Callivember 2024

In November of last year, I participated in the Callivember challenge. In case you are not familiar with it, there is a set of 30 words, 1 for each day, to write during the month of November. Any style and technique is fair game. (Technically, the guy who runs the challenge picks the best submissions for each day and has people vote on them, but I don't really care about that part.)

I learned two things: 1) I can create 30 words in 30 days; 2) I cannot create them at the rate of 1 word each day.

What I mean by that is some days I had more time, and other days I had none at all. It was always very close, I felt like I was barely able to keep up, even though I tried to do as much work ahead as possible. But if I had tried to start each piece on the morning of the day it was due, I would definitely fail to produce 30 pieces. Maybe if I were a full-time artist with nothing else on my schedule I could have pulled that of.

To help myself stay organized, once the word list was published a couple of days ahead of the challenge, I quickly sketched some ideas for each word. That way, when I sat down to work on a word, I already had some starting point, which made it easier to keep going.

As you can see, I didn't use just the pencil for these sketches. I tried to use tools that are similar to what I would be using for the final versions where possible. To me, it's a faster way of seeing whether a style will be a good fit or not. It takes a few seconds to write a short word with a broad-edged tool, but a few minutes to sketch the same word with a pencil to create the broad-edged-tool effect.

Another important point I did not try to create final sketches, or resolve all issues, which is why you will see my notes all over the place with "?" next to them, or pointing out why something won't work. I just needed to have something to get the process started.

I didn't do the pieces in the "right order", but I don't remember which ones I did when, since all I was focused on was having them finished on time to post, and getting enough daylight for a decent photo (good luck with that in November in Seattle!).

Below, I'm going to describe what I did for each day, include drafts, and show "candid" photos of each piece along side the "Instagram" versions that got posted.

Because I had arranged all 30 pieces for a final photo of the whole month's work, some of them have been folded or cropped so they could fit, so sometimes it will look like the Instagram version is "impossible", but it was just taken before the folding and cropping.

I also didn't try particularly hard when taking the "progress" photos for this blog, so they will look less polished than Instagram ones. This is intentional, so you can see both what is preserved (the letterforms), and what is "prettified" (cropping, color temperature adjustment, extra props such as tools and inks).

And all of the Instagram screenshots have a little person icon in the left corner because I was supposed to tag the organizer in each post. Just pretend it's not there.

Day 1: Flow

I decided to go with a brush script (just like in the sketch), and to mix 2 colors. I tried it a couple of times (on the left), and then wrote out the final version (on the right).

I recorded a video of mixing the colors and writing.

This is what the posted version looks like:

Day 2: Transformation

I had used the idea from my sketch exactly. I wrote it out on a grid in my sketchbook, and then traced it on a regular sheet of paper.

Final Instagram version:

Day 3: Golden Ratio

I briefly toyed with the idea of doing a spiral (and I think someone else actually did that for their piece), but decided to settle for pencil lettering using the golden ratio proportions. The width of each line is 1.618 times the height.

I drew the bounding box outline on a sheet of paper that I put under the final piece, so I could see how the sizing should go. Other than that, it was a one-shot, as you can see in the video.

The Instagram version:

Day 4: Expressive

Okay, for this one, I didn't actually keep any of the "discards", and I did not take photos at the time. I remember I did a few trials, all with the same ruing pen and ink, and because they were a wet mess, I just stuck all but one in the trash.

I did record a video of writing out this piece. I had videos for discards too, but I won't be posting them.

The Instagram photo:

Day 5: Rebirth

Again, I went with the idea from the sketchbook to use a pointed gothic style. I tried it once at a taller x-height, didn't like it, did a shorter version, and then repeated that on a fresh sheet of paper.

And then I tried to erase the lines, and smeared it. That was upsetting, but at least I had taken a photo before then, so I had used it for Instagram.

What I posted on Instagram:

Day 6: Geometric

Monoline letters written with a B nib, just like the sketchbook idea. As you can see, often I did go with the first idea that popped into my head. Could I have done better? Probably, but not on this kind of timeline.

I wrote it out once to warm up, did an extra C and O to make sure they are better shapes, and wrote it out again below for the final version.

For the Instagram shot, I put in the pen to show which nib I used (Speedball B-2).

The Instagram version:

Day 7: Clarity

I had to do at least one word in brush Roman caps, and "clarity" seemed like a good fit. I used a 1/2" brush and the letters are 4 inches tall.

The warm-up (written at the bottom of another warm-up for an older challenge) is obviously just bad, but I'm including it for completeness. Then I wrote it out 2 more times, first with pretty crooked C, L, and A, and then mostly good.

I made a video of writing the R, but not the whole thing because the angle was weird. Or, rather, I did make multiple videos, but they just weren't great.

It's funny to see now that I was in so much rush to take that Instagram photo that the Y is still wet. And I will admit the angle helps disguise the imperfections of the letters.

Here is what I posted:

Day 8: Infinite

I had grand ideas for using iridescent ink, but the shimmering effect was more annoying to capture than I had hoped. Also, I am not as good at pointed pen as I would like to be, so I had to try a few times before the result was passable.

I went all out with including the ink and the pretty holder to distract people from my lettering.

The Instagram version:

Day 9: Glow Up

I wasn't a fan of this prompt, so I just went with pointed brush Roman caps and some sparkles, very similar to the sketch.

Again, it was surprisingly difficult to capture the color in this one. I put the brush markers in the photo to help my phone get the right white balance and color. It's still not right, but I had to stop at some point.

The Instagram version:

Day 10: Fluidity

I don't quite remember what happened, but I think I had no time to finish this one, so I just grabbed another shimmering ink, and tried my best at pointed pen Roman caps. I'm not particularly proud of this one, I just had to get it done and move on.

And this is the Instagram version:

Day 11: Pretty

In my sketches, I was really unsure what I wanted to do. I ended up going with the ruling pen, and making lots and lots of attempts before I got something decent.

I find ruling pen to be one of the more challenging tools, and I tend to get hung up on not getting the piece to look quite right. And it's entirely possible I picked the wrong "final" version, maybe something looked better.

If I had more time, I should have tried variations instead of just trying to get the first idea that came into my mind to look "just so".

I've got a video of how I made the final one. But the truth is I just made 9 videos, and only used the one that was for the chosen piece.

The Instagram version:

Day 12: Wholeness

I wrote out the word using a pointed brush. I had a guideline under the sheet that I was writing on. I actually used the same guideline for another piece, which is why it has more lines than you might expect.

The Instagram photo:

Day 13: Symmetry

This is probably one of my least favorite pieces, both because I really struggled for a better idea, and because the execution fell short of my expectations with a rookie kerning mistake (that I didn't have time to redo because of the hectic schedule).

I was going to do it in monoline with the B nib initially, with 2 different colors. After I did the black part, I decided to do the color part with a pointed brush, and create a "fuzzy" effect.

By the time I had realized the M and the E were too far apart, it was too late.

This is what I had posted on Instagram:

Day 14: Wild Style

This one is also a bit of a cop-out. I could not come up with anything "wild" enough, so I just grabbed a few markers and added some "animal print".

I could have drawn the caps for "wild" by hand (and you would probably not know the difference), but it wasn't worth taking the time to do that, so I just printed and traced the word.

Then I sketched out the word "style" on a separate piece of paper, and traced it with a Micron pen for the combined version.

This is what the Instagram post looked like:

Day 15: Chaos

This one took the longest to make, and it was one of the pieces that I enjoyed most. I had even made a video of painting the paper for the letters, cutting them out with a knife, and pasting them onto the background (and featuring my little helper for the initial layer of orange).

Just as it frequently is, this piece that I liked so much didn't get many "likes" from other people. But I'm not in it for the likes, so I won't narrow down to the couple of styles that people seem to "like" most, as I've seen some other artists do. Yes, I could have written every single word of this challenge in the same style. But then would it still be a challenge? Would I learn anything from it?

I have done a piece with a similar concept before (where the letters were mounted on foam squares), but for that one I had used a laser cutter, and it was just black and white. Chaos was more adventurous in color, and more challenging because I hand-cut it.

For the letter shapes, I did use printed letters as a guideline to save time (as opposed to building them up by hand, and then tracing them). And yes, I did print the letters already rotated and mixed up just to make it easier to trace onto the paper without overlaps, or having to hunt for a good spot to fit a letter.

For the Instagram post, I included some close-ups, and also a picture of the painted paper before I cut the letters out.

Day 16: Synchronicity

This piece ended up not quite how I thought it would. I knew I wanted to write monoline Roman caps in two circles, but I was very sure that having no gap was the key to making it look good. After I made a version with no gap (the fourth one in the image below), I realized it was not actually as attractive as I had imagined.

I also played around with the idea of having the letters touch (or not touch) between the two circles.

I used two different sizes of the Micron pen, and the same guideline circle that you already saw for the "wholeness" piece above.

This is the final piece:

Day 17: Culture (or whatever)

For this one, I'm kind of mad at the organizer. He posted the prompt as "културь", which I think is Bulgarian (or some other similar language I don't speak). In the rules for the contest, he said you could write the words in any language you choose, but when I didn't write it the same language, he actually commented on my post (like, this man won't give you praise, but will yell at you for "mistakes", srsly?). Anyway, outrage about rules and rude comments aside, it was an interesting one.

I wanted to use Foundational because I think it's a good fit for the word. However, there is no such thing as a historical Foundational hand in Cyrillic. The way Cyrillic writing developed is very different, and type is probably the closest reference I could get for Foundational. Some letters are trivial to map from Latin to Cyrillic, but others take more care.

In particular, the letter "л" is challenging because of how much space it naturally has in it. It has 2 basic shapes, one similar to an upside-down "v", and one that is more like "π". Obviously, choosing one or the other shape also means other letter need to match, such as "у".

I ended up working through some letter shapes and seeing how they match together. The pages below are not pretty because my goal was to figure out the technical part of how the letter shape would be constructed, but I didn't care about mistakes or ugly attempts (or guidelines for that matter).

I also wanted to use very rough paper for this piece to create this effect of gaps in the ink. It just happens to work out great with Khadi rough paper and 6mm Pilot Parallel Pen, so that is what I used.

In the image below, I went in 2 different directions for Cyrillic: a more typographic one (left) and a more cursive one (right). If you look carefully, there are 3 characters that differ between the versions, and I hope I matched them up right. Since there is no historical manuscript to learn from, it's pretty much any calligrapher's best guess, and whatever looks like it first right together.

I ended up picking the top left typographic version for the final post because it is slightly better, although the placement on the page is kind of marginal.

These are the 3 I posted on Instagram:

Day 18: Freestyle

I had considered doing ruling pen for this piece, but then decided it would be too similar to other ruling pen pieces anyway, so I went with a completely made-up kind-of Neuland inspired hand.

I just did 2 trials: one at a height I thought would work (but didn't because it was too tall), and one at a shorter height. That's it. No editing, no frills. Just simple guidelines and 6mm Pilot Parallel Pen.

This is what I had posted on Instagram (and I only now realized it wasn't square, as I had intended, oops!):

Day 19: Pulse

My very first idea was to make it look like an ECG line. There was some struggling with legibility (and obviously some artistic license), but I got it worked out in the end.

And the Instagram photo for comparison:

Day 20: Space

This is probably my favorite piece from the set. The idea is very simple: use negative space for the word "space".

I printed the word to use as a guideline, and then wrote letters in different sizes around it to create the negative space. It took a while, and was pretty meditative. I don't claim every little letter is good, I was mostly going for quantity. I tried to get every letter of the alphabet at least once, but obviously some were more convenient, so they appear more frequently. I'm glad I did not accidentally spell anything embarrassing by randomly putting letters together.

I started with the largest letters, and then went down in size, and kept adding more letters until it felt like the main word was clearly visible.

Final piece on Instagram:

Day 21: Delicate

I decided to go for the easy option of pencil Roman caps.

The Instagram version (cleverly concealing the bad placement on the page):

Day 22: Wisdom

We're 2/3 into the month, and I had not yet done any Blackletter, hmm... How about now? I had come up with most of the idea in my sketchbook, so I just needed to execute it with a real nib. Or at least with a 6mm Pilot Parallel Pen, which is what I used.

This was a nice little exploration. I tried different x-heights, then I tried using color to manage the tricky letter "i", and ultimately I settled on something that I think looks pretty cool.

If this was for a digital project, I would probably photoshop together the best parts of each of these, and just move on. If this was for a more serious project, I'd do it a few more times to make sure it's exactly perfect. For a month of daily projects, I'm happy enough with how it came out. I even made a video for writing one of these.

This is what I posted on Instagram. Bonus points if you can figure out which one of the three above it is!

Day 23: Boss

I decided to go a little wild on this one, and do ruling pen with blended colors. I used ochre and navy W&N calligraphy inks, and a Dreaming Dogs ruling pen.

I tried a couple things, and then settled on a general design that I wanted to refine further.

Some shapes I liked better than others. The colors didn't always work out as I wanted, but that is a lot harder to control.

Ultimately, I chose the version that I had almost ruined by splashing ink on it, so naturally I splashed some more! I do like the blue S better in the other two versions above, but I guess you can't have everything. The silver lining is how cool those drops of ink dried up, with a nice highlight and an outline. I literally did nothing other than splash ink and wait for it to dry.

The Instagram rendition of the final version:

Day 24: Textures

My idea was to write text as a texture, which naturally is best done at large sizes. I used a 16mm Pratikpen, which is probably the widest tool I own (I might have some larger poster nibs, but I haven't seen them in a while).

I made a video of it too, although I had to go 4x for that, otherwise it looked painfully slow to watch.

And for Instagram, I included the tool in the photo too. And some of my table on the side to keep it a square. The "t" is a bit blurry, should have used a real camera instead of my phone probably. But again, the amount of effort put into these pieces needs to be proportional to their value. So the shot is imperfect.

Day 25: Harmony

I was going to do it in pencil Roman caps, but then realized I already had a couple of pieces like that. So to keep it more original, I used a Micron pen instead, and added a fake Copperplate version of the word underneath.

The Instagram version:

Day 26: Aesthetic

I'm going to freely admit I was pretty tired by this point. I had no desire to explore how to better write this word, so I went with Foundational, just like in my sketchbook, and just threw in some color. Boom. Should have loaded more of the light green ink in the pen, oh well.

It did turn out a bit pathetic, so I put the inks in for the Instagram shot:

Day 27: Vibration

I'm a little disappointed I didn't keep the sheet I used underneath, but basically, I made a solid version of the letters with a Pilot Parallel Pen, and then put it under the sheet, and applied some masking tape to the pointy letters so they would remain pointy. Then I poke-poke-poked at the paper with the same Parallel Pen to create the effect.

The Instagram shot:

Day 28: Abstract

I had to have some fun with this one, so I did. Enter Mondrian knock-off!

This is the third of my favorite pieces from the month.

Using grid paper, I figured out the shapes of the letters, and then I traced them onto a fresh sheet with proper spacing. Then I put that sheet under the final version, and used a Micron pen and a ruler to draw the letters. And finally I used Copic markers to add color.

The Instagram photo of the final version:

Day 29: Aequanimitas

I'm tired, it's been a long month. This is not my highest quality work, but I had to make something. The letters are kind of crooked.

I tried a smaller nib size, but I think it was too small, so I did it again at the same x-height, but a larger nib.

The angle of the Instagram shot cleverly conceals shoddy lettering:

Day 30: Gratitude

Gratitude that this is finally over, right? I mean, it was a good challenge, and I did learn a couple of things, but it was also exhausting. And me being me, I had to sign up for the John Stevens letterform invention class, which (inconveniently) ran at the same time. It was a terrible idea because I already had no time, and then I had even less. So the last word is actually attempting to get two birds with one stone: it's for a class assignment, and also fits the prompt.

When I was done, I took a deep breath, went for a little walk, grabbed a pretty leaf, and used it in the final photo for Instagram:

And that's it!

To wrap things up, I had laid out all 30 pieces on my desk, and took photos and a video of them and the sketchbook.

Thanks for reading! If you got this far, I'd appreciate if you left a comment on what kept you going all the way to the end of this giant blog post 😄