INSTRUCTIONAL GUIDE APPLYING PRESSURE IN BRUSH CALLIGRAPHY Sharisse DeLeon is a brush calligrapher located in Sacramento, California. She enjoys engaging with other calligraphers and handlettering artists and learning something new every day. When she is not chasing her toddler twin boys or working at her day job, you can find her creating, teaching or blogging about brush calligraphy. ∫ SHARISSE ∫ Follow Sharisse at: piecescalligraphy.
INSTRUCTIONAL GUIDE SPACING, COLORS AND GLUE PEN FUN Abby Guempel is a full-time Art Director for a crafting company in Dallas, TX by day, and an illustrator and hand letterer by night. She has been in the industry since she was 8 years old, but her relationship with hand lettering began in 2014. She views hand lettering like Tetris or solving a puzzle - you need to figure out what to do next while continuing to write non-stop. ∫ ABBY ∫ Follow Abby at: asyeraguempel.
APPLYING PRESSURE IN BRUSH CALLIGRAPHY When creating brush calligraphy, it is important to understand when to apply pressure. ∫ SHARISSE ∫ The amount of pressure you apply to your brush pen directly affects the width of each of your strokes. The more pressure you apply, the thicker your strokes will be. And the less pressure you apply, the thinner your strokes will be.
APPLYING PRESSURE IN BRUSH CALLIGRAPHY USING PRESSURE TO CREATE THIN AND THICK LINES ∫ SHARISSE ∫ Once you are holding your pen with a comfortable grip and at the proper angle, bring the pen to the page and begin by barely touching the tip of the paper. When creating thin strokes, you do not need to apply much pressure, if any at all. Once the tip of your pen touches the paper, slowly and carefully draw a line at an angle, and do not exert much force with the pen.
APPLYING PRESSURE IN BRUSH CALLIGRAPHY USING PRESSURE TO CREATE THIN AND THICK LINES Try these simple drills to get familiar with your brush pen, experiment applying various amounts of pressure, and identify the areas in which you need further practice. ∫ SHARISSE ∫ Left: The lowercase “i” repeated over and over and connected to the next. Below: Lowercase letters containing more advanced strokes. Remember to hold your pen at the proper angle as you write the entire letter.
MIX AND MATCH LETTERS ∫ AMANDA ∫ One of the lettering styles that I really enjoy using is a mixed script and print style that uses the letter styles interchangeably. I get lots of people asking if it is a font but, nope, it’s just something that flows out of my pen. I don’t have a special alphabet that I practice to write this, I just use the letters that I know and mix and match them together, rather than only using one style at a time.
MIX AND MATCH LETTERS ∫ AMANDA ∫ When I add the word (or words) below what I’ve already done, I make some of the letters float higher to fill in the spaces or I stretch them taller than normal like little letter giraffes. Just like when I did the word above, I’m always trying to create a straight baseline with the bottom word so that it gives a generally straight border.
BIG, BOLD AND COLORFUL LETTERING START WITH A SKETCH ∫ MAIA ∫ Sketching your lettering before you get started is always a good idea. A good sketching kit can include: Tombow MONO Drawing Pencil, Tombow MONO NP Eraser, Tombow MONO Sand Eraser and of course if you want to add some color to the mix you can use Tombow Recycled Colored Pencils. I love using the Black Tombow Dual Brush Pen and the Fudenosuke Pens to make my lettering and scan it to make it digital.
SPACING, COLORS AND GLUE PEN FUN GETTING PERFECT SPACING Here you’ll see how to achieve perfect spacing by analyzing the word you’re lettering. ∫ ABBY ∫ Below is how I analyze my word. I underline and upper line a few letters that have “tails” or can be potential flourished objects. Then, I pink-circle the empty space that can be filled out. Once you figure everything out… Let’s do the fun part! Let’s hand-letter this word using the Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen soft nib.
SPACING, COLORS AND GLUE PEN FUN BLENDING COLORS WITH THE DUAL BRUSH PENS ∫ ABBY ∫ I remember my heart skipped a beat when I saw these markers at the New York Stationery Show. I promised to myself that I would buy these markers as soon as I get back to Dallas. Of course, the wonderful people at the Tombow booth saw me drooling over these Dual Brush Pens and they were too kind to make my dream come true.
SPACING, COLORS AND GLUE PEN FUN USING THE TOMBOW MONO GLUE PEN FOR LETTERING ∫ ABBY ∫ I love mixed media or experimenting with different mediums and tools. So this is a perfect pen for me. First, I sketch using the Tombow Fudenosuke soft nib pen. The MONO Glue Pen ink is transparent, just in case you are wondering why there’s nothing on the paper. I used this pearl ex gold color powder to make it gold.
SPACING, COLORS AND GLUE PEN FUN FLOURISHING WITH CONFIDENCE ∫ ABBY ∫ Flourishing will look flawless if you understand your spacing. You don’t want to have too many swirly lines because you need to make sure your words are still recognizable and readable. Always sketch it before you ink it. DON’T BE SCARED to make mistakes because that’s the start of AWESOMENESS! Alright, below are a few letter examples that I usually “decorate.” When flourishing, it’s important to be confident.
TOMBOW LIKE A LEFTY ∫ LAUREN ∫ Dear Lefty Friends, the first time that I ever picked up a brush pen, my left hand and brain had no idea what they were doing. I was totally discouraged and wanted to put it down and never come back… but I didn’t! After lots of practicing and trial and error, I was able to see that lefties can definitely “Tombow” like our righty counterparts! The key is to stick with it and understand how to use being a lefty as a strength, rather than a weakness.
TOMBOW LIKE A LEFTY “L” IS FOR LEARN THE BASICS ∫ LAUREN ∫ Once you understand grip, take baby steps! Start with strokes, then work on letters, words, and eventually sentences. It takes a lot of time and tons of practice. I found great success with the brush pen after taking a modern calligraphy class with the pointed pen.
TOMBOW LIKE A LEFTY “T” IS FOR TRY DIFFERENT TOOLS ∫ LAUREN ∫ It is so much fun to add variety to your creations by utilizing different tools. There are so many great Tombow products to use for lettering. The cool part is, if the Tombow Dual Brush Pen isn’t working well, you can always try out some faux calligraphy using the AirPress pen, colored pencils, or MONO Twin Permanent Marker. Write out a letter or word with the tool of your choice and thicken the downstrokes.
TOMBOW LIKE A LEFTY “Y” IS FOR YOU CAN DO THIS! ∫ LAUREN ∫ What happens when you mess up? Well, if you are working on a piece and mess up, the Tombow Sand Eraser is totally going to save the day. It erases color pencil and ink. I also use it often to fix mistakes on envelopes when using the pointed pen! It is so great! Click here to watch this video to see me using the Fudenosuke Brush pen in real time: https://youtu.be/8oywPiZuPts.
CONFETTI LETTERING ∫ MARIE ∫ Use this lettering technique to add some whimsical confetti to your lettering with the Tombow MONO Glue Pen. This technique is great for creating unique party invitations, decor and more! All you need are some Tombow Dual Brush Pens in varying shades, a Dual Brush Pen Colorless Blender, MONO Glue Pen, and some mixed media paper! Let’s get started! STEP 1 Write out your word (“party,” for example) with the brush tip of your blue Dual Brush Pen.
