Kalo Make Art Bespoke Wedding Invitation Designs: A Calligraphy Journey of a Hong Kong and Singapore based calligrapher

As a self taught calligrapher, I constantly feel inadequate and that I still have plenty of rooms for improvement. Like any other skills, no one can really perfect it unless you work on it over and over and over again. If you have read the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, he says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours (that's 166 days without sleep!) of practice to achieve mastery in a field.

I am sure 10,000 hours of calligraphy practice will help but if you are scared by this thought, I suggest you to remember "P P P " - which is my personal motto and the key to writing beautiful calligraphy (and achieving any goal in life really)! We'll all know that no one is born to write perfect penmanship naturally, the best calligraphy can only be done through "Practice, Passion & Patience"!

Some of you might realise I rarely blogged about my personal achievement but TODAY I gained an insight from an online video of Dr Wayne's lecture on "Your Thoughts Are Creating Your Reality" (it is a really meaningful lecture that everyone should watch it!). In this lecture, he mentioned a quote from Tao Te Ching - "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Every thing, any thing, big or small, begins from one single step and we should never forget each and individual step we take. Similar to my calligraphy journey, it started off from a baby step of curiosity (I was stunned by the beautiful contrast of thin and thick brushstrokes) and gradually it has become a foot path, a core passion in my life.

So learning from Tao Te Ching's teaching, I am now spending a moment to remind myself the every little footstep I took in my journey as a calligrapher. Spending a moment to appreciate and recognise my own achievements!

One of my 2014's new year resolutions is to continue to improve my calligraphy, to practice whenever I can and to take more opportunities to utilise this precious yet vanishing skill. I am really pleased that I am gradually achieving this goal!

Since I started in 2004, I have ...

• painted, printed, wrote calligraphy and handmade a set of baby taboo game cards for my dear friend's baby shower party! My friend loves them!

• the honour to design and calligraphy for a dear friend's wedding in Mexico and the honour to calligraphy all the wedding invitation envelopes for my sister's wedding!

• met a bunch of talented, like-minded and generous calligraphy friends like MaryEllen and Belinda Love Lee via Instagram, who are willing to share hints and tips with me even though we've never met personally in real life before!

• gained more clients' requests to calligraphy for their wedding stationery!

• been working on a new collection of calligraphy greeting card designs which will be letterpress printed in March and will be sold in bookstores and shops across Asia!

• the honour to be invited by Shop Wonderland & The New Romantics - a florist / cafe / studio in the heart of Haji Lane, an arty district in Singapore to teach a series of calligraphy workshops!!! *I will post more information on the workshop details soon!

All these outcomes result from the baby foot step I took, from the initial curiosity. They are such wonderful blessings, which I couldn't ask for more!