Lettering a Quote for Women’s History Month

Give women their flowers.

Teaching is rewarding. But, it’s challenging work too. For me, my work day is 7:45 am to 4:00 pm with an am and pm duty, six classes a day that are five minutes apart (with a break for lunch and planning after my first two classes), and late bus duty if all of our buses don’t show up on time at dismissal. By the end of the day, I can be pretty wiped out. Add being a wife and mother to that, and by the end of the week, I’m about ready to pass out.

But, every once in a while, I get a little request that gives me the opportunity to care for myself during work hours. ❤️

Case in point, early last week, during am duty, our school nurse asked me to make a poster for the wall outside her office for Women’s History Month. She wanted the poster to read, “She believed she could, so she did.”

Now, that’s not easy to do with the schedule I just described. But, my goal was to get it done by the end of the week.

I wasted no time scribbling the quote down on some spare paper on my desk.

Some time between the first and second class, I scaled it up to a larger sheet and I got to solidify the sketch by the end of the first day. In between stopping to assist students every now and again, I made some good progress.

The next day, we had a fire drill, an unexpected classroom shift, and some changes to my own lesson plans. But, I got a chance to start filling in the background and the words.

For this, I used watercolor for the background, broad edge markers for the letters, and a Sharpie for the highlights. I was going for a palette that reminded me of roses and I added leaves to give the idea of being fruitful.

The next day, I completed the rest of the poster, filling in the empty spaces with leaves on my lunch break.

I could tell you why women get all kinds of things done every day, even in the midst of chaotic schedules like mine.

But, I like to think the poster speaks for itself. 🥰