Keep your old notebooks

When I first started my calligraphy journey in 2015, I started writing simple words in notebooks with brush pens. Most of my instagram posts were just simple words from my notebooks or from the app procreate on my iPad. I didn’t realize when I started writing in 2015 that it would take years of practice to get myself where I wanted to be. One day I got really frustrated, as many artists do, and threw ALL my notebooks away. I wish I had kept them to show my students as I teach calligraphy classes now. The notebooks are part of the journey on the road to becoming the artist you are now. Embrace the beginnings. Embrace the middle part and where you are now. Give yourself so much grace, with the time it takes to put into the becoming. I tell my students, it will not happen overnight. There is no magical number of hours holding the pen. I have met with students who want the shortcut. The easy answer is there are no shortcuts. Keep those notebooks but do not look back at them often. Focus on who you are now and know that they helped build that person.