"New" Product Tuesday: Hand-lettering Tools

Hi all,

Happy Tuesday.  Happy Cinco de Mayo.  Happy day after Star Wars Day.  Happy May!!  I'm traveling this week (guess where?) and unfortunately my craft supplies did not come with me.  So, I'm improvising today's post a bit.  This past weekend, I attended an amazing hand-lettering workshop at The Makery Craft Company in Anaheim, CA taught by Kelly from Letter Sparrow.  Luckily, I had a few of my new hand-lettering tools in my bag.

I figured it would be fun to practice some hand-lettering techniques.  First let me preface this with... this weekend was my first attempt at "hand lettering" so I still have a lot to learn.  I'm also a lefty which makes things a bit more difficult, but I'm always up for a challenge!  I didn't make a card.  Instead I just doodled on some scrap paper that I found (i.e. construction paper that is probably 30 years old).

It's fun to create stuff with just a simple No. 2 pencil, eraser, ruler and black & white ink pens.  Here are the materials I used:

• 30 year old black construction paper and white card stock. Note: if you use regular black card stock, that would be MUCH better.  
• Dixon Ticonderoga No. 2 Pencil (remember these from our good old SAT days?)
• Pentel Hi-Polymer Eraser
• Standard ruler (found this one in my old desk drawer)
• Sakura Pigma Graphic Ink Pen #1
• Uni-ball Signo Broad Pigment Ink Pen in White

I made two different sketches.  One with black ink on white paper and the other with white ink on black paper.  Below is the white with black pen version.  I'm not sure I like this layout... feels a little busy in the center.  So, I tried out the white ink on black paper to see how that worked and I think that turned out better.

Anyhow, the directions are pretty straight forward for this:

• Sketch your layout in pencil and lightly write the letters and words
• Go over the letters in black (or white) pen
• Add flourishes and patterns (hearts, etc...)
• Erase the pencil marks

Pretty simple right?  Definitely requires a lot more practice, but it's very fun.  No special tools or materials.  Just pen(cil) and paper.  Have fun!