Showing posts with label Beginner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beginner. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Lettering Practice : Faux-lligraphy


(Reminder I have a little giveaway going on here)

I've mentioned that I'm on a journey to learn hand lettering and I also mentioned in my 2017 New Year's post "The Stop Doing List" that I would normally not post things unless they were "perfect". This is a combination of those things. 

Sharing a piece I worked on last night inspired by a commerical for the upcoming "Beauty and The Beast" movie. 

I'm not 100% happy with it but the one thing every lettering artist I admire says repeatedly is "practice practice practice" so I'm practicing. 

The style I used here is considered "faux-lligraphy" or cheater calligraphy so if you want to try a calligraphic style, this is an easy way to do it. 

Dawn Nicole Designs has a great video tutorial here, and Amy Latta of One Artsy Mama has a beginner's tutorial here

Since I'm still figuring out how to digitize my projects (eg scan vs photograph) this is going to be the most basic basic how to! 



Lettering vs handwriting is really more about drawing letters so that's why I used the word draw vs write. 

Step 1:
Draw your letter(s). I still sketch out my words in pencil first to get spacing and size right but for this illustration I just went right with the pen!  

Step 2: 
Outline. You want to focus on the downstrokes, so wherever you bring your pen/pencil down, that's where you want to create a parallel line that makes an outline. Make sense? 

Step 3: 
Color ( or I guess fill would be a good term too) . Color in your outline ( doesn't have to be black...the letters look great with different colors too). 

One thing leads to another so while I've been on this lettering journey I started expanding my drawing and doodling skills. It never stops in the creative world right? 

I'm a visual learner so You Tube has been invaluable. This is the video I watched ( several times!) to do the rose. 

Supplies used: 
  • Strathmore Multi Media Sketchbook
  • Farber Castell drawing pen, slim and medium
  • Tombow dual-tip markers 

Here's another piece I did last week: