{"id":4326,"date":"2017-07-10T03:39:55","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T10:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andreacasals.com\/?p=4326"},"modified":"2018-02-22T09:19:43","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T17:19:43","slug":"my-3-favorite-projects-for-calligraphy-beginners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andreacasals.com\/my-3-favorite-projects-for-calligraphy-beginners\/","title":{"rendered":"My 3 favorite projects for beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s be honest. Being a beginner is tough and frustrating a lot of times\u00a0and\u00a0this is specially true if you’ve decided to give Modern Calligraphy a try.<\/p>\n

During my first year with this beautiful but difficult art I struggle A\u00a0LOT.<\/p>\n

First, it was just trying to get that balance of thin and thick lines. Like, what’s happening? Why does it seem\u00a0so simple when others do it but so difficult for me? Is it the pen, the nib, the pressure?Argh. This\u00a0endeavor\u00a0was hard.<\/p>\n

After several hours of practice,\u00a0it seemed that the weekly practice paid off helping my brain to connect to the dots between what I wanted to do and what my arm and my hand were actually doing.<\/p>\n

And that’s when I had to face all the rest of the battles: creating a decent shape for each letter (OMG that was hard!); dealing with the ink bleeding\u00a0on the\u00a0paper (and then having to learn about paper and ink quality) to\u00a0finally\u00a0keeping kind of a straight line and attempt\u00a0to create something<\/em> of a\u00a0composition.<\/p>\n

For a moment, I felt like I was in the middle of The Two Towers in LOTR battling\u00a0hordes and hordes of orcs\u00a0(yes, I’m a little bit of a nerd… if\u00a0you didn’t yet notice it!)<\/p>\n

And then, when I somehow managed to\u00a0have\u00a0all of the above working… A huge blob of ink would ruin my project!<\/p>\n

I tell you friends, the struggle is real!<\/p>\n

But there was something that helped me to feel\u00a0less<\/em> frustrated. And that was being able to create some\u00a0projects that were pretty enough<\/em> for the\u00a0level I was at that time, a beginner.<\/p>\n

That’s why I want to share today 3 ideas of projects that you can create and who knows? They might also help you,\u00a0as they helped me, to feel more encouraged about my art and not quitting at it.<\/p>\n

1. Re-Use those sheets of\u00a0PRACTICE!<\/h4>\n

After hours or practice you start to have several sheets of paper with alphabet samples, numbers or maybe calligraphy\u00a0exercises.<\/p>\n

They might not look pretty at all when you see them. For instance, take a look at this one:<\/p>\n

\"\"After 1\u00a0month into Calligraphy<\/h5>\n

But what happens when you re-use it as a wrapping paper? Add a nice ribbon and, voil\u00e0! Something not pretty turned into something cute!<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0Ohhh… What a little ribbon can do!<\/h5>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

2. Create a simple quote for a wall decor<\/h4>\n

In this case I would say: keep it simple, keep it short and if you aim for a baby nursery or kids bedroom then it might be even better, since cute and imperfect sometimes is just what we are looking for in this kind of projects!<\/p>\n

\"\"Quote for a baby nursery<\/h5>\n

Additional points: Frame it. Even with an IKEA frame. You’ll see how much of a difference\u00a0it makes after it’s framed!<\/p>\n

\"\"OHHH… WHAT An IKEA Frame CAN DO!<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

3.\u00a0UPGRADE YOUR SNAIL MAIL ENVELOPES<\/h4>\n

It might seem simple but hey…! Who doesn’t love to receive some snail mail love?! I can assure you that not everyone knows how to write how you’re learning to so, feel confident enough to try it! Specially if it’s for a good friend who will appreciate your efforts to send something a little bit more special \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"\"Snail mail day is always a happy day for me!<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Okay friends, I hope these ideas are as useful to you as they were to me! Keep on practicing and most important… enjoying that calligraphy practice because we all know: it’s all about the journey!<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Ps: Want to join in this Modern Calligraphy adventure? <\/em><\/p>\n

Sign up for my next Introduction to Modern Calligraphy Workshop in\u00a0San Jose, CA. Register here<\/a>. Beginner kit, refreshments and treats included. Hope to see you there!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s be honest. Being a beginner is tough and frustrating a lot of times\u00a0and\u00a0this is specially true if you’ve decided to give Modern Calligraphy a try. During my first year with this beautiful but difficult art I struggle A\u00a0LOT. First, it was just trying to get that balance of thin and thick lines. Like, what’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[400],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8hfz7-17M","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andreacasals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andreacasals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andreacasals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andreacasals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andreacasals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4326"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/andreacasals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4354,"href":"https:\/\/andreacasals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326\/revisions\/4354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andreacasals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andreacasals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andreacasals.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}