I am so excited to announce our new blog series. I am going to give you an overview of what to expect in the coming weeks, why I am writing it, as well as how you can get involved!

 

A well written word every week

Hand Lettered Art

Every post will include at least one picture of the featured word, either hand lettered or calligraphed. There will also be an opportunity to feature other artists work. It will give me a chance to play with new styles and materials, and have a little fun showing you the process! So each week you can expect something different. 

Etymology

 Each word will be accompanied by a brief etymology, or history. We will not be going into great detail because, hey, we all have lives! But I will touch briefly on where the word came from or how it is used today. 

Fun Facts!

I love to learn and I love research things. So this will give me an opportunity to put in some leg work and give you some tid-bits of fancy knowledge to walk away with. We will skip all the in depth research and just mention the really cool stuff you may not have known about a word you were pretty familiar with. 

Quotes!

We will include some well worded quotes, which will either include the featured word, or be written about the said word. These may be from literary works or secular works or... even submitted by our readers!

What you can do! 

I for one, do not like talking to thin air or writing into it for that matter. So please! Pretty, pretty please, leave some comments on the blog! You can suggest words for consideration or quotes for upcoming words. You can add interesting facts or quotes to a word if you would like! Every week we will give a teaser for the next word so you can start thinking about it ahead of time. Are any of you hand letterers, doodlers or fellow word nerds? You can also create your own hand lettered version of the next word for a chance to be featured, either in the blog article or on our social media feeds! You can post it and tag us on our social media feeds, and use the hashtag #AWellWrittenWord or send us a direct message or email. I don't want this to be just a 'look at me and what I can do' kind of series. I would love to get other people involved in this as well. 

Why I am so Excited

Ok, so really, I am pretty giddy about this. I have been thinking for a while now about what to blog about, and how to approach it in a cohesive way, that makes sense and isn't just random articles about random things. Well, I think I found it here. As many of you know I am a Calligrapher and Hand Lettering Artist. I am just now in the process of launching Silver Fox Finery, a Calligraphy and Hand Drawn Design Studio, thanks to my wonderful and supportive husband Mark (He also edits this for me so any nice things said about him may or may not be written by me, just saying). 

So, I think it goes without saying that I love to write and make beautiful words and letterforms. Lettering is wonderful because it gives me boundaries to work within. I like having structure. Approaching an empty canvas with a full pallet of paint to me, is not relaxing. But if I have a word in my mind, and an aesthetic to demonstrate, now there we have something. After studying typography and design, it was fascinating to me how each letter form, in its own way, is like a canvas. Depending upon type choices and styling, you can give these little skeletons clothes and personality. And it can make a big impact! Just one look and you can immediately get the feeling of what is being portrayed.

I feel the same way about words themselves. I have loved classic literature since I was 14. I started to read the poetry of Longfellow and Poe, and it was so beautiful. Ok, warning, I am totally geeking out here. If any one takes the time to read this far down the article however, there is a chance they are too. So here it goes.

It was so amazing to me how with poetry, the combination of words could make such a huge impact. Simply by the vocabulary chosen, and the way it is arranged, it can literally make you feel what the writer felt. I think an excellent example of this is found in the Shakespearian Sonnets. These sonnets lead you along to the gentle cadence with the lyricism and rhythm. The words flow one to the other in a way that makes you feel peaceful, but not sedentary. And then, then my friend, you come the the concluding couplet. These two short lines are so well written and compounded upon by rhyme that it feels like a punch to the gut. Well, at least it does to me. If you can relate, please leave a comment for me so I don't feel like such a wierdo! But I don't know how many times I have read some of them, and every time I get to the end I feel something. Now I don't mean to say that I break down in tears every time I read a poem, although... it has happened. But there is something so intrinsically wonderful about the written word that I feel needs to be held onto in this increasingly digital and direct world we live in. There is something about holding a dip pen in your hands and feeling the connection to the paper and the pressure on the nib that makes you feel a connection to the past that typing on a keyboard never can do. Something about holding a book in your hands, not just any book, but a book from 1850, with gilded pages and a broken spine, with dog ears and note that makes you feel like a part of humanity. That the past is not so entirely in the past, and you are a small piece of both the past and the future. A part of something tangible and present.

Well... anyway. That's why I like Calligraphy, and literature, and nice words, and I hope somebody else out there does too, and maybe we can learn about it together. I will be the first to admit that I am neither the greatest writer or artist around, so if my grammar is not 100% I apologize, and if my pen's hairlines look wobbly, they probably are.  But I hope that I can use this platform talk about things such as words and art and history with, maybe, a little wit and humor if it can be mustered. So, now is your chance: leave me a comment! Let me know if you share any of the sentiments above or if you have an idea for a word to write about!

These first word in the series will be .... drum roll.... Calligraphy!