Creative New Year’s Resolution: Start Big

In December 2014, digital effects artist Garman Herigstad committed to a creative resolution for 2015: recreatingthe entire Book of Proverbs in hand-lettered calligraphy.

February Update:
Working in extreme sizes has been one of the sub-goals of my Proverbs project, workingsmaller and larger than I have before.

I went to a paint store and bought masking papers of various sizes. I got this medium size 60yard roll and did letters six to ten inches tall. My table wasn’t very big so I was able to roll outabout 14-18 inch width at a time for lettering with a 1/2-inch and 3/4-inch brush.

The larger letters requires more arm and wrist motion and rotation than smaller letters. I wasable to finish about 30 of the 60 yards working a few hours each day over three days.Definitely slower than working smaller.

There’s a few mistakes in this scroll, which I expected. I would roll up the paper while the inkwas still wet so I did get some smudges. That’s OK as my goal for doing this the first time wasto work big and build my skill before using the “nice” roll of painters masking paper to try for a final.