I love to do hand lettering! What is hand lettering you wonder? It is an art of drawing letters, it is not calligraphy. With calligraphy you are writing and with hand lettering you are drawing. That is a big difference; with calligraphy you write the letters at ones in one smooth movement. While with hand lettering you can create somethings unique and give you one look and feel to the new letter type. You can make vintage romantic or cool letters, whatever you like. Each piece is a piece of art and nowadays you see it everywhere. It is hip and happening on, packaging, books, commercials and signs.
You have to practice to get any result, but for me it is very relaxing to be busy with hand lettering. I bought a book with examples and tips which helped a lot to get more to the feeling.
What to do you need for hand lettering?
It is a cheap hobby!! All you need is a lot of white paper, pencils, fine-liner in different sizes, markers, ruler and of course an eraser. If you are more experienced you can buy a white pen and use black paper to make the real deal! And the real pro’s, can use a dip pen to draw thick and small lines.
How to start hand lettering?
- Make a sketch of how the letters will look like; you can use different styles of letters for each word you like to draw.
- Start experimenting and practicing with the letters on thin scrap paper
- Take the official quality paper you like to decorate and use for real
- Make up your text you like to draw
- Draw the lines where you like to draw the letters in between, with a pencil you can erase.
- Start drawing and decorating with the black fine-liners
- Erase the pencil lines, when the ink is dry!!!
You can decorate your card or art with banners, frames, borders, curls, flowers and different shapes around your letters or use the letters as a shape! Use your imagination!!
Why hand lettering?
You wonder why? For me it is kind of meditating, not thinking about anything but getting the letter in the right direction or right size. A very nice side effect is that you can create your own personal postcards. I already got a lot of sweet reactions from my friends that received a personal handmade card from me, tailor made to the situation. That gives people the feeling and attention that you put time and effort in their gifts. All you need is thick and quality paper to draw on, you can use color markers to create anything you like. And one important thing: Let go that everything must be perfect!!
Create your own Christmas Cards too! Use shapes and other materials (stamps or washi tape) to make an original postcard.
