007: Life Lessons From Chalk Art

Chalk art is one of my favorite mediums for creating. In fact, I’ve learned a lot of lessons over the years from chalk art. Lessons that are helpful when you start anything in life, but especially when you’re taking up a new creative skill.

These are lessons that you can apply to all of your creative endeavors whether that be hand lettering, painting or however you like to get creative! I will share the 5 life lessons that I’ve taken from chalk art as well as plenty of practical tips that you can take away to improve your chalk art technique.

Segment: Creative Memories. I share a creative memory about how I initially got into chalk art and how you can involve kids in learning about chalk art.

What you’ll find in this episode:

My creative memory about chalk art
How I got into chalkboards and chalk art with lettering
What the Chalk Art 101 course includes (hint: a free bonus course, Chalk Art Summer Camp)
The 5 life lessons that I’ve learned from chalk art
Why I love chalk art and involving kids in the chalk art experience

Read the transcript of the episode below:

Chalk art is one of my favorite mediums for creating, and I've actually learned a lot from it. Today is episode seven, life lessons from Chalk Art.
Welcome to the committed to create podcast. I'm Lisa Funk, and I am so excited to hang out with you here. As we talk about the power of creating with our hands and our minds, I like to keep it real, remind you that you are not alone and share specific ways creativity and mindfulness can help us live even more meaningful and joyful lives.
I am so glad that you're here.
Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. And welcome back to my house. Remember, we are hanging out on my big blue couch chatting, and today we are going to be talking about chalk art. It's one of my favorite mediums and we're going to be talking not only about the life lessons that I have learned from chalk art, but also we will be sharing plenty of practical tips about chalk art as well.
Before we get started. I wanted to do a segment called creative memories.
So for today's creative memory, I wanted to share one about chalk art. When I had two little kids before I had really gotten into lettering before I had started my business, I remember for some reason I had a canvas around my house. And I had been at the craft store and I saw a little bottle of chalkboard paint and I thought, huh.
I could take this paint and paint that canvas I have and turn it into a chalkboard. I was pretty proud of myself for thinking of that. And I remember using one of those spongy craft brushes, and I just squeezed the paint out and I painted that canvas and turned it into a little makeshift chalkboard.
Little did I know that that would be the first of many, many chalkboards that I would create and myself in my lifetime, not just that I would write on, but that I would actually make the chalkboard. And I was trying to decide on that quote that I wanted to write on the chalkboard. And I came across a quote that said it was a proverb that said the journey is the reward.
And that just spoke to me. It meant so much to me. I loved it, especially because at the time. You know, I was a young mom. I had two little kids that had lots of energy and it could be easy to think that, you know, life might get a little bit easier when I was able to get more sleep or wouldn't it be nice once they were a little bit older and could maybe do more for themselves, even though I loved motherhood, I could still find myself sometimes hoping or looking ahead to a different time when things might be easier or even possibly better. And this proverb just helped to remind me that I wanted to enjoy the wonderful things about the present moment and that there wasn't going to be a finish line there. Wasn't going to be a point where everything was perfect and nothing was hard anymore, but that the journey really was the reward. And that has been a phrase of proverb that I have turned to so many times and I have lettered it so many times. If you are familiar with the products in our shop, I have even created a lettering notebook, that's blank inside, but that is, there's a set of three. And on one of them, I have lettered that phrase, the journey is the reward. 
I love looking back at that first chalkboard that I ever made, where I wrote that phrase, the journey is the reward. And if I look back at that lettering, I'm not like super impressed. It wasn't even cursive I don't think, I just hand wrote it and I turned it into kind of block lettering and it doesn't look horrible, but it, you know, it isn't something that now I'm like, oh my gosh, that's the greatest thing I've ever made.
It didn't matter. It was so fun for me to just write it. And it was also so meaningful for me to have that chalkboard in my kitchen, where I would see it every day as a reminder, that I wanted to enjoy the present moment and know that it was a beautiful time, even though it was hard and that the journey really was the reward.
So. This is just a little reminder that we all start somewhere, first of all, and we can enjoy creating, even when it isn't something that we think is so incredible and it can serve a beautiful purpose for us. It can be something that we can see as a reminder. And that can be really special. If I can find that picture, I will try to link it in the show notes because it's special to me, that first chalkboard that I ever made.
And that is our creative memory for today.
Right before today's podcast, we are going to be talking a ton about chalkboards and chalk art and chalk. And I wanted to tell you that chalkboards and chalk art were like my first love. They were kind of what I got into with lettering when I did my very first pop-up shop that I talk about in episode two, it was with chalk art.
That is what I used, and I loved it so much. And it has been a great medium for me ever since. And I am excited to share more about it with you today. In conjunction, I do have a course, an online course called chalk art one oh one. And now that it's summertime, we are going to be including an entire extra course together with it at no extra charge.
So when you get chalk art, one oh one, you will also get what we call chalk art summer camp. And that includes two extra video tutorials and some other fun things. If you wanted to set up this chalk art summer camp for your kids or for your kids and maybe some of their friends or family or whatever, it includes an invitation and a little bunting decoration that you can print out and cut out yourself.
This is all digital. And then it also has two video tutorials. One is for making a lemonade stand and other one is a summer quote. And then of course, It includes the entire regular chalk art one oh one course as well. So with that in mind, I had chalk art on the brain and wanted to share with you five life lessons that I've had from Chuck art.
So number one is preparation is important. No matter what we're doing, it's important to be prepared. And some of us can go overboard on this and be a little too prepared and want to do too much research, but having an idea ahead of time of what you're going to need and what that's going to entail is super helpful.
Especially when it comes to chalk art, because if we don't do it right, and we start out, it can be really frustrating. Core example, first of all, we want to know what kind of chalkboard we want to use and where we're going to get it and get all of the right supplies. So I talked in my creative moments that my creative memory segment about how I made a chalkboard using a canvas. And I thought that was great. And it was, and I actually made several chalkboards using canvases that I would either paint with chalkboard paint with a roller or with chalkboard spray paint. But I didn't realize at the time that it, the texture on those canvases was pretty intense. And so I wouldn't always get necessarily that really smooth chalkboard finish that I ended up really liking later on. 
Now, was it still a perfectly great chalkboard to use? Yeah, it was still great. But it was helpful to know what materials I could use if I wanted to make my own chalkboards, or if I wanted to buy a chalkboard, what to look for. So I love buying chalkboards at craft stores. Like I've found some great ones at Michael's and hobby lobby and places like that. And then I also have loved making my own.
I will go to Lowe's or home Depot and get really smooth panel board. And then you can ask them really nicely to cut it for you to the size that you want. Or if you know someone who can cut it for you, you can have it cut down to size. And that's super helpful. I used to have them cut into many, many small boards and I would paint them myself.
And I would use those when I was teaching chalk art workshops or when I wanted to create chalkboards for people. Home Depot also sells a really nice chalkboard that I want to say, it's maybe, like two feet by four feet, it's pretty large. And for a decent price. And I believe that they put chalkboard vinyl onto the wood.
So it's not like the smoothest chalkboard in the entire universe but it's pretty stinking smooth. It's pretty good. So those are some really great options for chalkboards, and it's just good to know what you're working with. And the other thing that is super important when you are starting with chalk art is to season your chalkboard.
So, you know, when you go to use a chalkboard and you can still see the first thing that was ever written on that chalkboard. Someone used the chalkboard, they wrote on it and they can see, you can still see that they say like, you know, congratulations graduates, you know, 1995. And you're like, I don't really want it to be 1995 forever on this chalkboard.
Well, they probably didn't know that it was important to season the chalkboard, which is when you take chalk and you turn it on its side. And you cover the entire chalkboard with chalk first, before writing on it. And that makes it so that you won't get that ghost writing that you will always and forever see on your chalkboards.
I actually have a really great memory of doing this. When I was in third grade, we had a brand new school built down the street from my house and I loved. Being involved in helping and the teachers. And I remember going to the school during the summer before school opened and my teacher was getting her classroom already and I just wanted to help her.
And she said, yeah, you can help me season the chalkboard. And so I took chalk and laid it on the side. This is back when schools had chalkboards. I know, am I like aging myself here? And I took that chalk and put it on its side and it took a very long time to season the entire chalk board, but it made it so that it wouldn't show ghost writing.
And so I learned that skill very early on, but it's been something that I love sharing in my online workshop. And anytime I teach chalk art in person, because it's always something that people love knowing so that they don't get that ghost writing. And if you're wondering what you should do, if your chalk board already has ghost writing on it, yes. You can try to season that again. You may also have to just repaint. You can get some chalkboard spray paint or a roller. If you do use a roller use a foam roller, and you might have to paint over it and start over. But after you do that, make sure you season it, but that's the life lesson. It's just taking that extra time to prepare for something it really makes a difference. 
Okay. Lesson number two is I am so grateful for the eraser. And the life lesson of being so grateful for the chance to start over and to learn and to try again. So when I am doing chalk art, I use a few different types of materials for erasing. I do like to have a traditional felt eraser.
That's the type of eraser you would have seen used on a chalkboard in school many years ago when they used chalkboards in schools, but that eraser mostly moves the chalk around. Chalk is just dust on the surface and the felt mostly moves it around, which can be a great effect. If you want to have that kind of dusty look to your chalk art, which I think is really endearing.
But I also like using a microfiber cloth because I find that it picks the dust up off of the chalkboard much easier. And you can use that wet or dry to get a different technique if you use it, what it's going to pick up even more dust off of the surface. And then I also like to use a Q-tip it kind of erases some little smaller spaces, but you can also use that for a lot of other fun things with chalk art.
The reason why I love this life lesson from chalk art is that nothing is permanent. When you are doing chalk art, you can take the pressure off and it gives you this permission to just get started. You can always make tweaks. You can erase the entire thing if you want to. 
I know for so many of us starting out with creativity is hard. We're worried that we're going to mess up the paper that we're going to want to start over. I think about when I go into the schools and I teach art masterpiece. And I really want the kids to be creative and try making something on their own without a ton of step-by-step guidance. I definitely give them guidance, but you know, they're always the kids that are like, can I get a new paper know, can I start over?
And I totally get it. But with chalk art, it's like, just start. Because there's always the eraser and we can always try again. And that's true in life too. We can just get started. We can try again and everything's going to be okay. 
Life lesson number three from chalk art is that perfect is boring. Okay. There are plenty of digital signs that we can buy that we can print out. And some of them are really great of course. But have you ever seen the digital signs where they're trying to make it look like it was chalk art, but you can tell that it was a font and they are trying to, they're trying to make it look imperfect. That's what they're trying to do. And I know that for me, I can almost always tell that it is, was made by a computer because it just looks too perfect. It looks too uniform. 
There's something really special and really endearing about imperfections that you can tell there was a little bit of erasing here, and you can tell that the letters are not all exactly perfectly sized made from a template. They are all unique and it was done by hand. 
There's a reason why hand lettering is so popular right now. And I think one of the reasons is because it has that human touch to it in a world where so many things are digital. It's really nice to have something that you can tell was made by a human, and that is different and unique and interesting and fun. It's like a sign of life. And I just take that to heart when I'm doing anything, not just chalk art, but when I am doing anything in my life, I remember that I am human.
And because of that, I'm not going to do quote unquote the perfect thing every time I'm not going to necessarily do the expected thing. Every time I'm going to try things, I'm going to make mistakes. I'm going to. Use the eraser. I'm going to try again and I'm going to learn and I'm going to grow. But being imperfect is what makes things interesting.
And I think that people can relate to us better and that they appreciate not only our imperfect art, but they appreciate knowing that we're human and that we make mistakes as well. I know that for a lot of you listening. It's hard. It's really hard when the thing you're creating doesn't feel perfect. It doesn't match what you have in your mind that it was going to look like.
And so much of that relates back to us and how we want to be in our lives. And that we get really hard on ourselves when we are not perfect. And like I said, in an earlier episode, I can't remember which one right now. I said that. I do believe that when we can accept our art in more loving and accepting ways that we can also accept ourselves in more loving and accepting ways.
And I really do believe that that's true. And I believe that when we create art, that's imperfect, there's something really vulnerable and beautiful about it. And something that really connects with people. And that's the same in life. Right? 
Life lesson number four is have fun with it. Drop your expectations for perfection.
Like we were just talking about don't expect it to look exactly like someone else's. Okay. Of course learning some tips and tricks are going to help you, but don't forget that it's supposed to be fun. Sometimes we forget this. Sometimes we sit down and we load on all this pressure about how it's supposed to look how good we're supposed to be at something, even if we've never ever done it before.
We might say, but I've seen someone else do it and it didn't look this hard. And I don't think it's this hard for other people, or I think that there's came out better on the first try than minded. And it's like, who cares? Can we stop comparing to other people's, especially our final product to someone else's final product and have fun?
I think chalk art is super fun. I think that it has so much dimension to it, with the dust and the shadowing and the banners and the borders and the flowers and all the different things that you can learn about it and from it. And I think that sometimes I get too serious in my life too. It's not just the chalk art or with a creative project.
I find myself getting serious sometimes and I have to remind myself that it's okay to have fun. It's okay to plan for fun and look for more ways to have fun. Sometimes I get confused. And I think that fun is just for my kids. And I spend a lot of time thinking about how I can create fun outings for them or fun activities for them.
And I don't always think about what's going to be fun for me too. And there might be some things that are. Mostly fun just for me and other things that are fun for us to do altogether, but fun matters. Like I talked about in the last episode, episode six, when I talked about guilt-free creativity and how important it is for us as adults and as mothers.
To have fun and to prioritize our own creativity and our own passions and creative outlets. And that it's so good for other people around us, for our kids to see us having fun and doing something that we really enjoy. I know that for me, like in that last episode, and I was talking about my mom and how she did that really fun gourmet club with her friends.
That made me really look forward to being a mom because I thought, oh, That's fun. I can still have fun. We don't want our kids to think, oh, once I grow up, I don't get to have hobbies anymore. I don't get to have any fun anymore. It's all serious. And I'm guilty of that. Sometimes. Sometimes I get a little too serious and I want to have more fun. And that is another great lesson that I have learned from creativity is that we can have fun with it. We don't have to be so serious. We don't have to have super high expectations of what it should look like. 
And life lesson number five from chalk art is to be unique. 
Of course, it's okay to take a course. I teach a course chalk art one oh one, of course, it's okay to learn from other people and to even follow tutorials, I have a few tutorials included in the course where I walk you through step-by-step of how to create the whole design and the whole layout. There's nothing wrong with that. Especially if you're learning from a course like this, where I am telling you to follow step-by-step and to learn from those tutorials, but I just don't want you to be afraid to branch out and then try things on your own.
Learn the techniques, learn the steps, learn the tips and tricks, and then try something new. Try something different. And I think about this with my life too. I think about how, especially when you're younger and you're trying to fit in and you look to other people to see how they're doing things, how they're living life.
And I shouldn't even say just when you're younger, it's. Anytime, even as an adult, I remember, you know, looking to other moms thinking, should I be doing motherhood exactly like they're doing motherhood and comparing myself and wanting to follow a little bit of a guideline of this is what it should look like.
And this is how you do it. And this is how you get children to behave. I still haven't figured that part, that one out I'm just kidding. I mean, I'm not kidding, but I don't believe that there is a one way for people to do anything. I think that there are lots of different ways and whether it is with your creativity, with your chalk art or your lettering or your gardening or your painting or your home decorating or whatever it is. It's great to learn from other people, but also don't be afraid to think outside of the box to try something new and to be unique. 
I hope that these five tips, these five life lessons from chalk art were kind of fun. And that maybe you learned some tips about chalk art as well from this episode, I think it's such a great medium it's something that I think is really also fun to do with kids and that I love doing alongside them. You can make it really fun for everybody. As the kids can kind of do their own version.
You might want to do yours a little bit more detailed and more intricate. And that is why I have created the chalk art one oh one course. And this additional course, that's going to be included for free this summer. When you buy chalk art one oh one, you will also get the chalk art summer camp. And again, that includes some fun printables, like an invitation to chalk art camp and also this bunting that you can print out and hang up. And then it also has a couple of extra video tutorials. 
In addition to all of the videos you get with chalk art, one oh one and then chalk art one oh one. You're going to get videos about how to do lettering, block lettering and cursive. And it's going to teach you about banners and boarders and flowers and how to lay out your chalk board. And of course, I also teach you about all of the tools and chalk versus chalk markers and what brand I like and how to sharpen your chalk and then all about the erasers. And of course, I also talked to you about creating your own chalkboards. So it's a great resource if you are at home with your kids or just by yourself this summer, it would be a really fun creative activity to do all together or on your own. I highly highly recommend it. I will include it in the show notes, but you can also head to hand lettered design.com to check out that chalk art one oh one. And again, when you get it now, it's going to come with the chalk art summer camp for free.
Before we leave. I wanted to share a podcast review. This is from Suze S U S nine two nine, and it's called a sense of calm. And she says, listening to your podcast, I feel a sense of calm. And at the same time, I find myself with tears in my eyes. Not because I'm sad, but because I feel you understand me, I do.
Growing up thinking perfection is the only way is so difficult. Thank you for making me feel it's totally okay to not be perfect and enjoying it. Thank you so much for that review. That is so nice. You can send me an email, hello@handlettereddesign.com and you'll be able to pick out any of our online courses for free, Suze. I'm assuming that's your name, Suze. And for any of you who are interested in leaving a podcast review, I will be picking one every week and whoever's I read on the podcast, you will get to pick a free lettering course from our website. So thank you again for leaving that. Thank you for all of you, for your incredible reviews for your comments, your DMS.
It is so amazing to hear your thoughts about the podcast, my goal for you is that you will take those five minutes, remember five minutes to do some mindful creation, to be present in the moment and allow yourself to enjoy the experience without the pressure of it being perfect, thank you so much for joining me.
I cannot wait to be here again with you next week.

Links:

Picture of My First Chalkboard
Chalk Art 101 Online Course
002: How Lettering Changed My Life
006: Guilt-Free Creativity

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Jennifer L. IN LOVE!! What a perfect idea! I am a plant mama too, like Lisa. I also manage a great deal of anxiety. I got into lettering a couple years ago as a creative outlet and discovered a multitude of treasures in the lettering community! This book that Lisa created with her daughter is just perfection! It's all the feels for me! Thank you both!!!
Cinthanie C. EXCELLENT BOOK! I really enjoy taking a minute each day to slow down and apply my hand to something that is not only emotionally supportive but relaxing and fun to do!! The mantras for everyday are very helpful for me. Thank you for your work and bringing such a high quality product into my life!

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