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Brush Lettering

One of the new things I've been wanting to try for a while is brush lettering (or calligraphy?). I took calligraphy in high school and I really enjoyed it. I hadn't thought about it again until recently when three things happened:
  1. Awesome videos on Instagram. If I'm being honest, these videos convinced me that I needed to try. I'm just mesmerized by the different styles, color and creativity.
  2. Thank you notes. I include a thank you note with every order I send out from my Etsy shop. I think it would be fun to have hand-lettered thank you notes rather than trying to decide between 100 different styles at Target.
  3. I am getting married next year (!!!) and I love the look of hand-lettered envelopes for invitations... this one is a stretch, I know.
So, to get started, I bought a Lettering for Beginners (that's me!) book and Tombow brush pens. Also, I learned on Pinterest that there are a lot of resources for free, printable lettering practice sheets. Tombow actually offers some so I printed those out because they go with my pens, duh!


Starting is always hard for me so I just jumped in. Thankfully, the Tombow lettering sheets start with straight lines-- I can handle those.


A few things I learned:
  • The brush pens take a little breaking-in. When I started, it seemed like no matter how hard I pushed down, my pen strokes weren't quite wide enough. Also, they seemed to "stick" (for lack of a better word) to the paper so my strokes weren't smooth. Both of those issues seemed to resolve themselves after a few letters.
  • Don't think too much. I found I did much better when I didn't try so hard and just wrote the dang letter.
  • Take your time. It's tempting to rush through the letter to get to the next one, but my letters always looked worse when I didn't slow down and take time to do each stroke right.
  • Some letters are way more difficult thank others. I wonder if everyone struggles with the same letters? For some reason P was really hard for me. I LOVE B and H though!
I couldn't resist trying to write full words before finishing the practice sheets. I thought I'd start practicing for my thank you cards. Obviously, I need to practice a lot more. Don't judge too hard...



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