.png)
Decorative Hand Lettering is a popular practice these day. What is nice about this particular lettering style is you don't need to be neat and precise in drawing the letters. The imperfections give it character and life-likeness. You do not have to be a master at making perfect alphabet shapes to do this kind of decorative lettering.
What comes to mind when you first see this word with the lettering style below?
This piece looks like leaves are growing out of the branches, which are the letters. This would be cute for any outdoor person. I had fun doing this practice piece and will include the entire alphabet in this post for you to get ideas.
All you need are a few of the following supplies and a bit of creativity to get started!
I have not tried this in color pencil or marker, but I bet both would be cute.
Supplies
For this project you will need:
watercolor paper (at least 140 lb).
watercolor paint in green and brown.
a small and medium size round brush. Use what you are comfortable with. The size brush will depend on the size of the letters you draw.
Micron or other waterproof pen. Again, size will depend on the size of your letters.
2 cups of water for cleaning and a clean cup for dipping into paint.
A palette for mixing paint.
paper towels to have on hand.
pencil to draw letters and leaves
Directions:
1. Sketch out word or letters with pencil. You might want to use a piece of paper to draw out a rough diagram to get letters positioned on the page.
Here is my rough sketch on watercolor paper.
2. Next, go over lines with waterproof pen, I used a micron pen. Be sure to make lines a bit squiggly to look like branches and trees.
3. Now, for details. Fill in letters with more lines to depict wood grain and knots on the bark.
Decorate each letter with patches of leaves.
See the process below.
4. Once you have all the details drawn in, it is time to prepare your paint. Find a green and brown watercolor paint color you like. Make about 3 to 4 different versions of each by mixing more water each time. You will want to use different shades of color so the letters look more realistic. Basically, you will have 3 or 4 pools of water with varying shades of brown and green, ranging from light to medium to dark.
5. You will start by painting the leaves first. Skip around with different colors of green on each letter.
Once you have these painted, start painting the letters, using different shades for each letter. Leave the dark brown for what looks like the knots in a tree on the letters.
Here is the finished piece. You can put in a background color or even scan it into your computer for a digital copy and apply any effects you like.
I promised you I would show you the complete alphabet. Remember you do not have to do it like I have, but I hope this is helpful to you.
Next Project-Alphabet
I started out by taking a scrap piece of paper and roughly sketching in the alphabet so I could get a rough idea of how I wanted to lay the letters out.
As you can see it isn't very balanced, so I made changes to the one I did on watercolor paper.
Here are the letters sketched out and Inked.
Final Finished Alphabet
Final Thoughts:
I hope you will give this project a try and post your work. I would love to see your creative letters!
Let me know if you have questions.
Melanie
Comments