Calligraphy | Give Thanks

Hurray for long weekends! Three day weekend on our side of the world right now. Happy to report that I’ve been pretty productive and still able to enjoy a good amount of R&R.  Never say no to a good chance to chill. Yes? 🙂  Anyway, so here is my attempt to summarize what I’ve been up to for the past 3 days. Nothing life changing sadly, haha, but not bad as part of my daily grind.

Saturday was spent jumping from one get together after another. Afternoon barbeque with friends and their adorable baby boy turning 1! (Happy Birthday Aidan!! xx). Early evening, chilling by the poolside overlooking the National Stadium and watched the light display and fireworks as they practice for the Asian Sea Games opening. Then rushed to Spruce, just in time to enjoy a glass of wine and cap the night with good friends and celebrate Kay’s birthday. Can I just say I love how we have this old firestation converted into a cafe, just 10 minutes from our place?!

Sunday morning I found myself at Spruce again, for a private Calligraphy session with Christine. And it didn’t feel like a class because we hit it off instantly. We talked about solo traveling, tattoo’s , relationships, diet plans (hah!! hahaha), friendship, creative classes and a whole lot more… all while she was practicing her upstrokes and downstrokes and rediscovering the alphabet calligraphy style. I really didn’t do much because she is so good already for a beginner!

I wished my work was that neat when I was still starting out. Haha!

After my class, I went to Arteastic meet the amazingly talented Patricia of Fancy Girl Designs. We are concocting something creative for all of you, and I am so excited to have this collaboration with her. It is always a wonderful time whenever I spend time with Patricia. We talked about our not so secret dream of owning our own letterpress machine. A girl can dream. LOL. Exchanged stories of our favorite clients, freelance artists we follow, what inspires us, our affinity to munch when finishing something in the wee hours of the night/morning.

She did a sketch of me which she posted in Instagram, and I was grinning from ear to ear when I finally got the finish painting from her. She made me looked human and I love LOVE love this portrait. Thank You Fancy Girl! Oh the perks of having talented friends.

Remember I said something about diet plans? Yeah…. you  heard wrong. LOL.

Thank you Patricia!!! Yours Truly sketched and painted by the talented Patricia of Fancy Girl Designs.

Monday found me being super lazy at home. My bed refused to let go of me and I am, as always, a willing victim.  Purposely didn’t go out. Late afternoon I was bringing out paints,  brushes and nibs. A good friend who is getting married in 10 days time, “assigned” *cough cough* me to do their thank you cards to go along with their wedding favors. And when it comes to doing projects for friends, I feel like nothing is ever good enough. See below the evolution of the design. I am so pleased that they are both happy with the result and can’t wait to give the happy couple my little labor of LOVE. 🙂

So I was about to start writing, and a friend of mine who fancies himself the King of Zombies was chatting with me. When asked what I was doing, i thought it’s best to send out a demo rather than a proper answer ;-P

So the beta version started with loads of scribbles…. and I mean loads. Actually it’s more like just doing wrist exercise hahaha… Did you spot my rubber duckie?

And then inspiration struck and I hand painted a wreathe, scanned it,  printed it in thick archival quality textured board, and handwrite a few more samples. Oh lala wet Ink!

Then I tried to mix gouache colors to make my own ink… only to realized after I was done with the mix that I still have that oh-so-beautiful yellow gold ink in my stash which I haven’t used for awhile. And for those who are interested, I used the blue pumpkin nib for these babies 🙂 Just look at that GOLD!

And finally, the final product. 🙂

And yes, each card will be handwritten. *flexes hand muscles* LOL

And because I believe that one can never find a miserable grateful person, thought I’d close the day writing this one.

You can download a free copy of the card here.

Thank you for reading. Hope your weekend was filled with loads of moments to be grateful for.

xx,

Dee

*photos taken using phone, ONE+