwriting sucks. I typically write in all caps, and my students tell me that about 1/3 of what I write is illegible. So handwriting envelopes – if I wanted them to look pretty – was out of the question.

I started googling, and came up with a few options. The most obvious and straightforward option – learn calligraphy. Sure…except for that whole thing about how terrible my handwriting is. Still, my sadistic tendencies had me researching it anyway, and so I stumbled upon The Postman’s Knock. Lindsey’s envelopes are To. Die. For. They also very quickly convinced me that I would never be able to learn calligraphy. So I put that idea aside, but still regularly checked her blog for the eye candy.

Until this morning. For the price of a latte, Linsdey sells sets of calligraphy worksheets to learn a single style of calligraphy. Lindsey’s lessons begin with using an ordinary pen, rather than a fancy dip calligraphy pen, so it was easy to justify dropping $5 on an activity I’d likely fail miserably at. The worksheets are a digital download, so I was able to pay, print, and run out the door to my meeting with them – I now had an activity to keep my hands busy for the next 2 hours!

I surprised even myself. Am I calligraphy master? Far from it. I look at my letters and can see how off they are. But when I look at the complete sheets as a whole, rather than individual letters, even I had to admit it’s not half bad. So, for now at least, I’m working on two art projects. We’ll see how this goes.

Day 1 of Zentangling began by learning the Static, Tipple, and Crescent Moon patterns, as well as developing a signature set of initials for my pieces. Each day introduces new patterns that you practice before creating a Zentangle with the patterns.First tangle!