This year roughly followed the seasons, with one big break.
Winter started with a monthly focus on new scripts—finally bearing down on Italics, Gothic, Copperplate, and Roman Capitals.
We bought the boy Paul Jackson’s Cut and Fold Techniques for Pop-Up Designs which I promptly commandeered. It completely changed Spring as I cut and folded through all the designs in his book.
Pop-ups are fun, but I hate photographing them, so I returned to the ruling pen in Summer, focusing on cursive. Splatters are addictive!
Then a big break September with a week in the hospital. Not fun, but I’m grateful for the wonders of modern medicine.
Autumn started with my recuperation through Inktober and then walking through the NATO alphabet. It officially became a challenge season when I dived into Callivember with the kids’ watercolor sets.
The last weeks of this year are closing out in two directions.
I’ve graduated from Crayola watercolor pans to a tube set of gouaches. OMG, I love opacity! Gouache works great on colored construction paper, and I’m now painting my hand, which pairs nicely with old hand sketches for the NATO alphabet series.
With free release of Affinity, I also started making zines. We even purchased a color printer now that I discovered the existence and efficiency of tank printers. So now I need to publish some zines to justify this purchase!
And for 2026? The good news is that I finally got traction on the 2024+2025 theme of “Catching Up”, plowing through my old blog drafts. I’m only halfway through those drafts and never got around to dormant home projects, but it’s time to move on.
“Curation” is my word for 2026. Life is packed full of interesting things and I need to make some hard cuts—”if it’s not exciting or veggies, then NO!” Even more than the past few months, I hope to embrace the cult of done (or trashed).
Aside from my “exciting” calligraphy, blog, and zine projects, I got the usual list of “veggies” that everybody else has with the new year—a never-ending list of home projects, controlling my diet (nutritional and digital), and creating a regular exercise routine.
So yeah, goodbye to 2025 and here’s to a fresh start in a couple of days, just like every morning!
