Smile, breathe, and go slowly
I was taking a year-long class with Carol DuBosch, and one of the assignments was to write out this quote:
Smile, breathe, and go slowly. — Thich Nhat Hanh
I started out with a few quick sketches. These are not exactly thumbnails, but I needed to present them in class, so I started rather big with that in mind.
![](https://www.inkmeblue.com/content/images/2019/09/IMG_8813-2-1.jpg)
There was something that appealed to me in the one that says "SLOWLY" in all caps. I think it might have been the fact that those would need to be written quite slowly to get them good.
I did a couple quick iterations, and ended up with this version.
![](https://www.inkmeblue.com/content/images/2019/09/IMG_8820-5-1.jpg)
Italic didn't make me happy, so I decided to get rid of it.
![](https://www.inkmeblue.com/content/images/2019/09/IMG_8822-6.jpg)
I could stop here and just write it out more neatly, but I felt this strange calling to make it big... really big. Of course, my Roman caps aren't great (and making them bigger didn't make them better), but it was still a fun challenge.
Since I didn't have a pen large enough, I decided to go with a brush. I had one from a sign-painting workshop I took a couple years back.
![](https://www.inkmeblue.com/content/images/2019/09/IMG_8826-7.jpg)
The letters weren't coming along as well as I had hoped, so I cheated:
![](https://www.inkmeblue.com/content/images/2019/09/IMG_8829-8.jpg)
And then I did the final version in one shot.
![](https://www.inkmeblue.com/content/images/2019/09/IMG_8808-1-1.jpg)
That W is so painfully narrow. It is forever going to bother me, but the project is done, and I'm not coming back to redo it.
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