Messy Practice Sheets Is Evidence That Your Are Learning

Here’s my Messy Ascending Practice Loop Practice Sheet

Messy practice sheets is evidence that you are learning, not that you're bad at calligraphy. 

A messy sheet deserves to be kept because it shows: 

• Where you started. Months from now, you may not remember just how shaky those first strokes were.  

• What you struggled with. You can see the letters, strokes, spacing, pressure, or connections that gave you trouble.  

• Where things started clicking. Maybe 25 letters are questionable, but number 26 suddenly looks right. Circle that, baby. 😂  

• Your progress over time. Put an old sheet beside a new one and you don't have to feel like you're improving. You have receipts.  

• The work behind the pretty letters. Eventually people see the finished calligraphy. Those messy sheets show how you actually got there.  

• Your persistence. Every crossed-out, crooked, deconstructed, what-the-hell-is-that-supposed-to-be letter says: I kept trying. 😂  

And there's an emotional reason too. 

One day, the letter you're fighting with right now may become easy. When that happens, that ugly old practice sheet will change its meaning.  

Today you look at it and think: 

“This is terrible.” 

Six months from now you may look at the exact same sheet and think: 

“Damn. Look how far I've come.” 

The future you is going to want receipts. That's why your messy sheets deserve to be kept. They're not garbage. They're your before pictures. They are documented proof that before your calligraphy started acting right, it was out here cutting up. Keep them because one day you're going to look at a beautiful letter you wrote and think, I've always been pretty decent at this. 

Go ahead and pull those records. Your old practice sheet will remind you: 

• Your ovals once looked like potatoes. 

• Your letters were leaning like they had somewhere to be. 

• Your spacing was based entirely on vibes. 

• That connector connected absolutely NOTHING. 

Messy practice sheets let you see something that's hard to notice when you're practicing every day: 

You've gotten better. So don't throw away the evidence. Date it. Keep it. Circle the one little stroke that behaved itself. Because six months from now, that raggedy practice sheet might be your favorite one. Not because it's beautiful. 

Because it proves you didn't start that way.  

-Felecia