Quilling Letters 102 - Part 3

So the last word in my paper typography project is "curiosity", made in a cursive style. It took my full concentration, so I don't have much in the way of photos here. The "o" and "s" are deliberately unfinished because I have grander plans for them.

The phrase is written by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love. I enjoyed reading her latest book, "Big Magic", and endeavoured to follow her inspirational words to get past my hesitations of going down this path. I was inspired by the color and energy of the book cover and translated it into a quilling piece.

Here's a video explaining how I formed the letter E at the size of a thumb tack, the same used in my project for the beginning of her name.

At this stage, I've composed how I want the flow of the swirls to move throughout the piece, gluing some that felt right. And then...I got stuck. For months. 

I'd take it out to look at it, hoping I'd see a way out and resignedly put it back. I felt like the next strip I glued was going to be a big mistake and I didn't want to ruin all the work I'd done up to this point. It also felt like it would take me months to fill in all the negative spaces between all the letters. It killed my buzz.

November came around again, and I said to myself "Look, this is a self directed project, so there's no client to disappoint. Who cares if it ends up being ugly? You'll learn from it and that's what this was originally all about." 

And then off I went and FINALLY finished it. I glued the upper left corner in one day and was surprised it didn't take as long as I feared it might. Somehow that "writer's block" loomed larger the more I thought about it.

The bottom right corner took another day.

As Liz Gilbert's mom says "Done is better than good". In other words, I'm finished this piece, even though it's not perfect in my eyes, and I can see lots of room for improvement, AND that was exactly what I wanted to gain from this experience anyway. 

The serif font is Century Schoolbook and "curiosity" is Zhafira.

So if you have ever doubted your ability to quill a certain piece, or if you felt like it was too embarrassing to show anyone, then just think of me being in the same boat, and know you can push past it. I hope you enjoyed the journey here with me! If there are any questions, I'd be happy to answer them in the comments below. Thanks for leaving me your thoughts!

Thank you all who tried guessing the last word - that was fun for me! If anyone had guessed correctly, the prize would have been my new e-book, Quilling Letters! I have witnessed such a surge in quilling typography projects and felt there may be some who could benefit from pre-measured strips and templates. More details about the e-book will be in the next post.