Anyone Can Brush Letter: Easy Modern Calligraphy For Complete Beginners With Worksheets | Yasmina Creates | Skillshare
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Anyone Can Brush Letter: Easy Modern Calligraphy For Complete Beginners With Worksheets

teacher avatar Yasmina Creates, Artist & Creativity Cheerleader

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Trailer

      1:28

    • 2.

      What is Brush Lettering?

      2:39

    • 3.

      Supplies

      7:13

    • 4.

      Anatomy Basics

      2:34

    • 5.

      Warm-Up & Drills

      9:54

    • 6.

      Style

      1:46

    • 7.

      Lowercase Letters

      19:01

    • 8.

      Uppercase Letters

      14:41

    • 9.

      Getting Fancy

      13:19

    • 10.

      Copying as a Learning Tool

      1:53

    • 11.

      Your Assignment & Goodbye

      2:09

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About This Class

You’ve probably seen gorgeous brush lettering work all around you, and it can feel like it’s a special skill that only a few artistically inclined wizards possess, but the truth is, anyone can brush letter! If you just master a couple of simple strokes, you too can brush letter, and all you really need to do is put the practice time in.

Brush lettering is not only beautiful, but it’s also relaxing and fun! So, there’s no reason not to try it!

This is my longest and most comprehensive class yet, but I still kept it fun and easy. In this class we will cover:

  • Supplies - Large, Small, & Bristled Brush Pens
  • Brush Lettering with a Crayola Marker
  • Faux Calligraphy & Monoline Lettering
  • The Anatomy of a Letter
  • Rules to Follow & When to Break them
  • Guided Drills Worksheet
  • Guided Lowercase Worksheet
  • Guided Uppercase Worksheet
  • Making Words by Connecting
  • Bounce Lettering & Flourishes
  • Different Styles
  • Learning by Copying
  • & More! 

By the end of the class you’ll have the skill and knowledge to brush letter whatever you like. I can’t wait to see what you make, so pick up a brush pen, and let’s letter the stress away! :)

 

Meet Your Teacher

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Yasmina Creates

Artist & Creativity Cheerleader

Top Teacher

I strive to make every class the highest quality, information-packed, inspiring, & easy to understand!

Creating is my biggest passion and I'm so happy to share it with you!! :)

Stay connected & in the loop by joining my Newsletter! (Also get 3 free coloring pages! :))

Did you know I have a book on drawing CUTE animals? Check it out!

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Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Trailer: You've probably seen gorgeous brush lettering work all around you and it can feel like it's a special skill or only a few artistically inclined wizards possess. But the truth is anyone can brush letter. Yes, even you can. All you really need to do is master a couple of simple strokes by putting in the practice time. Brush lettering is not only beautiful, but it's also relaxing and fun. So there is no reason not to try it. This is my longest and most comprehensive class yet, but I still kept it fun and easy. I will take you through everything you need to know to get started from all the different supplies you can use, even how to use a cheap Crayola marker, and I'll even show you how to fake it with anything you like. I'll also walk you through basic terms in anatomy that are used in lettering and important tips to keep in mind. Then we'll also talk about different styles and how to learn by studying other people's work. We'll even talk about copying, which is actually a great learning tool. Most importantly, I made these three worksheets and we'll do them together. They will take you through drills, lowercase letters, uppercase letters, and I'll show you lots of tips and tricks and variations along the way. We'll finish the class off with a live example showing you how to connect your letters and what bounce lettering is, and what flourishes are. Then I'll take you through my process for planning and lettering a bigger piece. By the end of the class you'll have the skills and knowledge to brush letter whatever you like. Can't wait to see what you make. Pick up a brush pen and let's letter the stress away. 2. What is Brush Lettering?: What exactly is brush lettering? It's a close cousin to calligraphy. Traditional calligraphy was done with a nib. You have to keep it at a certain angle and you'd press down on the down-stroke for a thicker line, but it was impossible to make the upstroke thick It always had to be thin, so jelly and glided up for a nice thin line. Brush lettering evolved from this beautiful art form and uses the same thick to thin technique. But instead of using a nib, which can be quite difficult to master it, we're using a brush pen, which is not only easier, but more versatile and portable. Brush lettering tends to be more loose and fun than calligraphy, which can be old-fashioned. There is such a thing as modern calligraphy, which is the same style brush lettering is usually done in, and it's where modern brush lettering originates. You can use what you learn in this class with a nib, but we will be focusing on the brush pen.The cool thing about brush lettering is there isn't just one style, there are an infinite amount of ways it can be done in an every letter out there we'll do it a little bit differently, but adding their own unique touch. It can be more messy and quick, more fun and bouncy, more fancy and on and on. You'll see plenty of ways and style to lettering. You won't ever feel stuck in a box. My advice is to play with it even more and make up your own rules. Don't take anything I say in this class to heart and if you want to do it a different way, go ahead and do it your way. But if you want that elegant brush lettering field, then you must follow the one golden rule, thin on the upstroke and thick on the down-stroke. That's it, It's simple to learn, but takes practice to master and being a good brush letter is about learning when it's okay to break this magical rule. But don't worry, I'll show you examples of this later, one more thing I want to point out is that we're not using our handwriting, this is my normal handwriting, It's not pretty, its just quick and messy. When I brush letter, I think of it more as making art by deliberately putting down each stroke in a certain way, like I'm illustrating. It's not practical to write like this because it's very slow, so take your time in learning this and think of it more as a controlled and practice art form instead of a way of writing. If you don't have a steady hand, the only way to fix that is with practice. Don't worry about it too much and just keep practicing. But if you have any drawing experience, you should pick it up even faster. Either way it's all about practice and getting your hand familiar with different movements. We have to build our muscle memory, by putting the hours in, but once you get the basics down, it will become much easier and you'll have lots of room for growth and experimentation. I hope you are as excited as me to get started. Let's jump into all the different supplies you can use and don't worry, there's something out there for everyone. Even if you're on a budget, you can use a simple Crayola marker, and I'll show you how in the next lesson. 3. Supplies: The first thing we're going to discuss is paper. To make your brush pens lasts longer use very smooth paper like this is actually copy paper that I bought in bulk and it's labeled as super smooth. It's very thick, 80 pound paper, so it will minimize bleeding and brush pens easily glide on the page. It's good enough to frame. This is the paper I'll be using throughout the class. I'm much more expensive but also good option is Bristol paper or you can use sketchbook paper if you already have a sketchbook on-hand. Printer paper is usually 20 pounds like this paper. It's very thin. It's okay to practice on, but I wouldn't use it for finished pieces. Another honorable mention is marker paper. If you're planning on scanning in your work and digitizing, and it would like to find and layers tracing paper will work perfectly, but the copy paper is the best bang for your buck. I got 250 sheets for $16, which will last me a long time and the paper is gorgeous. If you're going to use bristle brushes with ink or watercolor, you can use watercolor paper, even though it's textured. Normal brushes with bristles are meant for this use and will not get worn down. Now let's talk brush pen. There are so many to choose from, but they all have this tip that goes from thick to thin in common, it's if you press down you get a thick stroke, and if you only use a tip, it's thin. You also have the option of using anything else that can write from pencil to pen, to make something called for calligraphy just as he guessed that faked. To do this you write or draw your word and then go back in and drawn lines to show thicker down strokes for each letter and fill them in. Nobody will ever know the difference and this is actually much easier to control and master. You can get an even bigger thin to thick stroke ratio, but it is more time-consuming. If you don't fake the calligraphy look and leave all the lines seen this is also a style of lettering and it's called monoline lettering. It just means the same thickness is used throughout the lettering. There is no right or wrong way to do lettering, just know that [inaudible] are the hardest to use. Brush pens are easier but still take time to master and monoline or fake calligraphy is the easiest and barely takes any practice, but it does require a general knowledge of letter forms. This class will concentrate on using the brush pen. If you're starting from scratch, need help figuring out what to buy. Let's go over my recommendations and learn more about the different choices you have. This is my collection of brush pens and there are three categories I can split them into. Small brush pens, large brush pens, and brush pens with bristles instead of tips. Let's first get into small brush pens like the disposable Zebra brush pen and the tumbow fudenosuke brush pen. These two are my favorite small ones and they can be easier to master than their brother, the big brush pen. They have very delicate lines and they're easy to control from thick to thin. Also, the fudenosuke comes in hard or soft tip. I prefer soft or maybe you'll prefer hard since is easier to control and make fine lines with it. It's a personal preference and usually there's hold together, so you'll be able to find out which one you like more by just trying them out. These types of brush pens are usually used for smaller pieces or longer quotes. The second pile of large brush pens is harder to master, but it's also more fun, in my opinion. They're usually used for larger pieces. The most popular of these would have to be the tombow dual brush pen. It has a thick brush pen on one side that is very good to letter with, and a thin one on the other side that can be used for flourishing your details. It's a great brush pen and probably the most famous and highly recommended one. But I've noticed I added phrase quicker than most if used incorrectly, you have to hold your brush at a certain angle and use the smoothest paper to make it last the longest. I learned that lesson the hard way by going through a lot of brush pen. My brush pens now lost lot longer than they used to, just because I changed how I angle my brush pen. When a brush pen is frayed, it's hard to get that nice and thin upstroke, it ruins the look, unless you'd like the more grungy feel, I can do. This is just something to keep in mind. But every brush pen out there has a shelf life, we'll either run out of ink first or will fray. If it runs out of ink and doesn't fray, you can always dip it in normal ink to continue using it. I've actually found that works perfectly for me. My favorite brush pen for lettering is this large emoji brush pen. It comes in many sizes, but their biggest is my favorite. Just remember that it's the one with the yellow background. The [inaudible] has bristles, so it's not a brush pen tip. It's super easy to make thick and thin strokes with it and I like how it's not to thick. I can use it for medium-sized pieces. This is the brush pen they'll be mostly using in the class. Bigger brush pens are harder to master than smaller ones, but this doesn't mean you should start with the smaller one. I think it's better if you master the harder one first, because then you can use any tool you want, but it's really up to you. I recommend you give both a try and see which one you prefer. But if you plan on doing the worksheets in later lessons, it'll be easier if you're using a bigger one, the Towbow and emoji are my favorites, but that doesn't mean they have to be yours. There are three more I should mention, art lines sticks brush markers are really fun, easy to use and covered many colors. The difference between thick and thin isn't dramatic, but they make up for that in their ease-of-use. Crayola markers are the cheapest and you can get a pack with many different colors for under three dollars, and they can make some gorgeous brush slaughtering. The tip is much more broad than other brush pens and it's hard. The trick to using them is to hold it differently from other brush pens. When I held the normal brush pen, I pointed at an angle pointing to the top left, but when I hold the Crayola marker, I put it more towards the left side. I'm still holding it at an angle, but I'm not pointing up. I have to hold it differently because of the design of the tip. That's really the trick of using Crayola broad markers. If you're having trouble using them, you just adjust your hold, so that it's pointing in this direction. If you ever tried them before and he couldn't do it, it just probably because you're holding it wrong. As you can see, Crayola markers connects to make really beautiful lettering and her and really nice thick to thin strokes, if you just hold it properly. In fact, I think it's even easier than most brush pens. The last large brush pen that I highly recommend is the Ecoline brush pen, there actually filled with watercolor. They make cool textures as they dry and come in many different colors. I love using this brush pen, especially when I need to letter on our on water color paper, it shines in most in watercolor paper, but like I said before, the typical pre-faster if you use it there, but it does have an extra brush pen tip inside of it. If you could just have to screw of the cap and take the tip and reverse it for brand new second tip. It's a tune one type of deal. Now the last pile is the hardest to master, but it can be the most fun. These brush tips aren't like micro-tips there actually like normal brushes and are made up of bristles or hairs. If you want to learn lettering with one of these, you're going to need to practice like crazy, but you'd also have really cool effects up your sleeve, like dry brush lettering or watercolor lettering. If you already have a watercolor brush is the same thing, just make sure it's a normal round brush and you're set to brush ladder with it with ink or watercolor, you can follow the class with a brush and ink, but it will be much more challenging because you'd have to have a very steady hand and be able to control it perfectly. Even the slightest ROM movement will show. My favorite bristle brushes are the Pentel pocket brush pen, which is also great for illustrating on the go. The pentel arts are quench water brushes, which you can use like normal brushes if he filled them with water or you could even fold them with a colored ink like I did here. Those are my favorite supplies, but there are a lot of options out there. Anything you have lying around can be used in some way. Just take out all your supplies and try making thick and thin strokes them to pick your favorites. Now that we talked about supplies, let's start by learning the anatomy basics of letters. 4. Anatomy Basics: Before we start lettering, let's go over some basic anatomy terms and some rules to keep in mind. Now, I'm a firm believer in doing it in your own way and breaking the rules, but to break them we have to know them first. Let's start with the anatomy of a letter, which are just terms that build your lettering vocabulary and make it easier to think about and discuss lettering. You will hear me using some of these terms in future lessons, and if you watch other videos by other letterers, you will hear them as well.It's good to learn. This is called a baseline. It's where most letters sit. This is called an x-height. It's how tall an x and most lowercase letters like an m, w, or a are. This is the cap height or ascender height. It's where you guess it, capital letters end and also where tall lowercase letters that have an ascender, which is this, and this is a descender height. It's where the bottom part or descenders of letters end. These are just guides that are used to keep your letters consistent. You can also stretch them or shrink them for fun effects and different fields in your lettering. I rarely use guides.That's because I like my lettering loose and I like doing dance lettering. We will learn more about that later. Even if you will be loose like me, you should use guides in the beginning, so that you can get a feel for consistency and have one less thing to worry about. Another thing you should pay close attention to is the slant of your letters. You can make them with no slant, a normal slant, or an intense slant. Just notice that every letter follows the same slant to keep it consistent. I think a slight slant is the easiest to master, so that's what we're going to do in this class, but just know that you can play with it. A lot of calligraphers will tell you that it has to be perfectly the same in each letter. But I think slight changes make it feel more organic and alive. That's my preference. Maybe you want it perfect and that's fine. Another thing to notice when you letter is a distance between each letter. If you don't make it consistent it will look off. I'm not saying to use a ruler to measure it, but keep an eye on it when you letter. You will get a feel for it with experience and time. If you already have graphic design experience with kerning letters, this should be easy for you to spot and master. If you don't, it will come naturally with practice. Just pay attention to it in the beginning, same thing with a thickness of your lines. Be sure to use almost the same pressure with each letter for even more unity and consistency. I hope this quick lesson helped you understand some basic terms and what to look out for when you letter. Also keep in mind that there are an infinite amount of ways to letter, but to do them with the proper up and down strokes, you need to master the basics taught in the next lesson. Take as much time as you need there, and please do the exercise over and over until it becomes natural and easy. Let's start. 5. Warm-Up & Drills: We all have to start somewhere. The absolute beginning step in brush lettering is mastering the up and down stroke. Like I said earlier, up is thin and down is thick. Depending on what brush pen you use and what is most comfortable for you. You might hold it a little differently from me, but be sure to hold it at a slight angle pointing in this direction. This makes your brushes last longer and makes it easy to make thick strokes and do an angle. Notice how it's between my thumb and forefinger, and that my hand is an angle and anchored to the page. I also usually move my page at an angle to make it more comfortable for me. This is all about comfort, but try this side. If it doesn't feel comfortable, find your own way of holding it that feels right. Just be sure to try to hold it at the same angle to prevent fraying and to make thick and thin strokes easily. Also notice that when I brush letter, I move my fingers, my wrist and even my whole hand if I'm lettering something bigger. Do get a pencil and do this quick exercise with me to help loosen up your hand and warm up. Hold it like I showed for a brush pen, and make a large infinity sign or sideways eight, and keep doing it over and over without pause. Notice how I'm moving my whole arm. Do this until it feels natural, then shake off the stress, take a deep breath and let's start. If you haven't already print out your excise worksheet. If you don't have a printer just draw quick guidelines using a ruler and follow along with me. Or you can use guided pages. But let's start. Let's start off by doing our practice worksheet for drills. These are really important to do because they will do all of the muscle memory that you need, and you'll be able to do any letter in the alphabet easily if you just master these basics. Print out your worksheet and let's begin. The first one is super simple. We're just going thick. Hold it with slight angle like I showed earlier and just press down. Press down, down. Doesn't matter if it's perfect. You're just practicing your thick stroke. Just do this until it's done. I'm actually doing this quick because I'm used to it, but if it's harder for you, you can do it a little slower. Now that looks good. It doesn't have to be perfect. Like I said, we're just practicing making thick strokes. Now let's do the upstroke, which is thin. Just with the tip of your brush pen lightly go up in a straight line. I'm put it in a little at an angle because it's hard to do a completely straight line when you're holding your brush pen at an angle. Notice how I tilt my paper at an angle to help myself make it nice and angled. These are just self-explanatory, straight lines. Just practice doing this. You're just getting familiar with making thick and thin strokes, which is all you really need to know to brush letter. Once you're done with that, let's do these. This is more fun because we're not just doing this or this. Usually you're going to do something like this, where you go from thin to thick to thin. This is something really important to master. All you have to do is start with thin by going up and then start pressing down and then lift off a little and go up. We're pressing down here. We're starting right here, right where they meet, and we're also lifting off right towards the end. It makes this really nice curve right here. Right here you don't see that because we stayed thick the whole time. This is actually really important to practice because most of your letters will be like this. Just continue doing that. Take your time with this if you need to, this is a little harder than the other ones. Here we're really mastering controlling the pressure. Going from no pressure to full pressure to no pressure. I'm doing these a little slower, because it's definitely harder than the first two. Once you're done with those, they don't have to be perfect, just thin to thick to thin. Now let's practice an L-shaped. You're going to use a lot for b's, d's, but we're really just going thin, up, thick, down, thin, up, thick, down. This is very similar to this last one that we did, but we're really just continuing on. It's continuous. You don't have to lift the brush pen at all. It's really cool if you can manage to do that. Thin, thick, thin, thick. We're just changing the pressure with each one. This is a good way to practice your swirls, which will be useful for when you do flourishes, or if you want to make your letters even more fancy. Perfect. Now let's do this. This is actually really fun and easy. It's just like a wavy line. We're just going thin, up, thick, down, thin, up, thick, down. We're just going to the x-heights. We're practicing this for our m's, our n's or w's. There's different ways to do m's, n's and w's. This is the classical way, but this is the way I usually do it, so I left these two as well. Just a wavy line up, thin, down, thick. We're just memorizing this. We're memorizing this movement. This movement is really all you need to know to brush letter. See here, I messed up a little. It was a little too thick when I started going up. Same thing right here. It's really practice. We're not doing that. It's okay if you do that, these are just practice sheets. Do as many of them as you want, as many times as you want. Up next is this movement. It's a little bit different, we're actually going to lift our brush off the page this time. Instead of continuous, we're going to lift off. See, one movement, up, down, another movement, up, down. That's it. This is what I usually do for my m's, my n's, my h's. These guidelines are just for you to practice having an x-height and a baseline, and just knowing where to stop. It doesn't have to be perfect. I never make mine exactly perfect. If you start thinking, "Oh, it has to stop right here perfectly." You're going to spend a long time learning because being a perfectionist really gets in the way of the learning process. It's okay to go out a little just to keep trying and trying. It'll become easier and easier to stay in the lines. Next is the same movement, but backwards, we're actually doing a u this time. Here I put them a little separately because there's two different kinds. This one is what we're always been doing so far, it's just going up. But this is the kind that goes out like a little spout instead of going just straight up, we're bending inside a little more and then going out. This is more stylized way of doing u's and m's and stuff. Certainly get to practice in case you want to do something like this. You probably will call across styles you like that, look like that. I recommend you practice it. This is our normal, so we're lifting now. This is how I usually do my u's and continue forward. See it's the same thing as the m that we just did, the m movement, but backwards. Now let's do this one. It's the same thing, but with it going in a little bit instead of just up. This is how I like to end most of my letters, because it gives them that little oomph that they need. This is the traditional way and this is the fun modern calligraphy way. Notice how I mess it up right here. I flipped it too fast. That's why you have take your time with this and just go like this. Put the tip only, but it's okay. I mean it's character, but see here I was more careful it didn't happen. This we have to avoid, because it's not a really nice thick to thin ratio. Next is the j. This is just, we're going up, thin, down, thick and then we're looping it. This is a j, a y, p. Any kind of movement with descender. This is the most common type of descender. This is similar to the L movement we did earlier. Notice how I do lift it every time. But you don't have to. You could do this, it's just harder. Always do whatever is easiest. Notice how I always turn the page and I move it to whatever is most comfortable for me. If you somehow don't connect it fully just go back in and very gently draw it in. No one will know the difference. Good job on completing the worksheet. Do it many times as you need. When you're ready, you can move on to the letters. Remember that this is skill, it takes time. Be patient and put in the practice time that is needed for progress and mastery. Now let's talk style. 6. Style: Before we do the uppercase and lowercase alphabet worksheets, I want to talk about different styles and lettering. We're doing this now because I don't want you to get stuck in the style, I'll show you and I don't want you to think that it's the right way or the only way. There is really no such thing. For example, here I'm lettering the word hello in a couple of different styles. I'm using some advanced techniques that we'll talk about in a later lesson. But the point is, because I know the basics, I have the power to make my letters and words in so many different ways. I really like how small this turned out and somewhere complete failures. But this is the best way to broaden your horizons and get new styles under your belt. Experiment and don't be afraid to make mistakes, but inspiration doesn't just have to come from experimentation. Here is a Pinterest board that I made just for this class helped inspire you. As you can see, there are so many different ways and styles of lettering. In each one of these is infused with its own unique personality, even if the styles are similar, one day YouTube will have your own littering style and personality. But to get there, you have to practice and experiment lots and lots. It's all about putting the time into it. That's the only way you will see results. That doesn't mean you can't experiment along the way. I encourage you to do so. Let's take a simple letter, like a lowercase a. I can do it in so many different ways. Of course much more than you will see here. This applies to any letter. I just want you to know there's a lot more to learn, a lot more that you can do that I'll show you in this class. So keep your eyes peeled for inspiration. We'll talk more about learning by copying in a future lesson. But for now, just know that the next two worksheets are good practice, but I doubt they'll be the valuable a letter once you get comfortable with brush lettering. But knowing how to make the basic strokes that you will learn here will give you the skills to learn anyway you want. These are just the basics for you to start building your lettering visual vocabulary, but in the end, you will grow and evolve. With that in mind, let's start lettering. 7. Lowercase Letters: Now that you're familiar with many styles, and you warmed up, and you know how to move your hand, and you can do the basic drills, let's do the actual letters. If you don't have a printer, just use a ruler, and you can just fall on like that, it's totally fine. One thing I want to point out is that the lowercase a, the way I do it is not the traditional way of doing the lowercase a. The traditional way is to do an o, and then you put the stem in. This is traditional a, and this is the way I do it. I just do a line, down, line, down, this is how I do it. This is more modern than this, but if you prefer this, you can do this. But just remember that the b's, the d's, the a's, they will all look different because you can do the circle. But this is the more modern way most people do nowadays to make it look more fun and bouncy, and stuff like that. Let's start with the lowercase a. We just are going to go up, and this is something I've included in most letters just to let you know that they connect, and also notice how I tilted my page a little to help me with the strokes. Put the page wherever it feels more comfortable for you, this is the way that it is for me. When holding your brush, remember to pull it up a little bit, but in a comfy way, whatever is comfortable for you. We're just going up, down, and down. Remember down is thick, up is thin. Sometimes we'll break this rule, and I'll show you guys when, but a fun thing you can do with all your letters is to practice connecting them, by just drawing the next one where the last connector left off. This is a good way to practice, making words later on it'll be so much easier for you because you have to really start your letter here, and you have to decide how long it's going to be. If you're a beginner, you can mess up a lot, and that's okay. That's how you learn. I'll just know how to do this because I've done a lot of letters in my days. It's just practice, and it's a good thing to practice. Very simple. In this basic shape, you have to master it, because this is what we're going to use for a lot of our letters, like the b. The b is a little different because we're connecting it with the bottom to the top, but it's the same thing overall. This is like the L-shaped we showed earlier, down, up, and connector. I just draw the connector out from here. Usually we'll draw it from wherever it looks most natural. You can get a feel for that with time and just by setting other letters, but everyone does a little bit different, and so I do it. Since we have the connector, we can just go up, and do the next b. Now notice how also I tilt this a little bit when doing it to just to give it a little more character. Also the line goes out a little bit. For example, here is the normal connector, and then I go out to the right a little more, and then go down, just to give it more space. This one's a little messed up, but that's okay. You guys will make mistakes, and that's how you actually discover cool new letter forms, and new ways of doing it. That's it. This is our b, very simple, similar to the a. Now let's do this c. The c is a little bit more complex. You do have to practice this one to get the hang of it. It used to be really hard for me when I first started. But it's really just for going up, thin down, and then up thin. It looks simple, but it's harder than it looks because you have to master it. Let's continue on doing the connectors, connecting to each letter. You don't have to do this, but you get a little more practice timing because you're practicing something important. I'm putting them a little too close, you have to practice taking the connector out a little more. That's how you learn by just trying it, and seeing what works, and what doesn't. It's okay for you do [inaudible] you can just see dried in side, it's not ideal. Next is the d, it's similar to the b. We're just going up thin, and then up, thin down, thick up, thin, and then up thin, down thick, up thin. It's this far apart. This is what I do. I just start here, and that's how you judge it by just eyeballing it, and then it just becomes muscle memory with practice, you don't have to really think about it. You do not have to pile it. When you're first learning to drive or ride a bicycle, you have to think about it a lot, but then once you got the hang of it, there's nothing to think about it. Just be natural. Just do the movements. It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to try again, and again, and again. No one's judging you on your practice sheets. Now let's do the e. It's a little similar to the c, we're just letting this go all the way through. The e can be done a lot of different ways actually. The traditional way is like I'm showing you. But you can see that I can put down a little more, or you can actually go all the way like this, and make it a sharp angle. There's a lot of ways to do it. But also let's practice connecting them. I don't think this way is the most modern way, but it's easy to cut this off too early, and make it too small for beginners. Just do it in whatever want to really feels most comfortable for you. The f is really simple. We're just going down, up, down, thick, up thin, up thin. Even though this is going down, we don't make it thick. This is one of those times where you don't break the rule because it would look bad if we did. There's something that you're going to figure out with practice. You're going to figure out what looks bad even though you're following the rules. This is pretty simple enough to lift your brush pen at all. This is the easier way, but this is the way that looks better. What you do is, you make the top part a lot bigger than the bottom part. This looks more modern and more fun. Usually when you use more white space like this in all your letters, it will look more modern. See I'm not really connecting these, and you don't really have to, it's up to you. It's your practice session, do it wherever way you want. If you want to practice connecting, that's fine. If you don't, that's fine. Just practice. The g is the same as a, but then we have a dissenter, and this is the dissenter we practiced on the drills, more worksheets, so that should be easy for you. We're doing thin, thick, thin, thick. I don't really lift my brush when doing this, but you can if it's hard for you, and that's completely fine. Do whatever is most comfortable. You guys always hear me saying things like, make your own rules, do whatever feels right, and I really believe in that because this is supposed to be fun, and when you have fun, you experiment, and when you experiment you use all kind of awesome things. The h is the same at center as we did in the b, then we just go out, and down, and up. That's it. It's really just a mastery of pressure of the up and down stroke of transitioning. This is stuff we learned in the drills worksheets. This should be not that bad, not too hard. Of course when you're starting out, it's not going to be easy, but just go slow. If you want experiment on your worksheet, that's completely fine. You should. You should try out new things, see what works for you. Up next is the i. This is similar to the thing we did address in Lecture 2, just down and up, very easy, and to make dot on the top, you just go thick down, and just lift it again. Same thing with the j dot. It is just up, down, up, dot. The i is one of the easiest letters and it's just the basic movement that we already practiced. Up next is the j. The j is the same movement we're going to draw already and we already did this in the g, and you're going to see it a lot. It's just the descender, so we're just go up, then we do that movement and then the dot. Let me make my dot a little big there. That's okay. The slower I go, the more careful it is, but I actually like it more loose. That's why I usually go a little faster, but if you really want perfect looking letters and you want to practice the right way, you should go as slow as you need to go, turtle's speed, that's completely fine. You should go slower in the beginning because you're building your muscle memory and then you can go faster later on because you've already built the basics, so go even slower than me. All right, so the k. The k is a little harder than most letters. It's just a down stroke, and notice how I make it a little rounded like I usually do because that's my style but then you have to go up and down, and here's where we break the rule. I actually make this bottom part thin. If I make it thick, here I'll show you guys, if it's thick, it looks a little too crowded. It doesn't look as modern, as nice as this one. Sometimes you will break the rule, the golden rule of thin or thick thin, but that's okay, whatever looks best. We're just making the best looking letter, so just do a thin down stroke for this one. I just thickened it a tiny bit just to get a little bit of character, but you don't have to. It's just a wiggly line, so up, down wiggly line. See I really like this one more than this one. It's too thick, It doesn't look as good even though we're breaking the rule. So break the rule when you need to. This is the l. We already did the practice in the drills things something similar to this. It's a very easy letter, it's very fun. I can keep going like this forever. Just nice loop, and there's different ways to do an l, of course. There's a lot of different ways to every letter, but this is the simplest and the easiest. The m is similar to the n, but notice how for example, this part's an n, but notice how they're smaller than the actual m, because I don't want to be too wide. If the m is too wide it's going to draw too much attention to itself, so up, down, up, down, up, down. I usually do it in really fun ways. Notice how this is pretty fun, because it's not touching the baseline here. But there's a lot of ways to do it. You can go down and then up out of the x-height and then below it. That's a fun way to do it. Different ways to make the first stroke really short and then keep the rest tall. There's a lot of fun ways to m, so just play with the m. The n is similar to the m. You can also have fun with it not as much as the m because it isn't in two parts to it, but still, you can do the same thing short and then normal. Then we could also do even a tall one here, but then short one down here, or we could do something like normal, but then we go above the x-height. A lot of fun ways to play with the m and n there. I really like playing with them. Same thing with o. O's are really fun to play with. This is the o I'm showing you guys. Notice how I broke the rule again here because I go down right here, but I don't make it thick because it will look bad. Let me show you. Well, here it's okay cause I took a boy more space, but if I took up little space like here, let me just draw it in, it just looks really crowded in this area. But if you have space, you can make it thick on the down stroke. So o's are fun. This is a traditional o like I showed earlier. It's like a c, then you just connect it. It's boring to me. I start my o's like this where I just connect it towards the middle. That's more fun. You just could do that, or you can do this part from the other side like that. There's a lot of ways to do o's. O's are fun. The p is a simple letter. It's just like the b. We just have a nice descender. So descenders you can also play with again. I didn't play with this one because I don't make it too complicated, but usually I do my piece like this. We have a fun little tail coming out here. Every time you have a descender or ascender, you already have that opportunity to play with it. But this is the way I'm showing it because it's simpler. Do whatever way you want to do it in. If you feel more confident, be more playful. Now let's do q to z. These are all very similar. We've already done very similar strokes in all their letters. Let's start with the q. The q is like the a, up, down, up, and then down, up out. This is actually a more fun letter because we can have really fun with the descender going this and then just continue connecting it, which is going like this. There's a lot of variations you can do. But it's very simple. It's just like the a, but with a cool descender. Next step is the r. The r can be really hard for beginners to master because we have to go up and then down, up, down. The problem with this is notice how big I made this, because if you make it any smaller, it's not going to look as cool. Also, you can easily go over this white space too much and if you take away the white spaces, it's just not going to look good. Let me show you. See this r doesn't look to it because there's no white space and this part is bigger than this part. That's why I go above the x-height here when I make my r's. It still feels like a small letter because it's small, but this little part makes it more fun. Also, you can break the rule here and not make it thicker in the down stroke right here, and it will still look as cool as this. The next letter is the s. This is not how I usually do my s's, but this is an easier way. Just go down and then you loop it right away. I usually do my s's by breaking the x-height with a loop and then another loop on the bottom. Kind of like the r. I do like breaking that x-height a lot with some letters because it just makes them look so much better. But if that's hard for you, just do the normal basic s. It's just a nice loop. Up next is the t. The t is simple. We're just going down and out, and then we just put a wavy line to cross it. Now you don't have to cross your t's like this.You can make them completely different, and I usually don't cross my t's right away. I wait until the whole word is done because you can find really cool way to do flourishes and fun stuff. Like here I could just go like that, and if you have an i next to it you can just make it go down. If I have an i here, I can go like this and they connect that way and they do something cool together. Have fun with your t's. They're really fun letters because of the crossing and you can just do a line to it doesn't matter. The u is very simple. It's like the drills we did earlier, which is going up, down, up, down. Now you can get playful with this, like with the m's. You can put this lower, put this higher, put this lower. That's fun, or you could do something like a rounded one like this. This is the traditional way of doing it. I prefer this way with a more straighter line, but you can do it around it too. It doesn't matter. The v is really simple. We'll just have a down stroke around it and then up, and that's it. Whenever we have a letter that ends up here, like the w, we just take it out like this and continue to the next one. Very simple, very easy letter. Just notice that it's thick on the top and then it gets thinner and then it goes to normal line. You release some of the pressure before you let go and that's what gives it that cool feeling, and that's in a lot of my letters like the t, but it's just something you practice. W's are just as fun as m's. This is very basic, very simple. But we can do something like this is lower, this is higher, this breaks the baseline and that's it. That's a really weird one, or something like this, or something like just a normal one, but it goes a little higher here. It's really fun to play with how high these different parts go. We're going to talk more about bounce lettering in a future lesson, but this is fun to do with w's and m's ends. The x is actually pretty simple. We're just doing a curve line, then it goes down and then a curved line.This can be a little hard because you have to switch right away here, but it's not that bad. You go on the next one. This is not how you should connect them actually, because it gets confusing. You have to do with the bottom one and then go down because it gives them more space. Next up is the y. Y's can be also pretty playful and fun. They have a really nice descender that we've been doing for the warm-ups in the j's and everything. This is like an i and j. A fun thing we do is put this higher and put this lower and maybe make the descender a lot more fun. Or you could even twirl the top part here and just make it really small. There's a lot of fun ways to play with letters like this. The z is actually harder than it looks, because you have to train yourself to make three shapes. You go down, then you go up again, and down, and you have to go in more and more so that it doesn't look like it's too wide. This one takes a little bit of practice, and you have this space on the bottom here to keep practicing if you need to. But it's really the basic movements that are the same as we've been doing so far. You have all this empty space to do whatever you wanting and to practice whatever you want to practice on. Anything that gave you any difficulty or that you want to explore more, you can do it down here and we're going to do words in a later lesson, but let's do capital letters next. 8. Uppercase Letters: So now let's do uppercase letters. So uppercase letters are more fun, more playful than lowercase. You can do anything with lowercase letters and usually people letter with just lowercase letters. You don't have to use uppercase letters, but they can be so much more fun. So the A, we're just making a nice loop and then going up. So this is a really playful capital A and big most letters here playful because how I like to do them. So let's see what other ways we can do it. We can, instead of looping it down, we can loop it up and then make it closer in. We can set up a loop just go down, up, and down. You can experiment like I am doing here or you can just copy me exactly and just do the same thing. It doesn't matter or you can make the letter really thin. That's also fun, or you could have just done an actual capital A type of letter, but these are more fun because they're the cursive version. All right, so next up is the B. So this is a pretty playful B, has a nice loop inside of it. You could do it without the loop or just have a loop on top, and this will count as the B by just making it a bit big like the last one. This looks more like a heart or you could do something like just very simple normal type of B, or let's overlap some of those loops. So there's a lot of ways to do every single letter. This C can be easily mistaken for a capital E. But you have to be careful to put this pretty high up so you don't mistake it. So another way to do that is to even make it higher up. Also you can just do normal C without the loop to make it even more readable. It's up to you. You can just do a fun and thick C with the bottom part inside more than the top part. It's really a playful thing and you can do whatever you want to do and just go with it and play with it and see what happens. Now the D is just one thick stroke down, where we go up and we have to loop it to make it more playful. That's what I usually do but you don't have to. You can just do a normal type D like that, or you could do something more fun like. That didn't work out at all. But hey, that's why I experiment. I meant to do something like this actually. This could look like be a B in a way but it's a D. If you have the whole word in front of you, usually you can tell it's a B or D. Because this is so tiny it's usually a D. So an E is also really fun, because there's a lot of variations here. This is a really nice and playful one. You could also just do without the swirl. You could do it more like three or you could do like a really big E. That also works. There's a lot of ways to do it, this is actually the harder way of doing it compared to this one. But it's more fun, it's more fancy. You could do more loops with this one. So the F is actually just a nice twirl and then down. You can also do it like this or like a big lowercase F type of thing. You could do something like where this looks like it goes through or even just a normal F and then makes this fancy. I'm really just winning these examples that I'm showing you guys. There's a lot of examples out there, and the best way to learn is by setting other people's lettering. We're going to talk about this more in a future lesson. But the G also is like the A similar but with a descender. We can make it very simple. We can really have fun with the descender. It's a form of play and everything you do with the A you can do with the G. You just put a descender on it. Even just do a fancy G kind of with a normal looking thing and with like a curve. That works too. So the H, I've made it fancy by adding this swash, but it's really just two down strokes. I just made them fancier by making it all connect with curved lines. You can also do an H like a lowercase H but big. That almost looks like a big N actually. You have to be careful not to mix up your letters. So let me redo that. Okay, that works, or just to make it uppercase we could do something like this. Doesn't matter, whatever style you like. So the I is just a line. Usually I's are done like this when they're capital I's and just normal bash lettering that isn't cursive. So it's hard to make it look good cursive. So just even going like this is fine. You can tell it's not an L because it doesn't have the swash. Usually cursive L's have the swash. But this could easily be mistaken for an L. So another fun thing you do is just make it like this, and that's not mistaken for an L, that's an I. So the J, the J is very simple. It's just a down stroke. But see it's similar to the I, but because you've made this go up more and we make this loop in, it looks more like a J. You could always put the dot on top to make it easily recognizable. Because not everybody can read cursive the same not everybody is used to it. So the K. So the K is fun. I made a little twirl come out but it's really just we're going down and then we're going up. So I made both of these thin even though they should be thick and this should be thick. I made them pretty thin because it's not going to look that good if I make everything super thick. It's just too bulky. But a fun way to do the K is to put this all the way in the bottom and then just go like that. You always have options for twirls anywhere that you have space. So even just going like this, a lot of different options will always play. Now the L is very simple. We're just going up, down, out. Up, down kind of like normal L, but we're putting all the way down and just going out. You can always do it like this instead, and make it smaller on the bottom that makes it more fun. You could even do like a big lowercase L. I mean, it's really a personal preference. You can always do normal like this and then put a little swash there. The M is just for going up, down. This is similar to what we did here for the L but it's like the lowercase M or just being playful with it. So you can do anything you want with these bottom parts to make it even more fun. By just making this one shorter and this one longer it looks way more interesting, and just by changing the swirl here at make it even more fun. A lot of variations with the M, same thing with the N. It's the same exact fluttering in a lot of ways, we can be really playful. But be careful not to make it look like an h, this looks like an h. It's really just about being experimental and figuring out what works and what doesn't. We're going to talk about sketching to make sure these kinds of mistakes don't happen. Like now, this definitely it looks like an n. Up next is the l. This is just like a lowercase l, but bigger. It's all about the space. This is the fun, the swash. We can make the swash even more fun. We can do something crazy, or you can just do a simple capital O, and maybe even add a little thing here. That's it. The p is simple, we're just doing down, up, down, twirl. That's it. You can make instead of the twirl, just normal p shape and then make this come out as something cool. Or you can make the line like this and then make the p shape in there. Or you can do like what I showed you with the k, something like this. Even more ornate. But there's a lot of different variations with all the letters. Now let's do the Q to the z. So our Q is simple, it's like the O. Actually just like the O, but then we add this little thing in here. We can also always make it like a lowercase q, just bigger. This is just a normal Q, and anything we can do with an O, we can do with the Q and make it look cool. Anything that you can do with an O, you just add a little tail there. You can always make it a straight line if you want to. The R. We're just going up, down, up, down, up. There's our P and we just add a little tail. Now, I don't make it thick like I showed you guys earlier, this is a little cheat because it doesn't look good thick. I just know that from experience and from trying it out myself. You can do anything you want that you would do with the P normally. Remember how I showed you that twirl with the P, we can do that, and we can do that. That's still looks like an R even though it looks more fancy. We can always just do a plain normal R, with maybe a little breakage of the baseline. The capital S, the one I'm showing you is just like the lowercase s because it's easier, but S I usually do, is like this. Or just a normal S like that. But it's difficult for beginners to get this movement right, you have to really practice it. You're putting a lot of pressure and then off a lot and then down. That's why I didn't show you this movement, but you can practice it and maybe master it and then it'll be easy. But anything do with lowercase, you can use uppercase, just make it bigger. The T. The T is simple, we're just doing a straight line then a curve. You can do it in a very simple manner like this, and also you can do something like maybe add a little curve here and then do that. Too many curves. Or you can just do like a normal T, but make this really high and thick, so that it looks more like a capital letter because it's just bigger. So anything you make bigger always feel like that. Still is a great way to make something feel like a capital letter. Now the U. The U is similar to the M, to the N just backwards. We can be playful with it again, the same concepts and rules applied. The reason I made this web here is because I don't want it to look an a. If I make it down here, it'll look like an a, because remember I showed you the a's that look just like that. Be careful in figuring out how to keep it readable. There you go. The V simple, it's just the normal V, but we had a little loop to make it more fun. You can put the loop on this side instead. You can make it more like a normal V, or make it more like a fun V by just making this go like this. Then there's a letter right under this, and that will look cool too. You can always add a little thing here. The W is also a fun letter like the M, the N. I really love playing with it. Notice how I made this straight and this curved, that makes a fun look. Also, just by moving this lower, makes it more fun. Or by putting this lower, this higher, and this lower, it's more fun. It's definitely out there, this one. Now is the X. Just like normal X, but I makes this line straight. It just gives it that classy feel and a nice contrast to it. You can make it higher or lower to make it more interesting. Like for example, if I put it lower, it makes it feel like there's more space up here. If I put it higher, it's more space down here. Each way is a different look. You can also always put a little loop in the X and make it more fun. Whatever you want to do. This doesn't look that good to me, but I experimented and now I know. I do like this line right here. I did get something out of it, and that's how you get experience by practicing and by experimenting, so don't be afraid to experiment. I'm not embarrassed to have my failed experiments shown here, there's nothing wrong with that, that's how you learn. The y is pretty easy. We're just doing a lowercase y, but bigger. This is like the u that I just showed you guys. You can make it really fun by playing with the descender. I made it go really low, and by just playing with scale. Like this one is bigger than this, so it looks different from this because this one is a little bit bigger or the same size as this. Playing with different parts and scale from parts, will give you different look. The z is a hard to master friend, but it has such a nice elegant feel to it without any frills or any touches. I could add a little frill here, but it doesn't need it, it already feels like fancy. This might be too much. Hope you had fun with this worksheet, and notice how the brush pen didn't frame but it got lost some ink to it. I like that about it, that it doesn't phrase much, and if you lose ink, I told you it's so easy, just get a little bit of ink and just dip it every time and it'll work. Just keep experimenting, guys, take that away from this lesson. Experiment with your letters, experiment with your capital letters, especially because they have a lot more room to play because they're bigger. Now let's have some fun with making words. 9. Getting Fancy: Now let's make words and get fancy with bounce lettering, flourishes and layouts. Print out the blank worksheet or you can use lined paper or drawing guides with a ruler, or if you're really daring, just freehand it without guides. This quick lesson will cover a lot of concepts so let's start. All right, welcome back. Now, we're going to make some words and words are easy to do. We're going to learn about connectors connecting the next and the next letter and we're just going to put them together. Now, if you're a complete beginner, you might be tempted to start by sketching, and I don't recommend that unless you're doing something like a serious piece and you're going to frame it and stuff. But if you're just practicing with me like on this worksheet, don't sketch just go for it. It's okay to make mistakes, you will learn from them. So don't be afraid of making mistakes, guys. Let's do the word hello. Lets do a nice H. See how I put the connector out? Now, I guess where that one ends, and do my next letter. Same thing here. This is easier because the L ends right where it starts and I just continue doing that. This didn't go out long enough so I just nudge it out a little more, and there is a simple hello, very simple word. Now, you will notice that this is close together, this is close together and this is further apart, and this is a little further apart. This doesn't look as good as it should because it's not cohesive. It doesn't make sense that there's different distances. Let's try that again. Remember, I talked about paying attention to this? You have to learn how to make them the same distance. Now, this is the leader, and we know that everything should be around this distance. This is something you have to learn with experience. It's not easy when you're first starting out to judge distances. For example, like this right here, our O, it has this swash thingy, so then it looks more complicated and it's harder to judge the distance before drawing it. But this looks a lot better even though it looks a little close. Let's give another try. Now, this isn't something I really think about, it just becomes automatic with time, so don't worry about it too much. This one looks just about right. Everything is a nice distance away, and it just feels good like this, this, this, this, it feels good. This might be a little far. You can always make it a little thicker. You can always cheat a little bit. You can always go back and make your lines thicker if you want a more nicer contrast. It just depends on what tool you're using, because some tools you will see the layering of it, but some you won't. Like this is just ink so it's fine. If you use water color, that's a different story. Just keep in mind, it's all about making a connector that goes out, and we draw over it or we have some [inaudible] on the right side and we have calculate it, and we just continue on doing this. That's all it is. Now, another thing I want you guys to know is you can make your letters even fancier with things like bounce lettering. So bounce lettering is when you break this baseline, not at every letter, but a lot of the letters. Let's put this one little higher, put this one lower, and then let's put this one back where we started. Now, this is bounce lettering. This and this are not on the same baseline. This gives it more fun, makes it more happy and cool. I really like when the first letter someone to break it though, it really depends on what order you do things and how cool it will look. Something like this is fun. Another thing you can do is add flourish at the end. So flourish is just this fun intricate thing you can add to your lettering, you can put cool underlines that have flourishes in them like this, a nice twirly one. You can also use flourishes inside your letters, like this is a flourish, this is a flourish. I use them all the time. This is a flourish for sure, this is a flourish. You can really have fun with it. Like if I just do a letter M, it's nice. But then if I make it go out and just have this cool thing, it's way more fun. It's way cooler and like start here. This is a flourished M. It's fancier. It's really fun to play with things like ascenders with flourishes. You can go like that, or you can go like this. You can go like this. There's a lot of cool things you can do. The more intricate you make it, the more busy it is. So it's easy to overdo. Don't overdo it just with one letter add a little bit of a flourish to it. Like let's see the word yes, just make yes normal, and then go back in and add some flourishes. So here and then since we made a lawn, we can just go all the way out too. That's more fun than just a normal yes. Flourishes a really fun when you have something really cool, like the word time. We're going have to dot our I, and cross our T. So how do we make it cooler? By adding something fun like this. That's just an example, but my point is, flourishes can be really interesting and bounce lettering can make it really interesting and pop. I usually don't use my guided lines. Like I told you guys earlier also you can do things at an angle, at a slight angle, and it'll also give it a nice pop. There's all kinds of things that are always working in your lettering and that you can make work and that you have to play with to make interesting effects happen. It's just about practicing and seeing what works for you and what doesn't. Another thing to consider is layout. When I make something that is more permanent, that is nice, like for example, I have these two. This is a nice normal floral wreath, just plain and this is a nice heart. I can write something inside. I made these using watercolor. If I want to frame them when making this, all I have to do is, do it right. But if I just letter and mess up, all the work I put into the heart is ruined and there's no point. So it's much easier to first sketch out what you're going to do and plan out the layout in a thumbnail sketch. A thumbnail sketch, is a small, tiny sketch of what you're going to do. Can be this small, it can be bigger. Usually, I do it bigger because we're lettering so we can plan better. Here's our heart, and let's say our code is, you stole my heart. The first thing to consider when making a thumbnail sketch for your layout is what are the most important words? What is the word hierarchy? So stole is important and heart is important, but which one is more important? I think stole is more important. That's number 1, heart is number two, and you and my can be just in the background. They can be the same. They're both number three let's say. I want to make this, and this then up more by either using color, scale or style. So I can make you stole in a normal style, and then my heart, I can make it more fun. But this is not the hierarchy we planned on, so it doesn't make sense to do it like this. It makes more sense to do something like that. Because now this is number one, this is number two, and this one number three. As you can see, that's how hierarchies work. But how do we actually arrange what we're going to write? Well, that's easy. We have to make a little thumbnail sketch of that. That's what it's for. Let's say you, is here, stole, is here, my is here, and heart his here. Let's try it out. There's too much empty space in these corners. So this is how you really plan a composition, and this is how you save yourself frustration, wasted time, because you didn't know what you were doing. So we see that there's not enough balanced empty space. We have to let say plan that it's going to be in this box everything. So you stole my heart. It's good to say it's bigger. Let's say it doesn't go up to here. This feels better. Now let's try it out. Doesn't feel that good yet. How about something like, that feels a little better, or maybe, I don't like this at all and I could just do, you stole my heart. It's just simple. Let's say I decide to do that one. The first thing you do is, sketch it out. Now, I can continue planning it on a less sized piece and seeing it bigger. Let's do this, you stole my heart. Now, I can plan out things like flourishes, like bounce lettering, how big my letters are, what are they doing, that's interesting, that's different. I can plan all this before actually inking. That's why sketching is so important and planning is so important. I can change the different kinds of styles. The reason I have so many different styles in my subconscious, is because, I studied other people's lettering. Let's say I like that the most and I do. I do think that's cool. I can go in and ink it. I didn't sketch this in, but I thought it will look a little cool, so I'm just going along with it. Don't ever let your sketch kill your creative process or your spirit of experimentation. You stole, now my, it's going to be a little different from a sketch, but it still looks nice, and it's still matches this. Now, heart should be the biggest word, so let's make it. Now, I notice I filled this empty space in with this ascender. You have to play with the space as well. Now, following my sketch perfectly, it's just there for me to see where exactly I should end and stop. Now, I can add flourishes. See how I connected the E, under the E all the way to that T. That's a cool way to do something with a flourish because, it collects everything and notice how this divides the you and the my. You look from you to stole, because of this, instead of you my stole heart. That would make no sense. Let's add last flourish here. I have to eyeball it. There we go. You stole my heart. This looks nice. I like this a lot. It's not that complicated to make, because I played around with the idea first in my sketches. Now, it doesn't look exactly like my sketches, but I at least knew what the hierarchy was. I knew that you and stole were the same important, this was the most important, this was second, and that's exactly what I did. Notice how this is actually almost the same example as here. I just added the flourishes to balance it, and it looks like the whitespace is complete and I made the U bigger I don't really think about it too much when doing it, but because I did do this first, I got an idea of what I wanted and then I went for it. By sketching it first, I wasn't afraid to mess up and not know everything was going. I could still experiment. I still added my own flourish and my own touch to it. Because I sketched at first, it looks a lot better and it was easier to do. Now, we can erase our pencil marks. I'll have a perfect little illustration. If you guys want to learn how to watercolor, I have a bunch of classroom notes and anyone can watercolor class teaches you all the basics. I hope you guys enjoyed this lesson. In the next lesson we're going to talk about copying other people and copying other people's work to learn. It's really useful, but after that, you're going to have to do something like this. Make your own composition and make your own quote or word, whatever you want to do. But don't be intimidated, just have fun with it and you're going to improve no matter what you do. I can't wait to see what you guys make Now, let's learn about why copying is actually good. 10. Copying as a Learning Tool: For this last lesson, I want to share my most important tip that will help you to grow quickly in your lettering skills. This is actually something that's wrongly frowned upon him by most of the art community. But it's invaluable to speed up the learning process. I'm talking about copying or tracing. There is nothing wrong with copying or tracing if you're doing it to just improve your skills and are not going to share it with the world claiming it as your own. Learning from other people's lettering is the fastest way to not only grow your skills, but also find cool styles that will inspire your style and favorite techniques. Every artists or letterer out there is inspired by many different people that came before them. There is nothing wrong with that. It's part of the collective creative process in evolution. Even if you copy and study many different styles, you have something within that is totally uniquely you. This will shine through with time. Don't be afraid of being an original for now. My advice is to find people's work that inspires you into collected, like here on Pinterest or you can use Instagram or whatever you want and copy by either using a light box to trace, using tracing paper or if you have an iPad Pro and pencil, you can trace an application or a more advanced ways to just look at it and do your best in copying it on your page, you will greatly increase your muscle memory and observation skills by doing this. It's really just a shortcut in learning. Just don't heavily copy just one person, copy lots of different people's work. Anything that you find beautiful. Another neat thing you can do is open an image editor software like Photoshop and write out the alphabet and lower the opacity. You can print out tons of worksheets in different fonts cells that you like and get lots of practice time in that way. This is actually a font that I made. But you get the idea. There is nothing wrong with any of this as long as you don't ever share it with the world as you work, I would either do an a private sketchbook or recycle the paper you do it on. So go out there and collect inspiration lettering and then study it by copying. I still think Pinterest is the best platform for this, but there are numerous ways to do this. Now that we've covered most of the things you need to get started on your lettering adventure. Let's talk about your final assignment. 11. Your Assignment & Goodbye: Wow, you finished the class. Great job. I hope you enjoyed the class and learned a lot. Remember, that brush lettering is a skill, and like every skill out there, you can only learn and master with lots of practice, and that's not a bad thing. Lettering is relaxing and fun, so practice, and enjoy the process. For your final assignment, pick one word, any word, or if you're feeling brave, a whole quote, or a couple words and letter it. Use fine flourishes or bounced lettering and make it neat and perfect, or put it in a watercolor wraith like I showed earlier, there's an infinite amount of [inaudible] letters, so try to add a special touch that is only you and don't be afraid to experiment until you get something cool. Share what you make with the class and the project gallery. Sharing is a great way to get feedback, confidence, and to inspire other students to give it a go. I can't wait to see what you guys make. If it's still hard for you and you're not happy with your results, just keep practicing, it just takes time. Even the best brush letters out there start out as beginners or we're in the same boat as you, but they didn't quit and kept practicing, enjoying the process along the way. That tells you they continued on because he loved it so much. It's all about the journey after all. Isn't it's so fun to learn new skills and to see steady progress? It's one of the most fulfilling things in the world. Everything would be so boring if everyone could just do everything, so keep on practicing. If you have any questions, leave them in the community section, and if you're interested in continuing to learn from me, be sure you're following me here on Skillshare to receive notifications of new classes or announcements. You can also check out my YouTube for many tutorials and speed paintings and Instagram for a behind the scenes look, I also have tons of classes already out on a lot of different illustration topics, mediums. Check them out and enjoy all the variety of classes offered here on skill share. There are tons of amazing brush lettering classes from other teachers as well. I encourage you to check them out because it's very beneficial to learn from more than one source and learning law repetition really helps you memorize the core concepts. As always, it's been such a great pleasure to share this class with you, and I'll see you in the next class. I wish you all the best and remember to keep learning, growing, and practicing. Also, go easy on yourself. Art is meant to be fun, so just have as much fun as you can and let that be the measure of your success.