I love all things art. As long as I remember, I have always been creating. Creating music, paintings or drawings, I love making new things. One thing that I have loved to practice over the years is hand-lettering. This is a good article about what hand-lettering is if you want more information.
When I first started learning how to write, I had really bad handwriting. It was embarrassing for me, and I was determined to get better. My mom got me a hand lettering practice book when I was younger and I was obsessed. It was a very rocky start. I wish I had pictures from my first little projects back then. Long story short, it was BAD. From then on, I practiced very hard to get better. Eventually, it got to the point where I was able to make signs and things for church events and parties. This sort of practice was really helpful and caused me to want to start a business doing this sort of thing.
Last year I had a COVID wedding. It was a small event, and to save some money, I decided to design some of the signs for the wedding. My favorite of which is still hanging on my wall. It is a wooden sign that I painted our last name on and we were able to hang flowers on it. It is so simple, but it was a huge thing for me. I was able to create something for my wedding that I get to keep on my wall to remind me of our special day.
This was when I realized what I love creating. I love creating pieces that capture a memory. A lot of times we have photos to commemorate a memory, but art and hand-lettering is another way to keep a memory alive for years. Even something as simple as making labels for cookie flavors, because I have these signs and pictures of these signs, I will be able to remember what kind of cookies I had at my wedding. It seems like a small detail, but I will be happy to remember that 20 years down the road.
The biggest thing for me was not giving up, and not being too discouraged when a project doesn't turn out as perfectly as I want it to. The amazing thing about hand-lettering is that part of the charm is in the imperfections. There are computer programs that can do handwritten fonts, but nothing can compare to the look of a fully handwritten, hand made sign.
If you are new to hand-lettering, keep going! It is tough when things get hard, but through practice and giving yourself time and grace, you will start to learn and get better! If you need any resources for doing hand-lettering using the Procreate app for iPad, make sure to check out my Etsy shop.
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