Lettering : 5 Tips For Beginners
The art of lettering is becoming increasingly popular. This relaxing and creative activity can be used to create gift tags, place cards and greeting cards for all occasions. For those of you who want to try this creative hobby, here are 5 tips for the beginner.
1- Draw inspiration from the web
Maybe you want to start lettering to decorate your bullet journal for example...
Before you even start tracing your first letters, you can go fetch your inspiration from the web! This is one of the first tips for lettering beginners as you will find many blogs and Instagram accounts dedicated to this creative hobby...
Following inspiring artists like @raricreation is a good start to see what's possible and to find your own writing style.
Enthusiasts of this creative hobby also share content like calligraphy alphabet templates and offer free or paid online classes.
2- Get the right equipment
The second of the 5 tips for beginning lettering is to acquire the proper materials.
This form of modern calligraphy is not an expensive hobby. But you will still need printer paper, tracing paper and especially markers suitable for this practice.
If you're wondering which pen to use for lettering, you should know that there are markers specifically designed for calligraphy such as:
- the Artline Ergoline Calligraphy Pen
- the Tombow Fudenosuke, preferably with a hard point for beginners.
3- Learn the basic technique in a workshop or in books
The basic technique of lettering is to create with a felt-tip pen full and unfinished as one does with a pen in classical calligraphy.
To achieve this, remember the golden rule that you draw upward strokes thinly and downward strokes thickly. You can find many examples of alphabets written in this manner on the Internet or in books on the subject.
In order to force the descending strokes, you need to press more on the Fudenosuke pen or use the wide part of the tip with a Calligraphy Pen.
A good way to learn this technique and to understand the correct gesture is to take a course, for example in a workshop organized by an experienced calligrapher.
4- Keep a relaxed posture
Another of the 5 tips for beginning lettering is to make sure to expand your hand, wrist and even your entire posture.
Your first few classes or sessions will probably feel like going back to school and relearning how to form letters.
But just like schoolchildren learning to write, beginners tend to clench their hand around the pen and focus so hard on their writing that they end up contracting their shoulders.
Conversely, it's best to get comfortable facing the paper and focus on your breathing so that you keep your hand flexible and your entire posture relaxed.
This will allow you to flow smoothly and without smudging into words, first names and whole sentences.
5- Train again and again
Lettering requires a lot of practice. As in classical calligraphy, it is mostly a matter of acquiring a gesture for each letter you want to trace.
So the last of the 5 tips for beginners is to practice over and over again without getting discouraged. It is very likely that your first few attempts will not live up to your expectations...
Remember how many lines you had to write to learn how to trace the alphabet when you were in first grade. It's exactly the same thing to understand the full and half lines thing.
It takes a lot of practice to gain fluency and finally be able to practice this creative hobby for fun and relaxation.
