Whatever I may be reading during the day, I always try to read something peaceful, happy and inspiring right before I go to bed. Yesterday evening I sat down with A Life In Hand.

All of a sudden, I noticed I was no longer reading, but studying the individual letters of type. They were a serif font, and nice and round like I love best. And then I was paging to the back of the book to study the watercolour drawings. They are all accompanied with hand-written notes.

She uses different calligraphy pens, different size nibs. Different colors. Different font styles. And then I was fascinated by some white lettering on top of a blue watercolour wash... Do they make opaque white ink?! All the notes she made, all the lovely letters, separate and surround the colorful drawings and sketches.

And I wanted all of that in my own notebook.

I pulled out my beginners calligraphy set. It's been sitting around for almost a year. I've played with the calligraphy marker a bit, mostly just discovering my letters are uneven and ugly. This time I wanted the official calligraphy pen.

I choose a color and broke open my very first ink cartridge. And started writing in my notebook, with sky blue ink, with the smallest nib they gave me.

Delight! It feels like I am drawing letters. Each one is thought about and curved just so. It's yummy.

I know I'm doing it "wrong". I'm not holding the pen at the 30° or 45° angle that you're supposed to... I've got the pen so the nib makes a horizontal line, ie 0°. But that is what feels right.

And you are never supposed to push the pen, always pull. I try to remember that. I make my "o"s with two strokes, like you're supposed to, but "b"s and "d"s are too much trouble to break up the strokes. Does that mean I'm going to ruin my pen?

oh, well. I have the feeling that this calligraphy pen is just the first of many. :)