DRAFTSMAN LETTERING

1. Draftsman Lettering Intro: got stuff in here, and this is draftsman lettering. Some of you may wonder, why in the world would we be learning how to write again? But there are a couple of good reasons why we made it learn this skill and why I like to teach it to my students very early on in the process of learning. So I'm a middle school art teacher on lane. He's a glutton for punishment, and this is my launching point for them. That doesn't mean that if you're in high school or college or even grown that it won't help you. I think that it will, on the reasons why are this. Writing is one of the most basic and widely accepted forms of visual communication, and when I think of art, I think it is kind of like the pinnacle of visual communication. So the most profound artists, they're able to say something that can't really be said with verbal language or even with sounds or even with aromas, tastes. If you think about a chef in their art, the visual artist is relying completely on what could be taken in with the eyes, and that form of communication is unique and is done most effectively. But when you understand some very basic principles, so I think it was Pablo, Picasso said it took him a lifetime toe, learn how to paint like a child, and there's something really profound about that. The fact that it took him that long to be able to connect with the child kind of inside of himself, enough to let go of all the other pretenses or interference that he might otherwise feel. And to be able to communicate that to somebody who looks at one of his paintings that looks like a child painted it that could easily dismiss it, not understanding how much went in to the thought and the effort and the learning behind draftsman lettering. Readdress is a skill that we've all already learned, and at one point that was brand new for us. We didn't know how to identifying a We didn't know how to reproduce in a and it took weeks and weeks of training ourselves. If we return back to that skill and say okay, even though I know this may be there is something that I can learn again, I think that principle also comes into play later on. When you're learning how to communicate visually or you're trying to perceive something eso often we think, or I'll think I understand this situation, that situation or the way this looks or understand what I'm seeing with my eyes when somebody who's more knowledgeable will come in and just completely see see it for what it is on. And I give you a great example of this. One of my first early on pet portrait said. I did Nicky and leaves. Um, I presented it to a fellow who was a professional portrait artist, had done many oil paintings off famous people in the military and dignitary, and he looked at this portrait that I was so proud of. And he said, It looks like somebody punched your dog in the nose and I got I got hurt and I was offended . And then that comment that he made stayed with me, and over the years I would go back and I would look at that portrait and I would try to see what he saw in it and eventually understood that he was, in fact right. I had paid more attention to the surface of the animal what I could see at that point and in my progression as an artist, that I was the structure that was underneath the skin, so to speak, you know, hundreds of pet portrait Slater. I you know, progress. And I've learned, um, but at that time, I just couldn't see it. And it's very important that what we think we know what we think we're good at were willing to readdress. And so, for my students coming in fifth grade, very few of them have great handwriting. Ah, handful might have good handwriting, and the majority of them attribute writing to something that just needs to get done if they can get it out of the wave and then awesome. Um, and what I want to do is I want to teach them No, that's a That's a form of your communication. And you're saying something. Every time you write with sloppy handwriting, you're saying something beyond just what the words say if we could read them and it goes into how much we care about our craft. And so I think draftsman lettering has that appeal to it as well for me, and then it's universally accepted. Engineers designers, everybody. It's easily recognizable for a wide range of professions, and so being able to communicate visually in that way gives us a clear and consistent visual language to use. So I know that's a long, ridiculous intro for something like this. But I needed to be said, and that's that's how that goes. So at any rate, without further ado, there are three exercises. With this, you're gonna first learn the alphabet in each little letter that you see at the top of your sheet. There's a printable with it. So you print that out that each little letter has very specific arrows, directions and numbers to tell you what stroke to make win for each letter, and then it gives you practice space underneath. I think you can do the alphabet like three times. That's the first exercise. The second exercise is very similar to the first, except that there are no boxes for you to use their just guidelines. And so what that simulates is like a piece of notebook paper, I guess. But what you're gonna be working on is is the spacing between the letters. So thinking about how on M fills up its space much differently than the letter. I fills up its space and how much space where you're gonna give between each letter. So that's the second exercise. And then the final one is just I want you to take a blank sheet of paper, put our lettering. God, it's a printable letter and got underneath the blank sheet of paper. And that she did paper could be loosely for it could be bound in a sketchbook. It doesn't matter, but I want you to write your favorite point in draftsman lettering using the letter and guide behind a blank sheet of paper. So there you go. I'm so excited you're taking the class. Please again, post your work. And if you like this, there'll be more classes to come. Thanks so much. 2. 5.1A Draftsman Lettering - The Alphabet: All right. Welcome to dress with lettering. Exercise one. Let's go ahead and get started. All right, We're gonna go ahead and start, obviously with the letter A We'll start at the top in the middle of our square. We're gonna go from the middle down to the bottom left corner and then for the right hand side from the top middle to the lower right hand corner. When we do the horizontal cross piece, we're going to do that one square below center. Okay. Each of these boxes is six plus six squares. Far be. We're gonna do a vertical down the left side, and then we'll make it look like a little miniature l There on the bottom. We're gonna do a horizontal in the middle to goes three squares over. We're going to do the top portion. We're gonna bring the curve part out four squares from the left hand side and then the bottom part of the B. We're going to come over five squares at the widest portion. Okay, first, See, we're actually gonna dio like a semi circle on the left hand side, but we're going to continue it around for two more squares. and come up a little bit, and then we'll finish up the top, Lastly, with a nice little curved piece. All right, for our d, We're going to start with a vertical down the left hand side. Then we'll do a horizontal along the bottom, making it look like a little miniature. L again. And then we're gonna start all the way at the top. We're gonna do a nice curved piece up to the fifth box over and bring it down to meet up with the miniature L. We started with far E will do a vertical down the left hand side. This time, we're gonna do a much larger l much more like the actual Well, it's gonna go five boxes over, then you could do the top of the middle first. It doesn't matter, but the top will be about 4.5 boxes. Over in the middle will be about three boxes over. Thank you. That will be very similar. We'll do our vertical down the left hand side. But this time, when we do the horizontal across the top, we're gonna go five squares over, and when we go to the middle, we'll just do About 3.5 square is over for the G. We're gonna do much like the sea. We're gonna start with a semi circle on the left hand side. But we're gonna bring it around just a little bit further, just like we would with the sea and go ahead and finish up that top portion, make it look just like a C. And then at the halfway point down, we're gonna go to the right and come down to meet up with our see. So the G in the sea are very similar for our eight we're gonna do to verticals one on the left side and then on the fifth square over, not all the way to the edge there. And then our horizontal piece will be one square below center. Okay, we do that because it gives us a more substantial looking letter when we lower that cross piece the eyes. Very simple vertical right down the middle for J. We're gonna go to the fifth square over, do a vertical line down four boxes, and then we're gonna do the bottom of the J. And just so you know, the J and the you are very similar. I que will start with a vertical down the left hand side that will come over five squares of the top. We were gonna come down to the left hand vertical. We made one square below center, so you can check on the graphic above to make sure you've got it right. And then we're going to go with a diagonal that's in the middle of that portion of the K and go down to the right. Lauren right hand corner. It should look like a tea got tipped over against an eye. When you're done. The l is very simple. A vertical down the left hand side, and then you're horizontal, that the bottom is five squares over for him. We'll start with two verticals this time, our verticals, unlike the H, your second vertical on the right hand side will be a full six squares over. Okay, then you find the midpoint, which is pretty easily easy toe find. With our little graph, there are six by six grid, and then you'll just do two diagonals down to the lower middle portion, giving you that him can. In the end, we're gonna start with two verticals, but they will not be the full six box with. There will be five squares apart from one another. So when do I vertical down on the left hand side? Come five boxes over into a vertical down the right hand side, and then we'll do the diagonal from the top, left to the bottom, right for Oh, we're gonna do a semi circle on the left hand side and then you'll do a semi circle on the right hand side. Don't feel bad. This takes a long time to perfect and make it look nice and circular, so don't get discouraged. Just keep at it for your P. You'll do a vertical on the left hand side. Then you're doing horizontal, much like if you were doing in F, and then it's just like the top of a be accepted. Actually, it's more like the bottom of a B because it comes over five squares for acute semi circle left hand side than a semi circle right hand side. It is very much like an O and also like a zero, Um, and then we'll just do a diagonal in the lower right hand core for our will do a vertical down the left hand side, just like you were going to create an F or the P. Um, you do the top portion just like you would do a pee. So find squares over and then you'll do a diagonal from about the mid point down, uh, to the lower writing portion, about five squares over. Now it s is a little bit tricky. We're gonna do the top a little portion first, and then you're going to do the whole s. You want the top portion to be smaller than the bottom portion both and width and height. So even though the s kind of crosses the midpoint, um, you can tell from the look of it there that the top looks smaller on the bottom. That just makes us look more substantial, more stable, like it couldn't be knocked over easily. So at all things, if you could think about this with your draftsman lettering, you want your letters to look substantial. And if someone were to try and push him over, it would be kind of difficult because they're nice wide and hefty rt vertical down the middle, and then the horizontal across the top goes. The full six boxes across are you is very much like the J. You're gonna have to verticals one on the left inside. The one on the right hand side is five bucks is over. And then you're gonna connect you to Verticals with a nice semi circle shape on the bottom there. All right. These pretty simple it is six boxes wide. So from the top, down to the middle, on from the top, right down to the middle. And you've got your V r. W is the only letter we have that stretches a little bit beyond the parameters of the box. So I go up to the top, um, and find put a little dot on the outside of the box, and then I find the middle of the second box over in the middle of the fourth box over at the bottom, and then I draw my diagonals down to these points that I found, and then at the top, I just put a little point there and connect the two diagonals down. So, uh, you'll end up changing this to fit your style. I don't really do my W's that way anymore, but I think it's worth learning the right way before we stylized it. So our X we're gonna come, uh, we're gonna put a couple of dots up at the top, couple of dots up at the bottom. So the dots up at the top are kind of a square in from the left and a square in from the right. And then as you go down to the bottom, they they extend to the full six box with, um, of the grid there. So again, the top portion is just a little more now than the bottom portion, giving it a safe, substantial feel for the Why? Uh, the point of the why where you where you make this V, you've got a diagonal. It comes down to the center, but maybe a little bit below. You actually want the little supporting beam the vertical to be a little bit shorter than all three cubits. That again makes it feel a little bit more substantial calm and like it's got lower legs for a shorter leg. So the Z, very much like the X, should fill a very similar space to the X. All right now into the numerals. Uh, again. Zero is very much like a no. It's a semi circle left in a semi circle. Right. It should look like a circle when you're done again. This one takes some practice. I think that s takes a lot of practice. Uh, k the w those take a decent amount of practice. Pretty much everything else comes fairly naturally. The one is just like an I accepted. Put a little tick mark up to the top. Um, the two takes a little bit of practices. Well, you're gonna do the top portion first, and then you're gonna what you get to the top. Then you start thinking about the curve. You want the upper portion of the curve. Kind of like the three and kind of like the s. You want the curvy part at the top to be a little bit skinnier and a little bit shallower than the bottom curvy portion. So we're trying to bottom. Wait, All these letters all right, are three. Fairly simple. You just want it's the top portion to be again. A little skinnier and a little more shallow than the bottom portion. So did the top part. First, the bottom portion comes almost six cubits wide. It's a little bit short of that. More like five cubits wide, really? Or five boxes. Why? Okay, so the vertical of the four is not. Get down the center. You're gonna come four boxes over from the left hand side, and then you're going to draw your vertical down. The diagonal comes from the top to the left hand side, and it's gonna be four boxes down so below the center line. So this cross piece on the four should line up perfectly with the cross piece on the A and the h. All right. Are five gonna do our door horizontal top first. Just kidding. Who do a vertical down the left hand side. You're gonna make this curve piece. This would be very much like the bottom portion of a three and then the top horizontal portion. So six and the nine should be identical. They're just six is and upside down nine and a nine isn't upset down six. So we'll do the top portion here, curve around. Do you want to make sure that the bottom of the sixth around portion of the six actually goes above centerline? Eso that kind of. It's sort of an oval shape, but it should almost look like a circle. So it's really about four boxes high by five boxes wide. So it's It's a noble, but it's look should look pretty round, uh, are seven become five cubits across for 5 5.5 Really forgetting super technical. And then you're diagonal. Come down to three boxes over from the left hand side on the bottom. There. All right for the letter eight. Beginning with the top portion to be smaller both in width and height thin the bottom portion. So we're gonna use two squares at the top as far as the height than about three squares for the with. So you do the left hand side than the right hand side, and then the bottom left inside right inside. And the width of the eighth at the bottom should be about five boxes. Why all right for the nine again? Very much like the six just upside down. So we're gonna make sure that the top rounded portion is bigger than half of the height of our grid. Okay, then you're going to do the curved portion from the bottom all right. And then we just need the ampersand of the and sign. Uh, and you could also use a three with a vertical dash above and below the three. So I do that. I find it a little bit quicker than this, but the proper, I guess the proper symbol is the ampersand. So Kurt left and then go into a diagonal down to the right, and then, um, you start back up at the top, we're gonna curve around here and then curved back and, uh, down and back up, so it's pretty self explanatory. I was trying to follow the guide so much that I sort of messed up. So I'm gonna erase this, and I'm using a big mechanical pencil and their erasers air really bad. So you're about to see that? Uh, I'm gonna go over this line a little bit, and I'm gonna use this bat white eraser. It comes on these big mechanical pencils. I'm gonna smear the lead around, and then I'm gonna pick up one of my favorite erasers and really clean up this mess. So I think it helps when you're learning to have a good white eraser on hand. so you can see that's kind of smudged. And then I bring in my clicker racer, which I absolutely love. It's amazing. And we're going to clean up all the smudge marks and, uh, you will, from time to time, need to clean off that clicker racer because it holds the graphite so well, um, but once you clean it off, it's nice and white eat. It just doesn't smudge. It's awesome Eraser. So all right, there we go. That's it for exercise one Great job. Make sure you take a photo of your work and posted online. And if I see anything that can help you, I'll be sure to comment. And I'm sure folks in the community will also be encouraged to see the hard work you put in . So thanks so much and go on to exercise to when you're in 3. 5.1B Draftsman Lettering - Letter Spacing: Hey there. Welcome to exercise to in draftsman lettering. This exercise is titled Letter Spacing. In the first exercise, we were being very cautious and careful to fit each letter perfectly inside the box. This time we're taking the boxes away. We're just using lined paper. We've got three goals for this exercise. One take what we learned from exercise one and put it into practice here to consider the negative space that each letter creates around itself. And then three consider the spacing between the different letters so that at the end, all of our letters look like they're evenly spaced. Regardless of what negative space has been created by this letters, that'll make a little bit more since when you get into the exercise. If we accomplish, all of these things were actually starting to consider the much more universal concept of composition. And how are we going to arrange the parts of our artwork to create an aesthetically pleasing composition? Or more simply put, how are we going? Take your stuff and make it look good. Let's get started. All right. We start with the letter A. You'll notice that the A has a lot of negative space up at the top, and that's just the space around the letter. When we say negative space, the B has very little negative space around it. On the outside of it, it almost entirely fills up the square. So on a letter like a, you're gonna treated a certain way on a letter like be, you'll treat it a certain way so that the spacing between the A, the B and the sea and the D as we keep going looks consistent throughout. So these are the things that were kind of paying attention to, so to see the d, the e they all pretty much Philip their square, Um, pretty completely so there's not a lot of variants, but on something like an you can tell, the negative space has this open area. So if we were to take like a little bouncy ball, we should be able to drop it down in that area. There's there's just room to breathe air in that negative space. So the f we might, you know, think of it is coming just slightly closer. But this is what we mean by looking at negative space and thinking about it. I don't again Below the f You see that open area we created? G? There's just not a lot of open space. Um, so we can bring our h you know, again, h fills up that space quite a bit, Um, really, entirely almost. And then I of course, there's a lot of negative space around, and I like, if you're thinking about it sitting inside of a square, um, it just doesn't fill it up. So we're going to slide the J the unique thing of about it with an eye and A J next to each other. Do Jay has a lot of negative space. Eso There's really no way to tuck it into the eye, close enough to take toe kind of nullify the negative space that you just pull it in closely and you'll notice when this line is done, a lot of text is done. How each of the spaces looks relatively even. So there you go. Notice we ran out or we didn't need as much space as the sample letters above. The reason why is because the I doesn't take up nearly as much space as it did before the same thing with like the f e the d the c b. None of those fill an entire square like a six bus six square. So each of those letters can be pulled a little bit closer to each other to make the spacing consistent. And this is gonna be obviously, rarely do you write in everyday use just the alphabet out. So you're not going to see a combination frequently of like an I next to a J. Um, But in this exercise, we're beginning to learn how to think about the spaces between them and then this bottom line of the alphabet n through Z just about every letter takes up almost the entire square . Um, on the s. We didn't talk about this in the first exercise, but for the S, I like to put a dash for the top portion of the S to connect with right there in the middle . It kind of flattens it out and makes it feel a little bit more, uh, substantial eso we didn't talk about in the 1st 1 And even in the sample that's given in the box, the arrows don't really speak to the how that that should level out a little bit more with draftsman lettering, but I thought I'd go ahead and touch on it here because you're going to notice me doing that in the exercise. So as you kind of finish up, these letters were gonna were gonna do the entire alphabet on two lines, uh, the numerals on two lines. And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna transition to doing draftsman lettering on just a single line because that's much more realistic to the size of the letters were gonna be creating when we start riding And draftsman lettering, uh, you're really gonna be writing as Bigas? We've been writing, and so we're just trying to trying toe learn the concept first, and then we're gonna begin to apply it in a much more realistic way. So the muscle movements of the hand when you're drawing these letters on two lines is considerably greater, then when you're having to draw on one line, so you're going to notice a couple things when we start to transition to just a single line . The letters should become easier to create. It's not gonna wear your hand out quite as much to do these deliberate strokes. You're gonna obviously be writing quicker because you're covering less space. But even more than that, it's more natural toe. Have a smaller handwriting, our hands or just the ergonomics of it, just warrant that it's much easier, uh, too right on a smaller scale. So all of those things were going to come into play. And as you recognize the ease that comes from them, bringing it down to a more realistic size, we're going to start to talk about developing your style, so you're no longer going to be bound to these really awkward movements to create your letters. You understand the concept of what they're supposed to look like, what we're trying to achieve with balance and structure and making the letters feel substantial, even spacing, that we're looking for the room to breathe around the letters, all of those things were going toe become a part of your thought process, and when we shrink it down to a realistic sized letter, hopefully we'll get some synthesis where all that starts to blend together, you get a good mastery of those concepts and then you're going to transition into developing your style. How do I create that same effect in a more organic and natural way, and from there I think you're gonna be really pleased with what the result is the handwriting that you're gonna come up with this gonna be really elegant even as it's blocking and substantial. That would seem weird to think. Okay, I have these really blocky square letters, and they can also be elegant. But I believe that will come out, your style will come out, and the clarity of your handwriting will still be very, uh, very much at the forefront. Anybody should be able to read your your handwriting, your draftsman lettering. But you should be able to get to a point where you can write quickly enough that it doesn't feel cumbersome and slow. So, yeah, some finishing out the numerals here again, talking about the spacing and thinking about having like a little ball that you might drop down and how it might hit the bottom portion of the letter because it's a wider, bigger piece of your numeral or your letter. Finish out with the nine and the ampersand and there will transition into the single line letters. Okay, Now, for the single line letters, we're just gonna go through the alphabet again. There may be some slight modifications to how you do the letters, but for the most part, you want to keep what you learned in exercise One here is we practice this because this is kind of our first practice session, uh, on a single line. 4. 5.1C Draftsman Lettering - Everyday Use: All right, here we are. You're almost done. This is exercise three everyday use. Hey, this is where we're gonna put into practice everything you've learned so far and do it in a more useful way. It's also a time for you to begin to develop your own style of draftsman lettering. Now, to do this exercise, you're going to need the printable lettering guide that we provided on a favorite poem or song or short stories. Something that you can fit on a page, just a single sheet of paper. You're gonna place your letter and got behind a blank sheet of paper, and you may want to use a paper clip or something to bind the two pages together a little bit so they don't slip apart in your letters, don't end up kind of going askew. Um, remember these elements, says Ugo. You want your letters toe look consistent. You want them to look substantial, almost squatty and square almost a zweig as they are tall. And then you want the spacing between your letters to be consistent as well. And you want your letters toe, have some room to breathe. It may take some time and effort to settle on a style that you can call your own. But don't give up. Keep practicing. The time in the effort that you put in will increase your skill. And I think you're gonna be very pleased with the final result when you're done, poster work for the community and for me to see. And as always, if I see anything that I could help you with, I'll be sure to comment. I've time lapsed my writing with a voiceover of the poem I chose. If you care to look closely at my lettering, I've included a printable version of that for you as well. Thank you again. So much for taking this class. I can't wait to see your work if by Rudyard Kipling If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you. But make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about, don't deal in lies or being hated. Don't give way to hating and yet don't look too good. No talk to lives if you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts, your aim. If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same. If you can bear to hear the truth, you've spoken twisted by naves to make a trap for fools or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop. Build em up with worn out tools. If you could make one heap of all your winnings in, risk it on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss if you can force your heart and nerve and send you to serve your turn long after they are going. And so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will, which says to them, Hold on. If you can walk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch. If neither foes, no loving friends can hurt you. If all men count with you but none too much. If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in it and which is more 5. Congratulations!: Hey there. I got my guitar out because I'm enjoying the fact that this class has been completed. So any time I get done with a painting or a project, I like to pull my guitar down and just relax a little bit. So hopefully you get a chance to relax to Now that you've completed the first class, thank you very much for joining me. There are 15 other classes in the curriculum, and if you're interested in those, please comment in the section below. And I will definitely produce the videos and the exercises to go along with those until next time, keep improving your optic skill.