I walked into my studio today with the intention of a brisk four-hour clean-up, so I could see the desks and the floor. But this required opening drawers to put what was on the floor into an organized place, and then of course I started wondering what was in some of the folders tucked away. Sigh…… Three hours later I can only see about two square feet of cleared space.

But I found this! Some very interesting studies of the technically challenging, always daunting, most graceful and simple letter of the alphabet, the "S." The client was a maker of table settings, and the designer I worked with had made the decision that the tagline would be in this particular font and in one line. From there, I had freedom to experiment with style and the integration of hand lettering and typography:

These were done with a variety of chiseled brushes on textured paper, automatic pens, and a fine point brush. Below is the final, pre vectorizing.

When I studied Asian calligraphy I did many cardboard boxes full of enso's and considered that the most difficult shape of all. But the Western alphabet's "S" is right up there, especially when you want a perfect negative space on either side of the stroke and a controlled gradation of texture. You can't really retouch that kind of stroke, you just have to live with your human limits, or try to exceed them by doing a few thousand variations, each one imperfectly perfect in a new way.