100 Days of Lettering: Part 10
The last part of the lettering challenge. Finally!
I can’t believe that today is the last day of my lettering project. In the middle of the challenge I had an impression that it would never end. Looking back now I realize that it was actually very fast and even not enough to find my favorite style, technique or media. Drawing letters for 3+ months is almost nothing if you think about your whole life. It’s like a tiny little step towards new adventures and discoveries. The good thing is that the end of the project is not the end at all, but rather a beginning. I will try to maintain my habit of drawing letters every day and post new projects as often as possible. Now I'm going to make myself a cup of coffee and enjoy the moment of glory ;)
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Other parts:
100 Days of Lettering: Part 9
Rediscovering pencils.
One of the best things that happened during my lettering challenge is that I started drawing a lot with pencils. For a long time, I avoided using this basic tool and preferred working with ink instead. The idea of smashing a pencil sketch with my hand and ruin the whole piece always terrified me. When it comes to working with ink, I pay much more attention to keeping my hands out of the freshly painted area. Most of the time my hand and the ink do not interfere, so there is no mess. Working with pencils was more challenging. I had to be careful with my hands when going back and forth over the drawing. Recently I found a few tricks that help me to keep the pencil sketches clean:
1. Go from light to dark.
I usually start my sketch with a hard pencil such as F or HB, which gives a light line. It allows me to work all over my sketch without any fear to make it messy with my hand. Also, light sketches are easy to correct with an eraser.
2. Use a protective layer of paper.
Sometimes I put a piece of paper on top of the pencil sketch to protect it from my hand movements. This trick works pretty well, although it demands an extra attention each time when moving the protective layer of paper to cover a new area of the sketch. I always check the paper’s “down” side that was in contact with my drawing to make sure it has no traces of pencil. If it’s dirty, I use a new clean piece of paper.
3. Redraw the final work.
Nothing works better than redrawing the final work. When all the details are placed in place, I put a new piece of paper over my sketch and redraw everything. This process is clean since I move my hand from top left to bottom right of my drawing without going back and forth.
That’s all for today. If you have other tips and tricks on how to keep a pencil drawing clean, I would be glad to hear them from you. Also stay tuned for the last part of my lettering project!
100 Days of Lettering: Part 8
During the last ten days I spent a good amount of time working on a single piece — “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
I immediately fell in love with this quote by Woody Allen, since it sounds like a perfect motivational poster for any creative person. It took me approximately 10 hours to finish this piece from the first sketch to the final vector work. I still see few places where I would add more details, but for the purpose of this project I will keep it as it is for the moment. The rest of the work is the usual brush lettering.
Russian word “Dream” | typeandgraphicslab.com
100 Days of Lettering: Part 7
I’m back with a project update for the last ten days.
In the beginning of my lettering challenge I was trying as many techniques and as many media as possible: pencils, markers, brush pens, natural brushes, digital painting, etc. It was all very fun, although sometimes a little bit time consuming. I knew it wouldn’t be possible to have a lot of time to draw each day for all hundred days, so I was prepared that sometimes I would only have 10 minutes to accomplish my piece. What I found is that accessibility of your tools is the key to keep up with this challenge. It’s easy to work with brush pens or practice calligraphy, since it requires basically only one step: just open the ink container and you are ready to go. That’s easy. Brush pens usually don’t have to be cleaned at the end like, for example, natural brushes. And we all agree that washing brushes is much less fun than dipping them into paint. Most calligraphy nibs need a simple wiping with a wet tissue to be shiny and bright again. The easier are all the preparation and the finishing steps, the lesser is the resistance to start. This is a crucial requirement for a long term daily project. In my case it turns out that ink is my easy-to-go tool.
100 Days of Lettering: Part 6
Here is my #100daysoflettering update + few tips on getting started with your own daily lettering challenge.
I challenged myself with the #100daysoflettering because I strongly believe that quality comes with quantity. I remember very well the time when I've been working for a month on one particular vector lettering. It was quite a detailed piece and everyday I was trying to change something: add new colors, textures or even more details. I've made about 10 versions of that image, but nothing pleased me enough. Here I must say that it was my third attempt to create a vector lettering. At that time I was very naive to think that playing with shadows, colors, and other fancy stuff was the best way to improve that particular work. But it was wrong. Sticking with only one project for a long time is not good in the beginning. It's much better to work on quantity and gain experience then stress too much about the quality of your first attempts. Now I realize that I should have done several smaller projects during that month instead of spending a lot of time on improving one image. The reason I love my daily lettering project is that it keeps me in a flow. I almost became a lettering machine (it feels so). Even though I don't always have a lot of time to experiment with techniques and styles, I practice some kind of lettering everyday and this is the most valuable part of the whole challenge.
If you think about starting your own #manydaysoflettering challenge, here are few tips to consider:
1. Prepare the Phrases in advance.
Nothing is more distracting and time consuming than trying to find the right phrase to draw just before the practice. I’ve spent half an hour to find and write down about fifty phrases for my challenge. The rest of the list is filling on the go when I have a spark of inspiration.
2. Cite the author or use your own phrases.
When working with a specific quote, make sure to cite the author. Invent your own quotes or use some general motivational phrases like “Never give up” or “Smile more often.”
3. Keep it simple.
In the beginning I suggest creating a single word lettering, since it’s much more manageable. Drawing a long phrase can be overwhelming and discouraging, so keep everything simple.
4. Be realistic.
Don’t start a #milliondaysoflettering challenge. Chances are you will fail and will never try again. Your lettering project should be challenging but manageable. For the first time try it for a week, then a month and so on.
5. Keep your workspace ready.
I find it very useful to separate my digital and nondigital workspaces. Having a second table allowed me to keep all my tools ready to use. No space for a second table? No worries, just keep your tools at the most convenient place and as close to you as possible. And remember, it’s all about practice and not about fancy materials or a workspace. All you need is a piece of paper and a pencil.
5. Don’t stop.
Even if you missed a day, don’t stop the challenge. It’s easy to say “I failed, so I guess that’s all.” Consider a missing day as a micro fail, but not a reason to stop.
6. Consider mistakes as opportunities.
Never blame yourself for any mistake. Learn from them and play around. Recently I smashed a pencil sketch with my hand. It was a little bit disappointing, but I decided to turn that spoiled page into a cool blurry background and pretend that the texture was intended. The whole piece was pretty good at the end! Some mistakes can lead you to new interesting things, so keep practicing.
100 Days of Lettering: Part 5
The most interesting experiment over the last ten days was the painting “Collect Moments Not Things.” I found this phrase few months ago and kept it in mind to illustrate one day. Then my lettering project came out, so I decided it was a perfect chance to create this piece. After trying different layouts I ended up with the one below. At first I planned to make this work 100% digital, but I didn't get enough vivid look by applying different colors and textures. At some point I decided to play with acrylic paints. After all, why not? Although the whole experiment was fun, I’ve made a biggest mistake by using a small piece of paper (about 9 in x 12 in). Painting tiny letters was much harder than I expected, so all my lines were a little bit shaky. Nevertheless I am quite happy with the textured background and all those colorful layers appearing through one another. Well, I've learned my lesson, so the next time I decide to paint a lettering piece, I will definitely use a much bigger canvas.
100 Days of Lettering: Part 4
Here is my quick project update for the last ten days. Beside the calligraphy and brush lettering practice, I tried a full page of lettering without initial sketch for the first time. It was done with pens, so I was not able to make any corrections. Dealing with space issues on the go was really hard and the whole experiment was quite uncomfortable for me. Nevertheless in the middle of the page I found some kind of flow and enjoyed the process without judging the result. Trying new things is always scary, but it expands the comfort zone and, therefore, is good.
