Chalkboard Art for Creative Communication

Dear friends,

One of the goals I wrote for this year might seem a little trivial. On my Personal Development page, under the subheading "Cultivate Creativity through Communication" I wrote:

• Learn to create chalkboard designs to inspire my family.

I've been admiring chalkboard art on blogs and at stores for a long time. I figured it isn't as time consuming as the oil painting that I did in college, and I can change it up at whim.

Why not give it a try? I found two inexpensive boards and Walmart and bought them for myself as a Christmas present. Then I purchased several colors of chalk at Michael's Crafts.

I just now got around to trying it out today!

I had already looked up several web sites (listed at the bottom of this post) to get tips and to see possible fonts to copy. Today I thought about what I wanted to communicate to my family. These are small boards, so I had to keep it succinct and not embellish it much with pictures. I chose the phrases "kindness always" and "work well" because compassion and diligence are two character qualities that I most want to encourage.

The picture at the top of this post and the one below are my results today. I've got a long way to go to make it the way I will really like it, but this is good enough for now.

The font for the "work well" board is Pea Ellie Bellie, and the font for "KINDNESS ALWAYS" started out as Mad Beef but then I made my letters a lot thicker and used two colors. Now it doesn't look anything like the original font. I think it's too clunky. I may just redo the whole thing. I will at least move the heart. That's the beauty of chalk art, of course. It's easy to change. I use either a wet cotton swab or a baby wipe as an eraser.

I was a bit disappointed that my colors weren't as vibrant as in the board below, which I photographed last fall at the Spice and Tea Exchange in Winter Park. I'll have to see if I can get brighter chalk and a bigger board for the future, after I've had a little more chance to practice with what I have. (Note on February 28: Check out my latest art at my new post Blessed Are the Peacemakers.)

OK, so I know you are going to want advice with more expertise than I can give, so here are some of the sites I found.  Many of the fonts on these sites are not just for chalkboards. You can also download them to use in documents.

• 10 Things You Should Know About Chalkboard Art
• DIY Chalkboard Lettering from Beautiful Hello
• How to Draw Like an Artist on a Chalkboard
• DIY Chalkboard Art: Get Perfect Lettering Every Time
• 20 Free Chalkboard Fonts
• Chalkboard Fonts and Free Printable
• My 25 Favorite Free Chalk Fonts
• DaFont
• FontZone
• FontSpace

If you have any other suggestions for chalkboard art, leave a comment!

In what ways are you working to grow in your creativity and communication skills?

Virginia Knowles

www.ThisMomGrowsUp.blogspot.com