Creative New Year’s Resolution: Start Big

In December 2014, digital effects artist Garman Herigstad committed to a creative resolution for 2015: recreating the 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, working smaller and larger than I have before. 

I went to a paint store and bought masking papers of various sizes. I got this medium size 60 yard roll and did letters six to ten inches tall. My table wasn’t very big so I was able to roll out about 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 was able 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 ink was still wet so I did get some smudges. That’s OK as my goal for doing this the first time was to work big and build my skill before using the “nice” roll of painters masking paper to try for a final.