Hand

Let
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PersonalizedCard

Name:____________________________________________

You
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Date:______________________

Period:______

will need
a good pencil
a good eraser
a ruler or square
black micro pens in varying weights.
quality paper
6 (font inspiration book)

1. Step ONE
On a separate piece of scratch paper, write out a favorite phrase or saying that you want to hand letter. Circle the
words you want to emphasize. Consider drawing a shape to fill. Consider frames, borders or a banner. Observe how
the words sit together. Check the spacing between letters. Consider the overall length of the work. This process may
reveal that your phrase might not look so good the way you had thought. If this is the case, try changing it up a bit.
Use cursive, combine capitals and lower case in an unconventional way or break the phrase into multiple lines. Once
youre happy with where your piece is going, move on to the next step.
2. Step TWO
Using the special paper for the final piece, set up some LIGHT guidelines to help keep your letters evenly spaced and
straight. (My own lettering tends to end up with a funny downward slope if I dont use this method!)
- Using your ruler for guidance, VERY LIGHTLY sketch horizontal lines across the page:
1. the baseline (the line the letters sit on)
2. the x-height (the height of the body of the lower case letters) and
3. the cap height (the height of the capital letters).
They should be drawn in relationship to what you have designed, so make sure the lines are spaced correctly to work
for your design.
*You will erase these lines after inking your piece so make sure they are DRAWN LIGHTLY enough that they are easy
to remove without them leaving indentations in the paper.
3. Step THREE
Add some VERY LIGHT vertical or diagonal (for cursive lettering) stress guide lines. This will help you to maintain a
certain angle for your letters. You dont need a stress line for each individual letter you intend to write, just enough
spaced out to help guide you as you are writing.
4. Step FOUR
Begin roughly sketching out your words in Bold, Serif, San-Serif, Cursive on your final piece of paper. Refer to your
inspiration and dont be afraid to play around and mess up. Draw lightly so that you can erase trust me, you will
erase and try something new. Play around with adding width to strokes in different areas. Where can you add
interesting connectors? Can you change the placement and angle of some letters to add more visual interest?
5. Step FIVE
Once you feel confident with your sketch, its time to ink! Use the different pens youve chosen to create different line
weights within your type. It can be helpful to take a few minutes before beginning to play around with the pens and
get comfortable with the types of lines they make. You can color in the letters as well if you wish.
6. Step SIX
After giving the ink a few moments to dry and set, go back in and erase all of your pencil marks. (*make sure your
eraser is clean!) Use a small paint brush instead of my hands to remove all the little eraser bits. This prevents any stray
ink or other things on your hands from inadvertently marking the paper. You may notice once the pencil lines are gone
that your need to beef up certain areas. Get in there and add the finishing touches!