A colorful banner hangs over the words “today is going to be awesome” on the homepage of artist Lisa Congdon’s blog. It’s a lovely greeting for visitors, especially on a dreary, sleepy Monday morning. After instantly inducing a smile on our pouty faces, we dive into this beautiful, graceful blog stuffed full of stunning illustrations and paintings. Rummaging through inspiring work like this, today is going to be awesome, indeed.
Congdon is a self-described athlete, collector, illustrator, homebody and artist. She lives in the Mission district of San Francisco, and is an avid swimmer and cyclist. The clients for whom she does illustrations is a distinguished bunch, including Random House, Target, Trader Joe’s, Land of Nod and Urban Outfitters. Her yearlong project of taking a single photograph of one of her collections every day resulted in a book titled A Collection A Day.
Interestingly, Congdon didn’t begin painting or drawing until she was in her early 30s– a fact that is infinitely inspiring to those who haven’t yet found their artistic inclination. Her latest project is what has really captured our attention, (which we first found through the blog Nevver) and it’s another yearlong venture: 365 Days of Hand Lettering.
Each day, Congdon hand draws beautiful letters that spell out a poignant quote or a simple message to followers. On Day 188, it was a short quote from Gandhi (“In a gentle way you can shake the world”) accompanied by a pretty flower. On Day 176, the poetic lyrics of Leonard Cohen were featured, and on Day 150 it was the word ‘Preserve’ in a simple script. From Days 154 to 160, she chronicled her bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles for the AIDS/Life Cycle, a 7-day ride to end AIDS.
The 365 Days of Hand Lettering project is inspirational in both its content and design. The words that Congdon chooses are motivating and uplifting, and the design is beautiful in its simplicity. The hand lettering is the main art featured on her blog these days, but luckily we’re able to get glimpses of her other works of art as well.
Congdon is an extremely talented artist, and we’ll continue to watch excitedly as the 365 Days of Hand Lettering project unfolds. Inspiration is easy to come by on Congdon’s blog in many different forms, so head over to her blog on this Monday morning. And don’t forget, today is going to be awesome.
