Hand Lettering Presentation

Coming up on Tuesday, Feb 19, 2019, our sketching group meeting at the Leesburg Library will be a presentation and hands-on practice with hand lettering.

Another lady in the group, Susan Fink, will be sharing examples of her father's work where he created business logos and lettering as a profession..........like the Chiquita brand logo on bananas, Daniel Steel book titles, etc.

Following her presentation, I will share various examples of how we can work titles / headings / description wording / word art to our journal pages using our own hand writing as well as a few examples where one can use free font websites like dafont.com for inspiration with a huge library of fonts people can try to emulate on their pages.

For the last two months I have been doing a lot of research between websites, youtube videos, and books for ideas.  I've been doing a lot of my own practice.  What I've found is that I prefer to just use my own handwriting rather than try to follow fonts or calligraphy lettering styles.  And it seems I lean towards block or bubble lettering more than anything or faux calligraphy.  Not sure why but that's what I enjoy most.  I AM trying to work other styles in as well depending on the subject of my sketches.  As an example.......what I did back in October 2018 for Inktober.....either as individual titles or worked within the illustration itself.

Sources of Inspiration

Books:

Card Maker's Hand Lettering Workbook - Nancy Burke and Marian Rodenizer
The Art of Whimsical Lettering - Joanne Sharpe
The Art of Creative Lettering - Becky Higgins
The Art of Drawing Dangles - Olivia A. Kneibler

Google Search - Images:

Hand Lettering Alphabet
Hand Lettering Art

Google Search - Videos:

Hand Lettering Alphabet
Hand Lettering Art
Bouncy Letters
8 Hand Lettering Fonts to Draw
Hand lettering / Typography Tutorial (speed art)
50 Hand Lettering Ideas - Easy Ways to Change Up Your Writing Style
Bubble Letters

Downloadable Fonts:  I don't download but instead click on the font to see the alphabet

Dafont.com
1001freefonts.com

Buntings, Banners, Line Divisions, and Doodles:

Draw Buntings and Banners
How to Draw a Banner - 3 Simple Techniques
How to Draw a Banner with Torn Edges
Hand Lettering Accents
Embellishments/Letter Dangles/Eye Candy - Alexanderienne - Several Videos in the Series

My Own Examples

Faux Calligraphy:

Bubble Letters:

 Mixed:

Using font styles from Dafont.com:

Various Practice Styles Using One's Own Handwriting:

Inktober 2018 Lettering Examples - Stand Alone and Within Illustration:

In addition to playing with hand lettering, we will practice with drawing ribbons to house lettering for those who wish to get a bit fancy as well as shapes and banners.

Ribbons:

Shapes and Banners:

Other - Charms / Dangles / Word Art

When You Want to Remember a Word

I have heard this word in conversations and seen it written but really didn't know it's meaning, how to pronounce or remember how to spell it.  I had an idea of what it meant but tonight I decided to look it up and as a means to help me remember, I created this bit of word art.

The style is inspired by the book, "The Art of Drawing Dangles" by Olivia A. Kneibler. 

For those who might not have seen previous posts, F.A.S.T. is the abbreviation of our sketching group here where I live.  It stands for Fetch a Sketch Trekkers.......a name my husband came up with last year when we decided to rename our group.

The word, camaraderie, definitely fits our close knit group :-)

Hand Lettering Design Practice

This is me playing around with lettering.  I've been playing on the Ipad, a chalkboard, and in my sketchbooks.  This one is worked in a sketchbook.

The sketchbook I'm using is not one of my favorites as you really can't work watercolor on the paper surface as you can true watercolor paper.  This one in particular is Global Arts Handbook which I think is better suited for drawing.

F.A.S.T is the abbreviation for the name of our sketching group (Fetch a Sketch Trekkers).

I've worked this particular illustration a couple different ways trying to decide which I like better.  Trying different lettering styles, different art tools, various placement of lettering versus illustration, etc.

Below is an example of chalkboard play.  I have to get used to working with chalk due to how easily it smears and then there's the dust factor I have trouble with.

The first one was using a piece of chalk straight out of the box and the second was after sharpening the chalk to a point.