Hand Lettering

Something I want to improve on this year is my hand lettering, tutors and other people have told me I have a natural nack for it. I am not into the technical ins and outs of typography but I do like my work when it includes hand lettering. In my recreational sketchbooks I like to sort of journal element, the work I do for myself is very much about what is going on in my life and how I am feeling. Some pages feature dairy style entries some just a phrase that sums up my day or how I am feeling in the moment. Sometimes it's just balls to the walls craziness that just rolls off the top of my head.

I want my work to have a more ziney feel, I like the spontaneous nature of it. I can collect, experiment more like that. One thing I don't like to see in my work is blank space, I like my work to be lively and I feel hand lettering really helps me fill in those blank spaces.

Some YouTube tutorials

How To DIY Modern Calligraphy
Hand Lettering Step By Step
Modern Calligraphy: Marcelle Lettering
Brush Script Lettering Basics This one is really helpful

Personal Project: Choose your own ending

Before this project began I was in a comic book shop in Manchester called Travelling Man and my friends found a Batman choose your own adventure book. I have come across this concept before but it had never really inspired me, I also came across a comic by an artist I follow called Sophira-Lou and ended up buy it. I started to look at the indie comics in the store and came to the conclusion I could do it if I put my mind to it. The two ideas merged later that day and I decided I would propose it for my Personal Project.

My idea is to write 2-3 open ended stories and have other people decide what the ending should be. I would have my own ending I would keep a secret until the end. At first I wanted to send out physical zones but now I have thought about it I may do it via digital download.

I am buying two books I am hoping will help me with this project

How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum

Picture from www.farwakazmi.com

and 

The Imaginary World Of…

Picture from www.groovinmoms.com

by Keri Smith

I'm also considering buying

Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes also by Keri Smith

I think these books will really help me with this project by loosening my creative muscles and help me think more open-mindedly about my project.

The purpose of my project is to help people understand how creativity can enrich your life via

• Community projects and collaboration 
• Creative achievement 

Choose your own adventure stories are commonly written in second-person so the reader can assume the role of the protagonist. But my story will follow a half monster called Grenade and how she deals with getting used to the human world.

Grenade in this story is based off a ball jointed doll I own, who's character I modelled after a character I created for a project back in foundation. (for more on bjd's take a look at my last post)

The series was based on a concept created by Edward Packard and originally published by Constance Cappel's and R. A. Montgomery's Vermont Crossroads Press as the "Adventures of You" series, starting with Packard's Sugarcane Island in 1976.

Picture from www.goodreads.com

Writing

Recently I have been writing quite a lot probably due to my growing unrest as to where society seems to be headed. I have always identified more with being an authorstrator than an illustrator, the thought of illustrating other peoples writing never really fully appealed to me even though I have tried it (more like wrestled with it) and was proud of the results. But I didn't feel like the results were really me, and I find that expression of self very important in my work.

I have always enjoyed writing and was often highly commended for it back at school. I took english language as an A level thinking I would enjoy it and it would be like creative writing. OH BOY was I wrong! I ended up dropping it as soon as I could. I felt unwelcome in that world, people looked down their nose at me because of my unconventional taste in literature and just my interests going against the grain in general. I remember the most demoralizing moment was when the tutor asked who plays Halo and being an avid Halo fan at the time my hand went up like a shot, the tutor sighed with exasperation as I wrecked his example. He then asked the class who read sci-fi again my hand went up, he basically told the class to ignore my presence because I didn't follow what females were supposed to like. And after that the class continued to look at me as if I didn't belong. That is when I decided that studying English was not a good idea.

But it has always been something I continued to do in my spare time regardless, it may not be as well polished as someone who had continued down that root and my tense maybe a bit wonky at times but recently I feel what I have started to write has reached a new level.

The thing I like to write about most is people and their interactions, I feel it's a my strong point. This is the first time I have felt really proud about a written project. I actually can't help but laugh at bits of it because it reminds me of interactions I have had with my friends.

In a way I wish that it fit in with my university projects because I have gotten quite into it.