To Celebrate World Stationery Day, we’re asking some of our favourite stationery lovers to share a creative tutorial. Thanks to Letters By Fiona for this gorgeous guest post…
Hand lettering is such a wonderful way to express your unique self, through the simple act of putting pen to paper. This is a great way to personally hand write messages and meaningful quotes to family and friends. I have always dreamed of being able to write beautiful hand written words for years and without any classes and only online tutorials, I had developed my own writing technique and you can too!
Mind you, I am still practising and I am always learning, growing and improving as a letterer! Hand lettering is not only rewarding but most importantly it is therapeutic. I could come home from work and my mind unwinds and relaxes as I practice varying strokes and styles.
A simple type of hand lettering is known as faux calligraphy (or modern calligraphy) and only requires your standard ballpoint or gel pen.
Here’s how to do it:
1. Pen: I personally use the pens at kikki.K; both the gel and ballpoint pens are smooth and perfect for hand lettering
2. Paper: I love using the cute notebook paper at kikki.K. The varying styles and page boarders are too irresistible to not letter your favourite quote
3. Style: Begin by practising cursive writing (I personally write printed letters)
4. Sizing and angles: If you’re hand lettering quotes or words, let your mind flow and experiment with different sizing of the words and the bouncy-ness of each letter
5. Letters and loops: You can be extra fancy and make the ‘loops’ on letters like ‘f, g, j, k, l, y’ larger
6. Down strokes and up strokes: Once you have practised your lettering style you can leave it as is or you can mimic calligraphy styled fonts by drawing a thicker line on the downward strokes, leaving the upper strokes ‘thin’. These downward and upward strokes represent the stroke of each letter as you are writing.
Tips: I practised everywhere, even when I couldn’t find any pen or paper I found finger lettering in the air very helpful too! Explore other styled fonts and find the ones you are most comfortable with patience and practice makes progress!