Mindful Calligraphy & Creative Workshops
Real Time, Small Group ART EXPERIENCES & CONVERSATION CIRCLES for Thoughtful Souls
Connect to your heart. Belong in community. Grow a meaningful life.
Pull up a chair. Come as you are, with your whole creative messy self.
Experience lettering as a tool for mindfulness, community building, and social impact.
Gathering in Vancouver, Toronto, and world wide online
Connect with YouRself
Make a date with yourself (you are so worth it!). Reconnect with your heart in a creative, guided, supportive space. Cultivate confidence and compassion, while we coach you in the messy imperfection of creativity (and life!).
Connect with Community
Connect with collective inspiration from like minded compassionate souls. Engage in real time, small group creative experiences. Relieve the discouragement that can come with trying to be creative or seeking change on your own.
Connect with Your world
Gain creative tools to connect in intentional and meaningful ways with the people and causes that you care about. A portion of proceeds will be donated to organizations that fight injustice and support those impacted.
Expressive Lettering Creative Workshop Experiences
Focusing on self expression and creative exploration (and less on precise technical how-to’s), these guided journeys will hold intentional space for you to support yourself with creative reflective practices and honest conversation with like minded souls. Come be still. Your heart is waiting for you.
Mindful in the Messy Middle
Addressing Anti-Asian Hate
Calling the Asian/Pacific Islander/South Asian community. We’re holding space for you to be present in the messy middle together. Ground yourself, connect with other AAPI folx, and compassionately explore what it means to be Asian in these challenging times.
Technical Foundations Calligraphy Workshop Classes
With a focus on building your creative confidence with a spirit of curiosity and compassion, these workshops focus on equipping you with a foundation of lettering tools for your creative adventures. Experience the calm that flows from the slow intentional movement of calligraphy.
Calligraphy 101 Sampler
If you have no idea where to start, join us to try your hand at different writing instruments and styles for a taste of which you may want to further.
Think of this as a 100 level college class that gives you a broad overview. Most calligraphy classes are like 300-400 level courses that dive deep into one writing instrument or specific lettering style.
Brush Calligraphy Basics
Learn brush pen basics in a script lettering style. Build a foundation for future adventures (gifts, cards, envelopes, pointed pen dip pen calligraphy, endless possibilities, oh my!) This will give you a good base of learning letter forms using markers before moving onto more tricky instruments like brushes and metal nibs/pointed pen dip calligraphy.
Design Layout for Lettering
Learn the basics of handlettering, using regular markers and pens. Create striking meaningful designs. Develop your eye for design. Increase the quality and scope of projects you can create. This is the class for you if you want to do chalk lettering or any type of writing on surfaces other than paper, such as mugs, t-shirts, wood panels, etc.
What Our Community is Saying
The Difference We Make
When you sign up to learn with It Just Flows, you aren't coming to a calligraphy course –
you join a community of compassionate creatives.
Heart Centered
We go deeper than pretty letters, beyond technique, empowering you to create with confidence, write truth into your heart, and connect with joyful play. You'll feel less stress, more calm, greater self-awareness, and courage to re-engage your life and world with intentionality.
Community Building
In an age of disconnection, loneliness, and turmoil, we create space for conversation and meaningful connection. Experience expert facilitation in real-time cozy gatherings. Everything we do builds and invests back in the community.
Impacting the World
We share the messages of our hearts by writing notes of encouragement we donate to marginalized neighbors. 10% of proceeds are invested in community causes. By getting creative and using your art for impact, your heart feels good for doing good.
About your host Justine Hwang, Creative Workshop Facilitator
Justine Hwang is an advocate for mental health, a social impact calligrapher, and certified facilitator. After burning out from a life of saying yes to everything, Justine revisited her childhood love of calligraphy and discovered its therapeutic nature.
She's passionate to empower you to refresh your heart by infusing small acts of creative self care and compassion, so you can have the energy to show up and do the impactful work you know you're meant to do.
She aims to help you build a creative and sustainable life with intention by holding a collaborative relaxed space for you to show up for yourself and experience the peace and “flow” of calligraphy, connecting with your heart, with others, and the community.
Her favourite moments are when she hears you share your "aha!" lightbulb moments of awakening to possibility, and when people linger in the afterglow of an honest conversation and shared creative experience.
With a background in corporate communications and leadership development in the non-profit start up world, she brings 20 years as an experienced workshop facilitator skilled in crafting engaging, transformative group experiences for all ages.
Based in Vancouver, BC, and Toronto, ON she is known to have itchy feet to travel, especially for good food, connecting with friends, and taking creative leaps.
I have some questions…
If you’re feel drawn or curious to join us, but a little unsure if you’re up for it or don’t know where to start, you’re in good company. Practicing creativity, self-reflective work, or meaningful connections with others feels vulnerable and requires courage. Or maybe you have a more practical question. We’re here to address your concerns in these FAQs.
Which class do I start with? Is this the right one for me?
Good question! All of our classes are designed to be accessible to beginners, so it really depends on what your main goal is.
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EXPRESSIVE LETTERING WORKSHOPS are more about creative exploration and using lettering as a tool for mindfulness, such as a supplement for your journaling practices, gratitude, vision boards, etc. In these spaces, we do not spend any time on the technical aspects of how to write calligraphy.
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TECHNICAL FOUNDATIONS WORKSHOPS provide you with styles and visual principles that can be used in your practice of creative expression.
If you’re not sure of which style or tool you want to learn and would like a broad overview, start with the Appetizer Sampler Class, like a 100 level where you get to try all the main tools and see which you like best before you invest more time and money into classes or supplies. There are usually some surprises of what people end up liking 🙂 Note that for this one it is a broad overview and we won’t be going into the details of any one specific lettering style, as we focus more on getting to know the instruments.
If you prefer a deeper dive into a specific instrument or style, we have a few 200 level type classes (still 100% suitable for beginners, but it’s 200 level in that it has a sharper focus and is less of a broad overview).
The most popular class here is the Brush Calligraphy Basics class, featuring a deep dive into the script lettering style that is currently very popular. This class will go through every letter of the lowercase alphabet in a script lettering style, with no time spent on design principles.
If you want to be able to create your own quotes and gifts using design principles, the class for you is the Design & Layout for Lettering Class. This is our most intermediate class, where many students prefer to have some lettering experience under their belt. But it’s still taught in an accessible way for beginners if you’re set on learning the design element.
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If you have any questions or need further help in choosing the right course for you, feel free to send us a Direct Message on Instagram or contact us with your question.
Do i have to be artistic? What if I don't identify as creative? What if I have bad handwriting?
Come as you are. All of you is welcome here, even if you feel you have bad handwriting. All workshops are designed to be accessible to beginners. No prior experience is necessary by any means.
If you can draw a line and a circle, you can do this too.
For our technical workshops, we break everything down to individual lines and strokes. And we go at a pace that is slow and supports you to embrace whatever pace you need to feel confident.
For Creative Expression Workshops, we will engage in creative reflective practices equipping you with tools you can walk away with for self awareness, self discovery, and empowerment.
Most of all, we believe every human being is creative. So our teaching approach is grounded in giving you on a strong foundation cultivating the mindset needed to fully and freely engage in the creative process holistically, from knowledge and skill, to mind and heart.
- This means, you’ll be focusing on your experience of slowing down, and being in the moment with your art supplies, with each stroke, with how you’re feeling about your learning process.
- It’s more about the journey of creativity and not about the end output.
- This means perfectionism is not allowed here, and we will create a safe space for practicing and getting messy.
Does the cost of your workshops include supplies?
For online workshops, you have two options:
- Provide your own supplies: You will receive a PDF of the course workbook and practice sheets to print out for the class. You will also receive a supply list to shop for your own supplies (or use your own existing supplies).
- Purchase a kit that will be mailed to you: The kit includes everything you need, including the course workbook, and pens.
For in person workshops, all supplies are provided.
What's your Refund Policy?
For online workshops, refunds are available up to 7 days before the class date. You may also choose to defer your ticket to a future date, or transfer your ticket to a friend. Email your request and reason for refund to justine using the contact form on this site.
For in person workshops, refunds are not available due to the nature of venue rentals and limited seats, however you may defer your ticket to a future workshop, or you may transfer your ticket to a friend.
For ALL workshops, if the workshop is cancelled by It Just Flows for any reason, including not reaching the minimum number of participants required to run it, you will have a choice of deferring your ticket to a future workshop, or receiving a full refund.
I really want to come but can't make the date. Will there be a replay available? How often do you run workshops?
Replays:
- Technical workshops will have a replay available.
- Expressive lettering workshops will not be recorded in order to provide full safety and confidentiality for participants to share freely in the live experience.
- We may or may not decide to record for our own internal purposes of reflection or capturing the teaching segments. We will check in with the group at the beginning. Either way, there will not be a replay available. None of the participant dialogue will ever be shared in any way publicly or privately. We take confidentiality very seriously.
Frequency: We typically run workshops every 2-3 months, but may consider doing them more frequently based on interest/demand. So the best thing to do is to pop us a quick message DM on Instagram or from my site here to let me know what topics you’re most interested in. Then join my email community for the latest workshop release dates.
How long have you been teaching? What are your credentials?
Lettering expertise: I’ve been building my practice since I got my first pen when I was 8 years old. I started selling my handlettering work in high school. I am constantly investing in classes to increase my knowledge and practice. I also have a professional background in graphic design.
Teaching experience: I have 20 years of experience teaching and facilitating workshops in the corporate and non profit world. I have 5 years experience teaching lettering and art workshops specifically. I am constantly honing in on how to improve my workshop experiences, and continuing my education as a facilitator and coach.
Together I combine all of this and bottom line is that I’m skilled at creating transformative experiences to give you the confidence you need to get you started on your journey in a solid way, rather than wasting precious time and energy feeling discouraged or stuck about your progress.
I can’t teach you to be a master calligrapher in one class, so what I can do is to give you the mindset and confidence to engage and enjoy the process so that you’ll want to practice… because practice is the only way you’ll get really good! And if you’re just looking for something fun to do VS mastery, then I’ve got you covered there too!
Do you teach in person classes or online only? Where are you geographically located?
We teach online live, real time workshops.
We currently do not offer on-demand pre-recorded videos. Let us know if you are interested in this option, and we will consider it if there is enough demand.
We are based in beautiful Vancouver, BC, Canada, where we teach in person workshops but have been known to travel to do workshops in other cities. Obviously this is currently on pause until further notice due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Do you teach private workshops or lessons?
Yes, I love working with existing communities (staff team, bridal parties, group of friends for a holiday party, etc.) to create a workshop experience tailored to your group. Find out more on my private art party page here. >>