Hand Lettering Tips and Inspiration
Want to create beautiful hand-lettering or calligraphy for your art? This post will teach you how to draw fancy lettering by hand so you can express yourself! Quotes and hand-lettering are a great way to share positive messages with your artwork.
If you want to license your work professionally, this is an especially sought-after skill. Brands are always looking for art with lettered words, quotes, and phrases since these pieces tend to be strong sellers on products.
If you are a hobbyist, hand lettering is also a fantastic skill to learn for you! It will open up new doors to all kinds of fun personalization projects like greeting cards, gift tags, and more!
Here are a few ideas for projects you can do with hand lettering:
Gift tags
Place cards
Birthday/holiday cards
Meditative art practice
Positive affirmations to hang in your home
Lettering your word of the year
The Basics of Lettering
Let’s go over the essential things you need to know so that your hand lettering will look beautiful and professional!
The first thing to know is that hand lettering should be treated differently than your handwriting. Think of the letters as being their own stylized pieces of art. You don’t have to have beautiful handwriting to be able to hand-letter well. The key is to think of drawing each letter rather than writing it.
There are lots of schools of thought on how to create the perfect calligraphy and lettering. But the only real “rule” when it comes to lettering is to use lighter pressure on the up strokes and heavy pressure on the down strokes. This creates some natural variation and contrast in the letters which gives them a flowing, expressive feel.
That said, rules are meant to be broken, so you don’t have to follow this if you don’t want to! I use a lot of the same weight in my hand-lettering, and I think it looks lovely!
That brings me to the next point – explore! I think lettering looks best when it reflects the personality and style of the artist who is creating it. Play around with drawing your favorite quotes and pay attention to what you like in certain letters. These little flourishes can become part of your signature style! For example, I do a little flippy flouris in front of my lowercase “g’s” and I love how it looks!
As always, play, explore, and find what feels true to you and your artistic voice! Now let’s talk about a few different ways you can create hand lettering!
Hand Lettering Using Traditional Media
The first way you can explore your hand-lettering practice is to use traditional materials like acrylic paint, watercolor, or your favorite gel pen!
The biggest benefit of using traditional media for your hand lettering is that you can see the beautiful hand-done qualities like thick acrylic brushstrokes and charming imperfections.
You also can explore some very fun techniques for lettering like using gold leaf! I have an entire lesson on gold leaf hand lettering in my class, Mesmerizing Metallics on Skillshare! You can watch the class here!
Another fun thing about analog hand lettering is that you can explore all kinds of different art supplies to add details and flourishes on top of the initial letters. In this example I used paint pens, metallic paint, and gel pens to create lovely details on this piece.
The downside of painting your hand lettering is that it’s harder to edit and make changes. For example, if you create your hand lettering on top of an abstract piece, you won’t be able to separate the lettering from the painting down the line (which you can do with digital hand lettering!)
Hand Lettering in Procreate
Next up, I want to talk about hand lettering in Procreate!
Procreate is my preferred digital drawing software since it feels so intuitive to paint in the app. The Apple Pencil has pressure sensitivity that allows you to create variation in your brushstrokes just like you would with a traditional brush.
The best part about creating your hand lettering digitally is that you have so much flexibility. With Procreate layers, you can create lettering on top of an existing piece that you’ve created without having to combine the two. They’ll appear as one image when you export the file, but they’re actually on two separate layers meaning they can be manipulated and edited individually.
For example, this piece combines a photo of a hand-painted fine art piece and Procreate lettering!
You can also use tools like clipping masks to add some extra flair to your lettering. In these examples, I used a clipping mask to fill my letters with my abstract designs. Then I placed the lettering on a plain background so the effect could truly pop!
My Favorite Brushes for Hand Lettering in Procreate:
Procreate’s brush library has some great built-in brushes for your hand-lettering exploration. Here are two of my favorites! These both have pressure sensitivity and a smooth, beautiful finish!
“Studio Pen” found in the Inking section of Procreate’s brush library
“Script” found in the Calligraphy section of Procreate’s brush library
I hope this introduction to hand lettering has inspired you to explore and create your own beautiful lettered quotes and phrases. I am so inspired by uplifting words, which is why I love incorporating hand lettering in my portfolio. My wish is that it brings you the same boost of joy that it does for me!
xo, Jessi
Don’t forget, I have an entire lesson on hand lettering with gold leaf in my Skillshare class, Mesmerizing Metallics! You can take the class for free when you sign up for a free month-long trial to Skillshare using any of the class links in this blog post!
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