Flourished Block Lettering & The Truth About Teachers
I’ve got some late homework here.
I know, I know. Bad Teacher Stacey.
But the summer was so short…Did you get anything done?
I take my most “involved” lettering classes during or very close to the summer months when I have a little more time to devote to them. I say “a little more time” because that’s truly what it is. Apparently, there are some myths about what summer is for teachers…Let me clear that up.
Summer is when teachers merely catch their breath from running themselves ragged for a full school year. By the time back-to-school season rolls around, we’ve usually just gotten it back and have to get started all over again.
Also, the pay that gets doled out during the summer was actually just held back during the year to pay us over the summer. We already earned it. It’s not extra.
That’s the truth. 🤚🏾
Of course, as the mother of an aging child on the spectrum that presented with seizures, my summers may look a little different than other teacher moms of sixteen-year olds in regards to vacation time anyway.
But after all of that…I spent the first part of my summer just burnt out. When it was time to get back in gear for me, I used a lettering composition class to do it. It helped me stay creative for the better part of the summer.
Flourishes & Flourished Lettering
See? This quote was inspired by my latest homework assignment on flourishing. Flourishing is one way to fancy up lettering, and it’s not for the faint of heart.
This is longer than any of the quotes I’ve done in that class before. That gave me a lot of real estate to play with flourishing a frame around the words. But, a few of the letters themselves are also flourished to move the eye in a pleasing way around the composition.
There are some known facts about flourishing letters like how flourishing is most successfully done on letters with ascenders, descenders and crossbars (though, I’m guessing if you explore long enough, you could do this well for most any letter). But, while they come quite easily to some, I find them to be so difficult that I treat them like hands.
Wait…That came out weird.
The best drawing teacher I ever had once assigned my Drawing II class to draw fifty hands for homework. It was because we were so fearful of doing it! But the only way you get better at anything is practice. Focused practice.
So, I treated these flourishes like hands. 🤷🏾♀️
That’s really the only way to get better at it. You can see, I’ve come a long way since my initial flourishes in 2020.
Some other points to remember would be to never cross thick over thick when flourishing and all the tails of flourishes should point back to the actual words.
But, I still have some homework yet to do since I had to stop on the sidelines a few times during this class. A wedding and preparing to showcase your work will do that to you.
I stopped long enough, however, to do the drawing that inspired this bulletin board below.
I keep stooping down to see how the third graders across the hall from me will see it when they come in the door. 🥰
But, at the end of this here summer, I still have more homework to do for that class and two more classes right behind it.
There’s another quote that comes to mind…
“Never stop learning.” ~ Said every teacher, everywhere, all the time.
Literally, all of them…They’re always saying that.
