I almost gave up on calligraphy TWICE!!

In the beginning of my calligraphy journey, I signed up for this pioneer group of online students for my wonderful teachers. I was super eager and excited to get started, but something didn’t really click with me. I struggled so much with getting my shapes just right. I was embarrassed to share my work in the group because I kept comparing myself to my classmates who were leaps and bounds ahead of me. They were posting these beautiful works of art, and here were my lines so shaky and unsure.

Little did I know that:

(1) the brush pen I was using was just not the right “fit”. I was using a super flexible large tip brush pen, when I naturally gravitated to smaller tip pens in day to day writing. When I made that switch from large tip to small tip, I got an instant confidence boost.

(2) the classmates I was comparing myself to were card-makers or watercolor enthusiasts, who were constantly practicing their crafts and signed up for the class because they wanted to enhance their existing artwork. Until I embraced the fact that my journey was uniquely my own, and really grasped the idea that the only comparison that I needed to make was my own self, it made me try harder to improve. Not because I was on a competition in my own mind, or I was playing the comparison game, but because improvement was something I wanted for myself.

(3) When I stopped viewing my classmates as competition and saw them as collaborators, I learned tricks from them that helped me understand some concepts that I struggled with. These lessons helped give me the confidence to share my work, learn more and even expand my vision for myself.

The second time I almost gave up on Calligraphy was when I started my own Facebook group. Again, the doubts of “who’s going to want to join me?” or “am I good enough” plagued me. In the early days of my group, I was still trying to find my footing, trying to figure out what I wanted the group to feel like, to look like, what was I going to offer, etc. I did several live sessions and was immediately hit with unflattering comments. The first online session I did, I was so unprepared that when someone asked me a simple question on the basic strokes, I fumbled so bad and thought to myself, “I’m not cut out for this”.

But you know what? I persevered. I learned to embrace that when I do my live sessions, one of my pets will either bark or scratch or meow, and you know what? That’s ok. That shows my audience that you don’t have to have the perfect set up to teach. You don’t have to have a studio to do your recordings, because, guess what? The everyday person doesn’t either. I wanted to show that you can be barefoot, with dinner cooking on the stove and you can still do calligraphy. You can write a word or two while you wait for the water to boil or the pan to warm up.

I also went back to work. I tweaked my teaching style. I did several more online sessions and developed a pre-session survey to send out to my participants. This helped me get to know them even before we went on the call. The more sessions I had, the more varied the personalities and learning styles I came across. It helped me learn what analogies resonate with majority of folks, and what questions to anticipate. This, in turn, made me a better teacher, with more tools in my tool chest.

So now that I’m ready to starting up my in-person sessions again, I know there will be even more things I’ll learn from each individual session. I’m also learning to speak up for myself in terms of booking venues for these sessions. I even went on live local TV to promote the workshops. I’m working on different collaborations with a variety of venues to be able to offer a different experience each and every time I set a workshop date.

And that Facebook group I launched right as everyone was sheltering in place? It’s slowly grown to 775 members and continues to grow. I’ve found some success in the different monthly lettering challenges that I’ve hosted. The group is active and I know I need to get the members to really dive into these challenges. Instagram has brought on a different set of followers…some newbie calligraphers who learned elsewhere but were looking for something fun to practice with. It’s amazing to see the different styles and interpretations of a single prompt.

So, if you’re a complete beginner, join me at Creative Handlettering for Stationery and Journals on Facebook. Every so often, I do week-long live sessions and giveaways there. It’s the insider group for beginners. Or follow me on Instagram, if you just feel like a daily dose of positive and beautiful energy.

Let’s make this world a better place…one beautifully handlettered piece at a time.