Cortisol (3)

   Calligraphy is stressing me out. This happens a lot when I pick up any hobby, so I know it won't last long. I've been a perfectionist for sooo long (read my first post to hear more about it) and it always makes me feel more stressed out than I need to be. I put so much time into attempting to make something perfect, and it becomes more of a chore rather than something fun to do. I didn't get much calligraphy practice done this week, but not just because I was pretty lazy. It stressed me out so much thinking about writing, making me stay away from it for more time than I should've. While I still made progress this week, I could've made more. I managed to learn one new font, called the Black Jack font. I find it very satisfying to look at and quite simple to write in.

    It's a very playful and subtle twist on regular cursive, which I find very unique. The quote that I wrote was 100% not as good as the first one that I did, because I was overthinking it too much. I ended up almost giving up and just leaving it at a very simple point. This is one lesson that I have learned so far, and that I can possibly talk about for my TedTalk.

    I learned that sometimes you can put down your utensil and just leave your work how it is. It can be considered completed if you want it to be completed. An artist is in charge of what their final product is, because it is what is coming from their minds. Though I can say all of this deep stuff now, it is hard to think of it in the moment. I sit and pick apart everything that I put in my sketchbook, because it will probably never look perfect to me. But that's just the way it goes, and I'm going to accept that.

   Spacing and writing in a straight line is also something that I need to work on, and luckily my calligraphy books cover those aspects. My letters are always different sizes and different distances away from each other, which makes me very frustrated. This is a basic in the calligraphy world, so I better learn it now before I run into more complicated problems later. The last thing I learned this week is to write quite quickly. I noticed that when my hand hesitates, it creates wobbly looking lines, which are very unattractive. I try to avoid this while writing as fast as possible while still attempting to make the writing look good.

   Though not much progress was made this week, I actually had time to learn a lot about what I need to improve and I have learned some lessons. Here was my final picture for this week's font:

And here is another calligraphy compilation, because you know how satisfying they are. Enjoy!