#5 Take a calligraphy class. [✓]

Yesterday was my last calligraphy class. My amazing friend Michelle and I took the class through Portland Community College. It was a total of 6 weeks of classes, one each week for just over 2 hours a night. Our teacher, Mary Ellen, was very nice, patient and super knowledgeable. She studied calligraphy at Reed College under Lloyd Reynolds. We focused on the italic alphabet. I loved the techniques I learned and would highly recommend taking a class from Mary Ellen, if you're around the Portland area and interested in calligraphy of course.

Here is a little bit of my work, always in progress, of course.

I really appreciated how Mary Ellen emphasized that she was teaching us the fundamentals of the italic alphabet, but that calligraphy is an art and therefore we should add our own style to our lettering

Upon recommendation from Mary Ellen, I bought the book Written Alphabets. It was written by her friend and goes through 33 alphabets and historically describes how the different changes came about for each alphabet. Plus, it has illustrations and directions for making each letter of those 33 alphabets. It really is a beautiful book. You can see the inside of it here. I love looking at the letters, is that odd?

I am so happy I took this class because it is something I can always practice, nearly anywhere and I absolutely love how it looks, not to mention, it is surprisingly therapeutic. I suppose it is how artists feel when drawing or painting. Oh, and yippeee for checking one more thing off my 25 Before 25 List!