Transcripts
1. Course Intro: Hey, Skill. Share it, Shelley, with the lemonade store. Thanks for watching. I wanted to start a Siri's. That kind of just goes over the very basics of playing with markers and hand lettering. So we're going to go over a couple of different things in this first video. We're gonna go over the very basics. What's a down stroke? Upstroke? How to kind of use a Creole? Because those are a little bit different than a brush pen. We're gonna go over some basic strokes, and I also have a couple of freebies for you to download and to practice with. So let's get started. And thanks for watching.
2. Supplies: Okay, so let's talk supplies before we get started. The first thing we need to talk about is paper. You can do regular copy paper. Um, but I would prefer using, like, marker paper, cause sometimes your pen can get frayed. And here is an example of Sorry. Opened it up when I started using it, but I really like this brand. This is the premium choice Laser jet HP printer. You can buy a ream of it. So I think maybe like I've seen it for, like, $14 or something like that for the full range of paper Or you can use you can use like, marker paper. It's just got a smoother texture, both both of these. So it's a little bit nicer on your pens, so you can use copy paper If you're gonna use something like a cree ola the start be stained art line sticks. But any of the tom bows I wouldn't use regular copy paper, cause I've just actually afraid when I first started out, I afraid like all of my pens. Okay. You've heard of Crayola calligraphy. I'm sure this is actually one of my favorite pens. And I like Teoh I have but beginner and use this pen Onley because it really helps you learn the pressure of your strokes because it's not a typical brush pen. So if you are doing a down stroke, you have to really put a lot of pressure on your pen. And we're gonna go over down strokes and UPS trucks in the next video. But for now, this is just one of my favorite pains, not to mention super inexpensive to get a pack lots of different colors available. So in their funds, I also like the art line sticks. However, I actually have a hard time gripping it because of the Lego effect. It's not my favorite. I guess I must be gripping it kind of hard. So if you actually are really gripping your pen, it might not be the most comfortable. But they're still super fun, and you can get him online, and they're not that expensive. Haven't seen them in any of the stores over here where I live in California, but that doesn't mean that they're not, but they are definitely online, so you could take at Amazon for that. I love these Sharpie stains. These pens are a brush tip, and I'm sorry. So are the art line sticks. So it's a brush tip pen, and what I love about the start be stained is that it really allows you to press down on it . And I haven't noticed it ever framed on me, and they're not that expensive. And they're waterproof, so kind of a favorite by me. I don't see a lot of people talking about thes, but I love this one. Like I least have 10 of these on hand. Um, pen towel, these air, the touch penthouse there. It's a much smaller nib, so you are going to get a much smaller lettering piece so you could make different. I'm struck. So, like these air, all fairly thick strokes, and then this one is really, really small. And then these three year old Tom Bo pens So you've got the dual brush pen, and that's the one that's got a brush tip on one end and so you can get really thick strokes, and it also has a bullet, neb. And it comes in a bunch of fun colors. So that's the Tom bow, and then they also make these two smaller pen so thes air comparable to like the pen tells the neb size because there, um smaller. And it has a soft tip, which is the black barrel. And it has a heart tip, meaning that it doesn't necessarily bend as much. So the blue bends less than the black. I actually prefer the stiffer of the two, which is the blue pen, Um, for a beginner, I think it just is a little bit easier. So those are the basic supplies. There are so many other options out there, but I don't want to overwhelm you. We could always go over others in different, different skill share classes. So these air the basics. Let's start with these.
3. The Strokes: Okay, so let's talk about drills. This is a free download available in the course description, Um, for you guys, and it's just something that I use. I actually still use this all the time when I start to get shaky or I need to practice a new pen. So I actually made this with the Corolla, but it applies to really anything with a nice tip. So let's go through and do a couple of things and talk about up strokes and down strokes. So the key toe lettering is when you're doing your down strokes, any type of emotion where you're going downward, you're going to put heavy pressure. But before we even start doing down strokes, let's talk about how do we hold our pet? Sometimes when you're writing like normal writing, your pen is more of a look at a 90 degree angle. When you're doing lettering, you actually want your pen to be more like that, like a 45 degree angle. It's not up and down. It's more like that. You can hold it any way you want. I've seen people hold it like, you know, totally different gripping method than ideo. Um, but The key is at a slant. You'll be able to accomplish better down strokes, thicker down strokes if your penance slanted more than if your pen were upright. So, for example, heavy pressure on your down Struck's step one. So with the Crayola, you are at an angle that allows us to utilize the tip of the pen the cone shape and you literally put your pen down, hold it and press doubt. Then you'll get a thicker struck. So the more times you do the the the stroke, the better your muscle memory will be of doing the stroke. So you're not going to necessarily be perfect when you first start out. I have been, I literally letter every day, and I've been doing lettering for, like, the last almost two years, every single day. That has allowed me to be probably a little bit smoother. But just like everybody else, I still have shaky moments, especially if I have too much caffeine or something for that day. So the key is down strokes downward motion. I also try my best to do this with moving my arm instead of just using my hand like this. I'm going cause later on that will allow you to really make some beautiful flourishes if you're loose with your arm. If you're like this, it's really hard to get a nice big flourish. So down strokes, heavy, heavy pressure switch to like another pin. Let's switch to the Tom because I know a lot of people have those. So same thing. Angle your pen and pushed down. You're not going to hurt the Ned and go down. That's about it. Tom was. Make that noise. You're not hurting your pen when you do that. And let's use my short B. Steyn, because I like this one. Same thing. Pushed that native all the way down. That's see the pressure of that. That's what's allowing you to get that nice, thick stroke. Let's move to light pressure. Light pressure is on all of your UPS trucks, so we're always gonna do light pressure and I mean apparently touching the page that will give you the best. Send a stroke you can get. So you're gonna start at the bottom and go up barely touching the page and same thing with Tom Bo barely touching it. And I'm actually smoother. If I move my harm my arm as I'm going. It's just very soft. Touch of the page. Same thing with the Sharpie stained Nice. Then a little pressure. See the difference if I move my arm instead of my hand, how it's a little bit straighter. And then the rest of these are all just different ways to help you learn how to use your pet. So thin strokes going up. Press heavy pressure down right at the middle point thin. Hardly any pressure Push, push, push, push, push. Same with the Crayola. It's all the same concept. You're gonna go light pressure. You get to the middle, start pressing down. It's just all a pressure. See the difference. Middle Press. And lastly, let's try our Joel Pressman and pretty cool, right, Same thing. But now we're just gonna practice going the other directions. We're gonna start with heavy pressure going down and then light, light, light, light, light. That is way harder for I don't know about you guys, but for me to do it this way. This one takes a lot of practice, so I will sometimes do like entire page of this motion. Switching from the heavy pressure to the light pressure, so you'll find that whatever ones you want to work on you could do an entire page, are just do these loads of fun. And these also work you can use the smaller, the smaller pens. You're just gonna have a smaller line. But the motion is still the same. I prefer when you're starting out, see him a little shaky here, but I prefer when you're starting out to use a thicker pen. But a lot of people have had great success using the smaller tips. I just like I like seeing those really thick lines. And then, lastly, these two, it's all just about trying different directions. When when you're doing his exact like this, you actually in lettering, you lift your pen off the paper in between strokes. So you go up, lift, go down and you can even rotate like I'm kind of rotating in my hands because it's a Crayola and you got a kind of adjust to that. You can do it in one stroke, but I like toe lift up in between because you're not doing cursive here. It's different. So then I just love the juiciness of that pen and Then the last one started out within. Get to the top and push this one You can lift in between or you can really push yourself. Steve, you could do it without lifting up in between. So those are our basics, These air drills, and we're going to move on to the next Siri's where we talked about some of our letter forms.
4. The Letters: Okay, So here is our basic lower case, alphabet worksheet. This is a freebie for you guys also in the course contents area. And let's just kind of go over doing some basics now. I did do this with a Crayola marker when I originally made this, but it works. It'll it's the same concept. So I'm gonna do the Sharpie and because I'm really lovin it today, and how do you see it is so the key is down strokes. Heavy pressure obstructs light pressure. So you go down and it's just practice. You can do a full page of sees a whole page of D's and basically, what we did in the drills class is going to kind of get you ready to do this so you'll know you start an E. Go up When you get to the middle, you know you're gonna go down, have you pressure when you get to the bottom of it right there again, light pressure. So it's all kind of the same movements that we were just practicing with our drills and you can try, I mean all sorts of different pens, whatever you're kind of comfortable with. But the foundation of having the drills work. She is really helping you, Um, do all the different letters because, you know, when you get to the top before you go down, you're gonna switch your pressure Heavy pressure. When you get to hear before you go up, you're gonna do light pressure, and that's basically it. I mean, you can fill your entire page with doing the different strokes so that you can practice. And like I said, don't get discouraged because it doesn't happen overnight. You're building the memory in your movement to help get, um, more consistent lines. So everybody has their own, um, style of doing lettering. And I'm happy to share my style with you. But you will develop your own, and that's the one that you want to go with. This is just used to kind of get you started. And then once you start doing at your little branch out, you'll see and you'll experiment with different styles and lettering, and it really just becomes your own art form. And that's that, is it? So have fun downloading and practicing you can use a pro should have been there any pens that you like. Watch how you're holding your pens, try to get that 45 degree angle and you can always touch up your letters. I do that all the time. Everybody does it. So if you see something that you don't like, you can go back over it or let's say we did a letter like the why, and I want it to be thicker. I just second it up. Do that one all the time. I love the thick look, so there's lots of options out there, and the fun part is just experimenting.
5. Faux Calligraphy: Okay, so let's talk about faux calligraphy. And I believe that doing the faux calligraphy is important because we just got done practicing the letter shapes, using our strokes and then doing faux calligraphy really helps us understand the shapes of those letters. So, for example, um, like, I'm going to write out skill share, and I'm You can do this with any kind of pen, any kind of pencil. So there's our word. And now we're going to fill in with all the down strokes. We're gonna make it thicker. And what I mean by that is like when you're looking at your s, you know that when you get to the top, it's going to get thicker, so we're actually gonna make it thicker, and you're just gonna draw in any lines toe add weight to that line, and that's all you're doing with faux calligraphy is your adding weight to the down strokes . So we know that when we do our k, the down stroke is right there, go up at the turn, you know that you're going to get another down stroke, and I like to add a little bit right there. And what's fun about this is You are drawing it yourself so you can start developing your own style, what you like and what you don't like. So here we go up the turn. We're gonna make that thicker. And that's all you're doing is practicing the faux calligraphy by adding the weight to all of your down strokes. But this was This will really help you. I think if you if you understand faux calligraphy, they're gonna understand when you're doing the letters, how and where to put pressure. At least it's really helped me. Like when I learned folk calligraphy like, Oh, that makes so much more sense. I'm sitting here studying where the lions go and then just become second nature. So if you don't like, like, I don't like, how that a is kind of up shorter, So I would probably draw that in a little bit more. So it's fun. Take your time, practice the different letter forms, and that's it for food calligraphy and probably would make this one a little bit thicker. But there you go. So practice your letter forms, do the faux calligraphy and you can use this with any pen. This really works great if you're using a paint pen as you start to practice, if you want to write on like a piece of wood or something, and Lorri Info calligraphy really comes in handy. So that is it for our first Siris of skill share classes. I want to thank you guys so much, and I'm going to ask that your homework be for you to practice the drills worksheet and practice your alphabet and share your work on the class section. And also, if you don't have an INSTAGRAM account, I would totally recommend getting one, because a separate account just for lettering really will make you feel more confident about putting your artwork out there. You could post every day I put in the course description. I have some links to my INSTAGRAM account, which is at the Underscore Lemonade Underscore store, and I also host a lettering challenge every month. So having this prompts really help you with your development of lettering, and it's such a great community, so a totally advise you to do that as well. So thanks so much. You guys
Chelle Perea, The Lemonade Store
