Hand-Lettering What it is + Why It’s Awesome + What I’ve Learned + My Creations

Last month I enrolled in an online course hosed by the awesome Caroline from the blog MadeVibrant. The six-lesson, self-paced course--- Better-Lettering Course from MadeVibrant was awesome, and if you’re interested in typography, lettering, or simply improving your handwriting or learning cool techniques and styles….go check it out! You won’t be disappointed!

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#text #quotes #writeitout #makingletteringfun #learn

Basically the course consists of signing up for the lessons + viewing the video lessons + taking notes (if you’re OCD like me!) + practicing the techniques + posting one entry per day in the month-long Instagram challenge.

To help guide our entries, we were given a DAILY LETTERING SUBJECT LIST, which had one prompt for each day in August. I

really liked having this small nudge, in the form of daily topics or prompts, to help focus me in a direction (any direction!) so I spent less time searching for something to write, and more time on my techniques and style. I find this to be a very effective teaching strategy in the classroom as well, especially when giving students a writing prompt (even a 1 word topic) so they have a jumping-off point to start organizing their thoughts before expressing them in writing. As a teacher I have seen this work wonders, and as a student—it helped organize my distracted, wandering thoughts for sure

Having the daily lettering subjects also helped by allowing participants in the challenge to view each other’s entries and see what

others lettered for the same prompt. One of the coolest things about the Instagram postings was we got to see how everyone’s mind

works differently. Each lettering entry was different to the one that came next. The wide variety of interpretations, (even for a prompt as simple as “wound”), grew as we progressed through the class was amazing! I enjoyed this aspect of the challenge almost more than I did viewing others’ techniques and personal styles of lettering. It’s awesome to how people are so different and their creativity is truly their own, because it is an extension of their own life experiences.

Day 1: ENLIGHTEN

This was the first day of the Better Lettering Course, and I had only viewed the first two tutorials, so I went with what I knew. I have lettered original posters and anchor charts for my classrooms in the past, so I decided on a familiar layout for my piece, an image surrounded by a quote. I used "Your world is as big as you make it!" for the topic of enlightenment and becoming unlighted by expanding your horizons!

Day 2 : WOUND

For the topic of WOUND, I decided to use one of my favorite poems Dusting, by Julia Alvarez, which I discovered on one of our Language Arts County benchmark tests (I take the test while the kids take it…that way we suffer together….seriously)!! I love the poem because the speaker (a young girl) shares her emotional wounds—feelings of frustration, disappointment, and anger at her mother's lack of understanding for her creativity. The mom constantly constrains the daughter's expressions of individuality by cleaning up her imaginative doodling on the dusty furniture in the house. The mom’s insensitive cleaning is a daily remainder that she has no respect for her daughter’s need to express who she is. The real message in the poem is, despite the mother's persistent efforts to "erase" her daughter's fanciful signature, drawings, and, at the core, her individuality, the speaker remains just as determined to continue signing her name in the dust---each time echoing the fact that she refuses to be like her mother—whom she describes as "anonymous" in the closing line of the poem. "Dusting" by Julia Alvarez.

**Since it is hard for me to write out a string of words in a shape--I use a stencil or lid, or anything flat I can find (if it is too high, it get in the way of your hand as you write on the page), to help guide my writing and make it streamlined and even. For the "Rules" piece, an open square stencil in cardboard.

Day 3 : Rules By Day 3 of the Instagram Challenge, I had finished viewing all the tutorials and took from the lessons some really helpful notes on creating a composition or layout of the piece before starting the initial sketch. I also learned a lot about different lettering styles, fonts, and techniques. I really wanted to showcase some of those techniques in this piece so I used a short word, instead of a longer quote or poem. I lettered the word “RULES” and incorporated the image of rulers (real rulers in the background of the photograph and illustrated rulers as part of the piece) to add dimension and focus to the final draft and I guess to…anchor it? It just needed a little something—so I found my embellishments box and grabbed some mini rulers by ©SpareParts to add in the top corner of the piece. I also chose old-school, lined handwriting paper to letter on. It was an awkward surface since it was from school and was super thin, so I had to use colored pencils, not pens or makers. But I really liked how the style of the lined school paper added another layer of understanding to the subject of “rules” as constraints, boundaries, expectations, etc. I wanted it to look very measured and precise—the exact opposite as the saying “color outside the lines” --- or BREAK the RULES!!

DAY 4 : PRETEND Day 4's topic was "pretend" and after viewing some of Caroline's @ MadeVibrant awesome creations (especially the ones with the colorful frames in highlighter and sharpie). I decided to really focus on creating a frame for this piece. I used my 80's sharpie kit to add color and make the frame really, REALLY bright and vibrant The frame of multi-sized triangles showcased the cute quote, "Happy times are never ending when we're playing and pretending!" I sketched other frames before deciding on the one in the piece---the patterned frame was one of my favs and I'm planning to use it on something in the future. I wanted it to look like separate pieces of patterned washi tape.

DAY 5 : LITTLE

I'm not gonna lie, I had a hard time coming up with inspiration for the "little" prompt. I thought....gnomes? Fairies? The Littles…from the kid novel? Piglet from the Hundred Acre Wood...with his cute, tiny piglet self and all his adorable little sayings? But...at the end of all my brainstorming I decided on a "little" definition/synonym layout for day 5’s subject!! To keep it simple and streamlined I wanted to focus on a defined color theme---and did red, black, and silver/gray. I originally planned on using the entire sketchbook page--but after creating the box with the definitions, I settled on keeping it constrained in a small square to play off the idea of "little". I also liked how the definitions flow well together---"small in size", "short in duration", "not strong", and "small in number". These pretty much sum up all the different ways to look at the word "little!"

DAY 6 : CLASS

So far, the prompt for day 6 has been my favorite prompt from the August Challenge because I got to use my teaching experience as a jumping off point. First of all it is August, which means it's that time of year....kids and teachers are heading back to school!! "Once you

master the art of facing a room full of teenagers and come out alive, you can do anything!" I teach middle school and I KNOW how it feels to face a room full of middle schoolers and come out ALIVE!! Teaching is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world and I wouldn't trade my experience teaching middle schoolers and young teens how to read and appreciate literature….despite the looooonnng days and hard times

DAY 7 : TOGETHER For some reason, when I read the prompt “together”, I automatically think of machines and how all the parts work together simultaneously to reach the end goal, or create the final product, or attain a mutual reward! I thought it would be really cool to incorporate images of gears into the background of this piece. When one gear or piece of a machine doesn’t do its job—the rest of the parts can’t function either—which is essentially a great metaphor for cooperation, and working together with people in all environments—work, family, teams, classes, etc.

[DAY 8 - REACH]

Day 8 : REACH

I decided to keep the quotation simple for the prompt –“reach” by doing “Reach for the Stars!” Sometimes simplicity is what’s needed—plus, I really like drawing stars and wanted to fill in the empty white space bordering the quote with big, bright, splashy stars, spirals, and color!! I used a bright color scheme of indigo blue, bright yellow, and silver accents. I added arrows on the tips of the letters of the word “reach” to imitate reaching towards the sky, reaching limits, extending yourself… and added star embellishments to the word “stars”.