A piece in celebration of the new year. May the wind be at your back on your own journey.

Hey Rick! It has been a little while but I know you've been heads-down on your commissioned work so I've tried not to bug you with every little thing. I've done a bit of practice here and there but by and large I've been taking it easy as I am hoping to tackle Monday with lots of energy—I'll need it.

We've also been doing a bit around the house; big cleanups in the bedrooms as Becka is eager to help me get affairs sorted well enough to move my office upstairs. We bought some entertainment shelving at IKEA this week and it's being delivered tonight; the existing shelving down here is moving up to our bedroom so it'll be nice to finally have enough storage for our media. We still need to buy desks but IKEA doesn't have the one I want in stock right now, they're hoping to get stock later this month. Fingers crossed.

It looks like your commission is coming along well! Some interesting things going on in your practice sheets; lots of very subtle pen flicks and flourishes, but what leaps out at me immediately are the slightly gothic forms to 'a' and especially 's' and of course a little biting of bows in 'be' and 'w/ve'—very Johnstonian in some respects, especially that 'w' form in "Now", while others really straddle the line between Foundational and Italic. Interesting stuff, but no doubt a challenge to keep everything straight in your head ... Well, it would be for me, anyway. I guess that's what the practice sheets are for huh?

Thanks for your compliment on my Romans piece. One big "uncorrectable" spacing error and a bunch of small wobbles and minor line weight errors—such is the price of working on a painted background. If it were a commissioned work I probably would have started over after much grumbling and self-deprecation, but after the letter was down I said “Oh well” and kept going. Overall it turned out OK and I am not disappointed with my progress as such; I have but to look at my Romans of six months months ago to see visible improvement. That's worth something. As always, I appreciate all your help, direction and encouragement along the way.

/r/Calligraphy Thread Link - i.imgur.com