Wouldn’t this look cool in the neighbourhood? Can’t help myself from mocking my art up on a billboard! ❤️
I’m reminded by something I’ve heard on @garyvee‘s video before, and he said: “There are two ways to build the biggest building in town: 1. Build the biggest building in town 2. Tear down all the other buildings around you.”
Many years later, this sentiment still stuck with me.
The world is massive, abundant and giving and whilst it’s a natural human instinct to be competitive for survival, I firmly believe that we truly do grow more when we lift each other, instead of tearing each other down.
I’ve had great conversations in the DMs with some of you guys sharing my experience and knowledge in the industry. And sometimes people would say things along the lines of “thank you for sharing, not everyone’s willing to.” Or course students would say “I can’t believe you teach literally everything and give all your secrets away”.
But truly, I’m just passing it on.
As someone who pivoted from accounting w no former art education, I’m thankful for amazing artists, designers and thought leaders in the industry who lead by example, sharing what they know and had learnt, and not gatekeeping. (S/O to @thefuturishere where I learnt the business of design from, @pandrdesignco & @homsweethom on murals and creative marketing, @jessicahische on pricing, and honestly the list goes on and on.)
In 2016, I remembered interviewing a business owner for a project and he mentioned that he stopped teaching workshops as he felt that they’re learning everything from him and it’s threatening his livelihood.
I remembered empathising with him because it’s a real feeling that I too had felt when I first started teaching calligraphy. Over the years, as I practised and discovered more on mastering the craft, slowly I began to lose this selfish thought and moved from “I’m sharing everything I know but why don’t I feel happy about it?” to “I genuinely want to share and teach everything I know!”.
It feels good to give, and honestly, life is so short. But also, this is not to say you shouldn’t keep to personal healthy boundaries. Share what you’re comfortable w sharing! Live abundantly ❤️
Why I love Calligraphy!
Society today is like a pressure cooker. Everything's on a constant go go go, without a pause or a breather. In the past, I felt like I'm constantly moving from one life stage to another, trying to accomplish goal after goal. And life passes me by, so quickly.
By any chance, are you a workaholic?
Many of us take good care of our friends and family but we often fail to take good care of ourselves. I'm personally a really future-oriented person and struggled so much trying to be present. And I know I'm not alone; I've taught hundreds of students in my workshops so far in Singapore and that's one common thing I've noticed coming up over and over again.
When everything tries to capture our attention - from social media to work to daily news and personal responsibilities, we dedicate lesser and lesser time to ourselves, our creativity and inner child.
To share, I firmly believe that I didn't find calligraphy.
Calligraphy found me. Period.
Maybe it was the beauty of the letters or the mark-making process of calligraphy or how it allowed me to appreciate the meaning of words and language even more - honestly, I'm not sure if I can even pinpoint or articulate how this feels. I just know that I had a natural curiosity about it that led me googling about calligraphy, picking up a pencil to write, mimicking the strokes till late at night. I just wanted to know how I can do it too. How can I get better?
There's just something so cathartic about putting pen strokes to paper. It helped me to pause, focus and breathe. Just like a runner's high, calligraphy helped to replenish my mental and emotional energy. It helped me to be more introspective, to look inwards for mental clarity - kinda like meditation but through working with my hands. And by working, I really meant play.
Calligraphy is therapeutic and relaxing to me. Watching ink flow from pen to paper, appreciating the texture of organic strokes - I just love how satisfying and free flowing calligraphy is. It's like dancing on paper, just letting my hand just be. Through this art form, it pulls my attention to just writing, one stroke after the other. And it centers me.
Heck, my passion grew so much that I can't see myself doing anything else. So I hustled everyday to turn my passion into my full-time career.
And now I can't believe I get to call this my job and work with amazing brands like Google, Uniqlo and Washington Post and do that one thing I love so much - art ❤️️ Here's me (right) at Lamborghini's private event, where I was hired to calligraph gifts, live on-the-spot for the esteemed guests there.
Live Calligraphy Event for Lamborghini
So, if you're reading this, I encourage you to question where you're at in life right now. Are you really present? Have you put life back in "work life balance"?
If not, there's no time like the present to intervene your own life and make choices that help you live the life you want.
Make choices that serve your desires. Take control of the steering wheel. Take control of your future.
“I’ve never seen any life transformation that didn’t begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit.”
I love this quote by Elizabeth Gilbert. Doesn't reading this make you wanna get your life together? It definitely does for me.
I hope that you can gift yourself the joy of creating art, to rediscover your creativity and inner child, and to be fully present in your life. If calligraphy gives you joy and you're genuinely interested in it, lean into it and you'll be surprised by what you'll find on the other side.
I'm leaving the link to The Ultimate Calligraphy Course here: https://www.theultimatecalligraphycourse.com. If you'd like to sign up, welcome! I can't wait to share all I know about calligraphy with you.
5 untold lessons on how to get better results in Calligraphy
Calligraphy isn’t easy but the process shouldn’t be painful. So here’s my top 5 untold lessons on how to get better results in Calligraphy!
A myriad of fun calligraphy styles I drew on Procreate and analogue (paper) and compiled in Adobe Photoshop
Master your basics first.
If your letters don’t look good in pencil, they probably won’t too with a brush pen or pointed pen.
Similarly, if your base script foundation doesn’t look good, piling on flourishes won’t mask the mistakes either.Be legible first, fancy later.
Imagine: your letters are the base foundation of a cake and flourishes are icing on the cake. If a cake looks good but tastes bad, would you eat it?
So - if the script looks fancy, but it’s hard for someone to read it, would you say it has served its purpose*? Remember, good design serves both visual appeal and practical functional use.
(*Notable exception: abstract art)Know what you’re studying and what you’re practising.
Traditional script follows consistent rules and guides. Modern calligraphy breaks them.
First off, there are many different types of traditional script. It’s important to focus on one style before moving on to the next as individual scripts would display different traits and features such as slant angles, letter ratios, letter connection, stroke contrast etc. If you’re learning both Copperplate and Spencerian at the same time, it may be confusing! Plus, it’s easier to gain muscle memory focusing on a single script first than multiple scripts.
Pablo Picasso once said — 'Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.' That’s where the fun starts.Observation first, practise later.
Most would preach “quality is more important than quantity”, but there are also merits in quantity leading to quality over time.
But hey - why not both? Quality AND quantity ie. train your eyes first before training your hand. Now that our eyes are trained to spot the differences between good and bad work, next - let’s put in the practice hours to train our hands, and bring our work from good to great.
Don’t be wasting time practising a stroke 1,000 times incorrectly, this just reinforces bad habits which have to be unlearned later on.Challenge your mind: question everything, assume nothing.
When it comes to learning, reignite your child-like curiosity. Challenge your mind: question everything, assume nothing - that’s where we can gain clarity and fully comprehend why things are the way they are.
If not, we’d just think we know when we actually don’t. And even if you can’t find an answer right away, you’ll probably learn way more in your search for an answer than assuming the status quo is right.
I hope you’d find these lessons helpful! I wish someone told me all these when I first started. If you’re feeling ready to level up your calligraphy, feel free to check out my online course (with a free class available to watch). I’ll share and teach you all I know.
Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’ve any questions - comment below, I’m here to help!
Cheers,
Leah
Be the Captain of Your Happiness, (Cause Why Wouldn't You?)
Let's dive right into some content I'd like to share with you. And that's this book right here.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, by Mark Manson
It's exactly what the title says and if any of these sound relatable to you
Finding rejections and failures difficult to accept
Overthinking situations/ interactions
Getting mad over minute negative encounters during certain events or with people
Prioritising external validation over internal belief,
I'd say definitely give this book a good read. It doesn't exactly provide structured learning content but the examples Mark provides and its accompanying insights will definitely help you shed light on how to improve your mental health and well-being.
I'd include some of my favourite takeaways to get you started.
The act of not caring doesn't imply being indifferent (that ignorance is plain rude btw), but the importance lies in being completely comfortable about being different.
Yearning for more positive experiences, is in itself, a negative experience. Accepting negative experiences, (ironically) is in itself, a positive experience.
We're not entitled to be happy all the time. It doesn't come on a silver platter! Happiness is a form of action; be the captain and stay responsible for steering your experiences from distasteful to delightful.
Highly recommend this book - hope you enjoy this read!
Much Love,
Leah
Everyone's a Creative
Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
Today, I'd love to share one book in particular with you.
I absolutely love this book. For all the creatives out there, this book is a must read - whether you're a designer, baker, ceramic artist or architect, I highly recommend it. In fact, it's for anyone, really - I believe everyone's a creative at heart.
In primary school, I remember that my teacher wanted to prove a point: that everyone's different. I can't recall his name but he made each of us draw an umbrella on a piece of A4 paper. We aren't allowed to look at what others drew except work on our own umbrella drawing. As expected, everyone drew different things. For me however, the big revelation isn't that everyone's different - it is: everyone's creative. We all drew an umbrella as told without hesitation, we didn't say "But I can't draw", "I don't want to, cause it'll turn out bad" or "I'm not creative enough to do anything wildly remote to that". Thing is, that's what we say all the time when we get older.
What I'm trying to say is - We all have it in us; god damn it! Being confident in our abilities to execute creative thinking, it just so happens that perhaps "what we think are expected of us" or "what we expect ourselves to be" changed as we grew up. We become more aware of what others think and perhaps, fearful of being inadequate or not being "creative enough", which to be honest, it’s an inevitable thought, no doubt. We are after all, human.
This is also why, I believe in the act of playing. It is paramount or as I would like to argue, an essential pre-requisite, to creative work. It engages in the power of the subconscious mind, which draws deeper than any conscious thought would. But before I ramble on with my other 101 branching thoughts, I guess I'll just leave you with a quote from the author.
You are worthy, dear one, regardless of the outcome. You will keep making your work, regardless of the outcome. You will keep sharing your work, regardless of the outcome. You were born to create, regardless of the outcome. You will never lose trust in the creative process, even when you don't understand the outcome.
- Elizabeth Gilbert
Again, highly recommend you check this book out if you haven't already. You'll gain tons of insights and be reaffirmed that sometimes not okay is perfectly okay.
Much love,
Leah