Months and months ago, a friend and I booked tickets to Stylist Live 2016, anticipating a day of inspiration and creativity. We booked our workshops, talks and train tickets, and waited impatiently for the day to finally roll around.

Finally, On Saturday 15 October, we arrived at the event bright and early, ready to absorb literally everything we came across.

I had managed to book a place onto notonthehighstreet.com’s Brush Lettering Workshop with Teri from The Lovely Drawer, and couldn’t wait to get started – 45 minutes of learning a new creative skill that I could take away and play with in my own time. A dream!

The session – the first of that morning –  was jam-packed, as you’d expect, and I think I was very lucky to get a space. I felt like I was in art class all over again – something which I have missed ever since I finished my A Levels. We were all given a pack containing plain paper, technique and lettering exercises, a brush and a pot of black ink.

After some introductions, we began with some basic exercises – mainly lines and repeated patterns, which Teri guided us through. She made it look so easy, and you’d think that drawing lines with a brush and ink would be simple, but it was surprisingly tricky and easy to get wrong.

After the patterns, we moved onto letters and numbers, and this required some serious concentration. Teri explained the importance of hand position, brush angle, and water-to-ink ratio on the brush. Despite the ease with which she wrote, it was clear that it was all down to practice and years of experience. Even the smallest alteration, such as a slight movement with the brush to eliminate hard edges to letters, made such a difference.

Teri has created a brilliant personal style and was fantastic at helping us with any issues we were having with our work, and I would have loved for a longer session to really get to grips with it – however, we learnt so much from just 45 minutes! I left feeling inspired, just as I had hoped.

I was very excited to be able to take the brush and ink home with me to get practicing, which I wasted no time with…and have even ordered more brushes and ink bottles so I can really get cracking with finding my own style.

I’ve got a long way to go, and a lot of work to do, but I’m really keen to keep this up as a hobby and maybe use it to add a personal touch to gifts and letters to friends. I always find myself doodling and creating curly letters while I work, and this is the perfect way to start turning my doodles into art.

This workshop was a fantastic start to a brilliant day with Stylist Live – thank you Teri for sharing your secrets with us and for being so friendly, and thank you notonthehighstreet.com and Stylist Live for putting the workshop on!

Aside from brush lettering techniques, I also learnt that it is possible to wear your favourite white top to a session involving black ink and make a stain-free exit. I think that takes real skill, don’t you?