Hello, I’m Kristen (instagram @kristenkiong). Just a little bit about me: I’m a left-hander, I’m clumsy, and (as the photo suggests) I live for ice cream. I work as a Speech Therapist by day and the leftie behind the handwritten works on KEJJ Co. by night, and on Saturdays for workshops. People often tell me that I make hand lettering, watercolouring and drawing all seem so easy, but most don’t realize that it didn’t always start this way.
Back when I was 3, my mum used to give me paper and colour pencils to keep me quiet during Sunday services. Throughout primary and secondary school, I was a doodler of sorts. I never did Art as a subject because I never thought I could “create to a theme”. I did music instead, but I don’t do much of that anymore. Here’s a sneak of what my old doodles used to look like:
Then three years ago, I decided hey, everyone is doing calligraphy so maybe I can try. I didn’t know where or what to buy, but I decided to start with using highlighters and round tip ikea markers.
I started #100typographydays to make myself practice writing, with the end goal of lettering my very own wedding invites.
Fast-forward 2.5 years since the first seed, I did design my own wedding stationery and this is how it looked.
Pardon the substandard looking photos, but they’re photos plucked from various walks of life. The bottom line of this post is that this “talent” that everyone talks of didn’t develop overnight. It was years and years of doodling and failures. Don’t give up when it doesn’t work out! What you don’t see is the behind the scenes – writing the same thing a million times, getting frustrated about it; and when I start writing more posts, I’ll reveal more artists’ thoughts and creative struggles.
Till then, have a good week. We’ve hit Wednesday, that means we’re halfway through!