Caroline Winegeart over at Hand-Lettering for Beginners has proven to be a great source of information on my journey, and she is super organized! I stumbled across her blog and was excited to see that she had a post on getting started where she mentioned “The Three P’s” of hand-lettering. These are:
- Pay Attention
- Process
- Practice
What she means by this is, first of all, you must pay attention to fonts and writing around you. There is no one set font that must be used for hand-lettering; it’s about your own unique style. However, a lot of hand-lettering is inspired by the larger community, and it’s a good idea to become familiar with different styles.
Secondly, take your time. This is not a skill that can be learned overnight. It’s okay to make mistakes, and try things differently!
Lastly, as with most skills, practice makes perfect. It’s a good idea to try out different styles and practice with different tools and methods.
To start off, I am using a few different writing tools. These include Zebra Mildliners, PaperMate Flair pens, and double-ended markers from Buffalo. I’m using this Piccadilly sketchbook to practice in; the paper is really good for practicing using different mediums.
One of the tips I’ve learned from Hand-Lettering for Beginners is trying to make the downstrokes thicker, which can be done by either using more pressure, or by thickening the downstrokes after writing out the words. To start this journey, I decided to try my hand at writing out the concept I’m trying to instill in my brain: The Three P’s! I wrote out the title with a black marker, and then thickened the downstrokes using a purple marker for contrast. For the actual points, I tried to use the purple marker only, and I tried putting more pressure on the downstrokes. I don’t really see too much of a difference, but that could be because of the marker I used. I think I much prefer the “thicken-after-drawing” method. Something I would want to focus on for the future is making sure my thickening is even throughout so that the letters look more uniform.
I’d love any comments, feedback, or suggestions! Thanks for reading.
