There are so many lettering artists/designers that I admire and this seems like a fantastic place to start developing my skills instead of just admiring everybody elses!

I chose a sentance from a Michael Buble song "It's A Beautiful Day" as inspiration.

Initial layout ideas:

Getting used to a creating letters in a grid:

Refining the layout and positioning of the sentance and further developing the words 'Beautiful Day':

After many more sketches (not shown) the final sketch is ready and open to suggestions!:

Final vector combined with a typeface that has lots of character:

Playing with the vector in Photoshop: