The Ultimate Brush Lettering Guide Pdf Free Download UPDATED

The Ultimate Brush Lettering Guide Pdf Free Download

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Hello!

Information technology's Jillian and Jordan from Loveleigh Loops, and we're excited to bring you an article that'south all near castor lettering.

We're twin sisters who take taught tens of thousands of students how to master calligraphy tools and letter styles, ranging from pointed pen to flourishing to iPad lettering.

Just castor lettering was our first real love, and we accept a lot to share with y'all today.

Here are the contents of this guide –

 ane. What is brush lettering?

 2. What supplies practice yous demand?

• Supply #one: Newspaper
• Supply #two: Castor Pens

 3. Why are brush pens peachy for lettering?

 iv. How do you use a brush for calligraphy?

 5. What's the right fashion to hold a brush pen?

 6. How to overcome the most common brush pen struggles

 7. Castor Pen Warm-Up Drills

• Warm-Up #1: Downstrokes
• Warm-Up #2: Upstrokes
• Warm-Up #3: Curved Strokes
• The 7 cardinal strokes

 8. FREE downloadable worksheets

 9. Summary

 x. Bonus 1 –

• Brush pen characteristics (ink type, color selection, size, flexibility, duality, etc.)

 xi. Bonus 2 –

• Castor pen storage tips

Permit's get started with the tutorial!

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 1. What is castor lettering?

Let's ascertain "brush lettering" by breaking it autonomously into the two words: "brush" and "lettering."

• The Brush tin be a brush pen, which is a felt-tip marker with a flexible tip, or an actual paintbrush with beard.
• Lettering tin can be broken down into hand lettering and calligraphy. The main difference is that in mitt lettering, you "describe" the letters, but in calligraphy yous "write" the letters and follow specific rules (learn more than most the difference here ).

In this article, we'll focus on using brush pens to practise calligraphy.

 2. What supplies exercise you need?

You only need two things to get started: a brush pen and newspaper.

But you tin can't just use any old newspaper y'all have sitting around.

Why not?

Well-nigh brush pens are felt-tipped, and they're more than fragile than they look.

Dragging them across rough surfaces, even newspaper that's just slightly textured can pb to fraying.

This breaks down the tip and makes information technology harder to go crisp, thin lines, and can harm the pen.

So what can nosotros exercise to avoid this?

It'southward simple–use smooth newspaper!

Supply #i: Paper

Here are some of our favorites:

• High-quality printer paper, such every bit HP Premium 32lb
• Marker or tracing newspaper, such as Canson Marker Paper
• A pad of very smoothen paper, such as Rhodia pads

If you don't have i of the recommendations above, almost smooth papers will work.

However, you'll also want to proceed in heed the absorbency.

The highly absorbent paper will drain the ink from the pen.

Choosing a shine, low-absorbent newspaper volition make your brush pens last the longest!

When choosing paper, you'll also want to think nigh using guidelines.

You can use a pencil and ruler to draw out straight lines, or you can print guide sheets directly on the paper.

Some other option is to print a canvass of guides to apply with a light pad, or underneath transparent marker newspaper.

If yous keep reading, y'all'll encounter a worksheet with different guide canvass options after on.

Permit's talk virtually the next supply you need – brush pens.

Supply #two: Castor Pens

When it comes to brush pens, in that location are hundreds of options. It can be intimidating, but nosotros'll break information technology down for you now.

We at Loveleigh Loops surveyed over two,000 letterers nigh their favorite brush pens, and the top two results were the Pentel Sign Bear on and Tombow Dual Brush pen.

Both options are piece of cake to use, easy to find, and reasonably priced.

The Pentel is smaller and has a firmer nib than the Tombow Dual.

A few of our other favorite castor pens include:

Zig Brushables.

They're dual-sided with TWO brushes, one low-cal and one night of the same hue. They're also pigment ink, and so they're long-lasting and fade-resistant. The nibs seem to resist fraying more than other like-sized brush pens.

Faber-Castell Pitt Artist castor pen.

These pens are pigmented and fade-resistant. They come in a diversity of lovely colors and are a medium-sized nib. The nibs are reversible, which makes them long-lasting.

Sakura Koi Coloring brush pen.

The Kois come in a variety of really unique colors. The barrel of the pen is short, making them perfect for portability, and they tin create a nice contrast in line thickness.

Zig Fudebiyori.

An excellent option for medium-sized lettering. The pecker is firm and creates delicate hairlines.

Tombow Fudenosuke.

This small-beak brush pen is a staple in the lettering globe. It comes in a hard and soft option, perfect for unlike levels of flexibility and ink flow. They're durable and create beautiful hairlines.

Ecoline Watercolor Brushes.

Probably the juiciest castor pens always! The Ecolines create stunning natural gradients and accept reversible nibs to make them long-lasting. They come in both bright and pastel colors.

 3. Why are brush pens dandy for lettering?

Brush pens are great for lettering because they are much easier to become started compared with a dip pen and ink.

The learning curve is much lower besides as the maintenance aspect – more on that subsequently.

Besides the fact that they are very beginner friendly, here are a couple of more than reasons why we love brush pens.

First off, they come in a variety of colors and ink types.

You tin can create some beautiful colour schemes and corking visual effects!

Here's an instance of blending, which tin can exist washed with h2o-based pens:

But that'due south non all… yous can besides get a range of sizes for the castor tip.

Depending on how big you want to write, yous tin can get fine-tipped pens (like the Pentel Sign Touch) and larger ones (similar the Tombow Dual Castor).

As well, some pens are more flexible than others.

If y'all're very heavy-handed, you might have more success with a firm tip.

Very flexible tips are typically harder control and have lots of practice to feel comfy with.

Past the way, practicing pressure control with brush pens tin can interpret to other tools, such as paintbrushes or dip pens.

The variety of colors, sizes, and flexibility makes information technology like shooting fish in a barrel to find a pen that fits your needs.

Whether you're just practicing, or working on a project, or creating something to share on Instagram, in that location's a pen for you.

More virtually that later!

Oh, and one concluding reason we love brush pens:

they are SO much more portable (and mess-free) than inks or paints.

Y'all can merely throw a few in your bag, and yous're good to go 🙂
At present let's talk most how to actually *use* them.

 4. How practise you use a castor for calligraphy?

The matter that makes script lettering wait similar calligraphy is the variety of stroke weights.

In other words, some parts of the letters are thicker than others.

And then how do yous practise that with a brush?

The cardinal is to change the amount of force per unit area y'all're writing with.

By using lighter pressure (but touch the tip of the castor to the newspaper), you can create a thin line. Pressing down harder on the brush will create a thicker stroke.

Sounds easy enough!

But when you become to try it yourself, you might be unsure of which parts you're supposed to make thicker.

Here'due south the hush-hush: Thick down, thin upwards.

On the word "strength," y'all can see that the areas where the pen moves downward have a thicker line than the other parts of the messages:

The way to attain this is to utilize more pressure on the downstrokes, and less on the upstrokes.

This creates a contrast between the strokes and gives information technology the look of calligraphy.

So what does the pen await similar on thick versus thin strokes?

Let's take a side-view look.

The get-go picture below shows light pressure, with merely the tip of the pen touching the folio.

In the second picture, more pressure is applied and then that more of the nib comes in contact with the paper.

Don't exist nervous nearly pressing down on the flexible tip.

As long as yous're property your pen at about 45-degrees to the page (and non too upright), yous won't impairment it by pressing downwards.

In do, using different amounts of pressure on the messages volition create a calligraphy effect.

Let's look at another example in the word "boggling" below.

You can see that anywhere the pen would travel in a downward direction, the stroke is thicker.

Everywhere else, information technology'due south sparse.

On curves, such as the top and bottom of the oval in the letter of the alphabet 'a,' there are smoothen transitions:

the stroke gradually gets thicker or thinner.

On these transitions, the pen gradually changes from light to heavy force per unit area, or vice-versa.

Some other feature of calligraphy is slant and proportions.

Using guide sheets helps with both of those! Meet how:

While traditional calligraphy scripts have strict rules on the slant angle and how tall the ascender/descender line is versus the ten-height, in that location's a lot more flexibility in modernistic brush lettering.

Whatever proportion and slant await best to you works for us, as long equally you maintain consistency!

We'll talk more about how to practice consistency later in this article.

Okay, now that we know more than about what brush lettering looks like, allow's talk near how to concur the brush pen.

 5. What's the right way to hold a brush pen?

Watch whatsoever brush lettering creative person on Instagram, and yous'll first to come across that in that location are lots of unlike ways to agree the pen.

So the answer is: there isn't only one "correct" way to do it.

What's important is that you accept a grip that is comfortable and allows yous to make contrasting thick and thin strokes.

Start past holding the pen the same way you write with any regular pencil.

Then, make iii adjustments:

1. Relax your grip. Holding too tightly tin can cause pain in your hand.
2. Motion back. Brand sure you're non property likewise closely to the tip. Your fingers should be an inch or so abroad from the tip of the pen.
3. Angle your pen. Pay attention to the angle of the pen compared to the paper. Many people tend to hold it as well upright, which makes it harder to become contrasting stroke weights, and tin damage the pen. Shoot for about 45-degrees to the surface of the table (but you don't need to get out a protractor!)

This is what your grip might look like from a side view:

Information technology takes some fourth dimension getting used to using a castor pen for lettering, but keeping those iii tips in mind will assistance.

 half dozen. How to overcome the most common brush pen struggles

At present, brush lettering tin look actually easy when yous follow tons of talented artists who have been doing this for years.

Just, it can really be quite challenging to get started.

Based on our survey of hundreds of beginner brush letterers, here are the almost common struggles:

1. Knowing which supplies to use
2. Pressure control (shaky upstrokes)
3. Transitioning from thick to sparse strokes
4. Consistency
5. Knowing what to practise

Hopefully, our section about supplies earlier in this article (and the bonus at the stop!) help you lot with Struggle #1.

Now for the difficult part: pressure control, thick-to-thin transitions, and consistency.

The cardinal to solving Struggles #ii-5 is practice…
…but you lot take to do the right kind of practice.

Luckily, we fabricated a resource to help.

Information technology's our brush pen warm-up worksheet, and y'all tin become it for free.

But first, we'll get over some warm-upwards drills also as the 7 basic calligraphy strokes

One time nosotros explicate yous how to practise these drills, you'll be able to download our castor pen warm-upwards worksheet – for both big and small-scale castor pens!

It'due south time to go your tools out and become to piece of work.

 7. Castor Pen Warm-Up Drills

As you practice these strokes, we'd like to remind you of these 3 things:

1. Concur your pen at a 45-degree angle to the paper (i.e., non too upright)
2. Brand your downstrokes thick by applying more pressure. The upstrokes will be thin, requiring less force per unit area on the pen
3. Practice on shine paper

And we also accept a BONUS tip for you lot:

• Go slowly! Actually focus on the force per unit area you lot're applying

Permit'south become into the drills. We'll start with downstrokes.

Warm-Upwards #one: Downstrokes

Place your pen at the pinnacle guideline and printing the tip of the pen into the page. Every bit you draw the stroke, apply an fifty-fifty corporeality of pressure to produce a thick line. Create these at a slight angle to the baseline rather than straight upright.

Practice a full row of these and work on keeping them consistent.

Depending on the pen, you might hear a squeaky sound when yous brand the downstrokes—that's fine!

As long every bit you're keeping the pen angled at 45-degrees and using smooth newspaper, yous won't ruin the pen.

Warm-Up #2: Upstrokes

This drill is the complete opposite of the downstrokes!

We'll start at the lesser and move up, post-obit a slight camber.

Instead of applying pressure, you'll demand to use a lighter touch on.

Don't worry if the thin strokes wait or feel shaky—that's totally normal and will improve with practice.

After practicing thick and thin strokes separately, information technology'south time to combine them with curves.

Warm-Up #iii: Curved Strokes

For the first drill, yous'll start from the baseline and go upwardly, then curve around at the height.

As yous start going back downwardly, add pressure to create a thick line, then permit off the pressure once y'all hit the baseline once again.

Continue support with a sparse stroke.

The second curved drill is the opposite.

Starting with a thick downstroke, curving around to a thin upstroke, and then up and over to a thick downstroke.

Lastly, try creating ovals.

Start at the top and move counter-clockwise.

The left part will be thick and the right, thin.

This video demonstrates these drills in real time:

Adjacent? Practice, practice, practice!

Getting your hand used to create strokes with varying amounts of pressure is and so important.

It'southward best if you tin go consistent strokes within these drills before you even motility into letters.

Once you have them downwards, it will make writing with a brush pen much easier.

Central Strokes

When yous're more comfy using your pen later practicing the warm-upwards drills, we at Loveleigh Loops encourage you to try out the fundamental strokes of the lowercase alphabet.

You'll see that these strokes are simply a combination of the warm-up drills you simply learned.

The 7 fundamental strokes, sometimes chosen basic strokes, are:

1. entrance stroke
2. underturn
3. overturn
4. oval
5. compound curve
6. ascending loop
7. descending loop

Information technology'due south important to practice these shapes because the brand up the lowercase letters of the alphabet.

For example, you lot'll detect the oval in lowercase "a" and "o", and the ascending loop in letters like "h" and "1000".

 8. Gratuitous downloadable worksheets

This worksheet gives y'all drills to assist combat the struggles of force per unit area control, thick-to-thin transitions, and consistency.

You'll do your thick downstrokes, thin upstrokes, and curves/transitions.

We included scans of our actual brush strokes so that you can compare yours to ours.

You tin do these drills with any size brush pen!

But sign up to the newsletter below and you will get full access to the Lettering Crate – an sectional member expanse with all the freebies bachelor on Lettering Daily.

 9. Summary

In this article, we've answered these questions:

• What is castor lettering?
• What supplies practice yous need?
• Why are brush pens great for lettering?
• How do you use a brush for calligraphy?
• What'due south the right way to hold a brush pen?
• How do you lot make the bones strokes?

We've barely scratched the surface of what'southward possible with brush lettering.

Just take a expect at the #brushlettering hashtag on Instagram to see how many amazing works are existence created each day!

Don't forget to grab your gratis worksheet for Brush Pen Warm-Up Drills that volition help you overcome the most common struggles beginners face with brush lettering.

Simply sign up to the Lettering Daily newsletter and become full access to the Lettering Crate and all the available freebies.

Desire to learn even more?

Nosotros've created a beginner-friendly, comprehensive online course called Brush Lettering Bootcamp that will take you from consummate beginner to being able to create lettering with a castor pen.

It includes over half-dozen hours of video lessons plus worksheets that walk you lot through every step—including details that you never even thought you needed to know!

You'll learn –

• brush pen control
• thick and thin transitions
• how to analyze and critique your work to improve
• the complete alphabet
• letter connections
• numbers and symbols
• and much more

Nosotros suspension everything down, and our students continuously tell us virtually the "lightbulb" moments they accept throughout the lessons.

Interested in more info about brush pens?

You're in luck!

We wrote a whole department for you about brush pen characteristics and storage tips.

Read more:

10. BONUS: Brush pen characteristics (ink blazon, colour option, size, flexibility, duality, etc.)

While yous tin get started with just a unmarried brush pen and some polish paper, if you're annihilation similar us, you want to try out ALL the pens.

And there are then many to cull from!

Information technology tin can be overwhelming, and so we'll break downward all the characteristics for y'all.

Once you understand these, you'll be able to cull which i will work best for your project.

Here are the brush pen characteristics:

Nib blazon: Felt versus Bristle

Felt-tip brush pens are a solid tip made of fibers that expect similar a sponge.

These are our favorites for beginners considering they're easier to control.

Bristle-tip brushes have private strands that come together to class the castor.

They're usually more than challenging to control, but you lot can go unique brushy textures with them.

You can also utilise bristle-tip brushes on textured surfaces, whereas felt-tip pens should be used only on smooth newspaper.

The bulk of popular brush pens are felt-tip, and those are also the kind that we prefer.

Flexibility: Soft to Firm

One of the hardest parts about starting with brush pens is learning how to control them.

Using a firm, stiff nib allows for more natural command on the sparse strokes because the tip returns to its original shape after applying pressure.

Firmer tips crave that you press harder on the pen to create a thick stroke.

Flexible nibs are softer and react more rapidly to changes in pressure.

This can make it harder to control the thin upstrokes, but besides allows for cute, juicy thick strokes.

Ink blazon: Dye or Pigment

At present nosotros're getting into some chemistry!

Dye-based means that the colorant is dissolved into the ink solution (usually water), which paint inks accept tiny, insoluble particles that don't dissolve completely.

What yous actually demand to know about this difference is that dye-based inks are generally easier to alloy, only are more prone to fading.

Pigment-based inks resist water and low-cal, so they're longer lasting.

All the same, they're typically harder to blend.

This video demonstrates the difference.

The top ii brush pens are h2o-based and blend easily, fifty-fifty after drying.

The third is a pigmented ink and doesn't blend at all:

Size

Brush pens come in a multifariousness of sizes, from actress-fine to actress-large.

Notation: nosotros're referring to the actual bill, not the size of the barrel of the brush pen.

Smaller nibs are bang-up for item piece of work and smaller scale lettering, such as envelopes, and are typically firmer.

Larger tip pens are generally juicier because more ink tin can flow out, and they tin range from firm to soft.

Even though smaller pens tin can seem easier to learn with, we personally believe that it'due south best to get-go with a larger pecker and so that y'all tin see all of the strokes and connections and get used to force per unit area control.

It's easier to cover up your mistakes with a small nib, or not notice them at all, which makes it more challenging to transition to a larger size later on.

Colors

We're lucky to live in a world where and then many brush pen colors be!

While some brands merely offer black, many provide at to the lowest degree a few color options.

Some have over 50 (!), and you can besides find sets, such every bit pastels or jewel-tones, that go well together.

Other characteristics

Some brush pens are double-sided, with a bullet tip on the other stop, or even another brush tip in a lighter shade.

Y'all tin can as well detect metal inks, which show up beautifully on night newspaper.

 11. Bonus – Castor pen storage tips

In general, the all-time way to store your brush pens is laying downwardly apartment, Not standing upright.

This is so that the brush tip doesn't dry out out (if you lot stored them brush side upward) or get over-saturated (if brush side downwardly).

To keep them laying apartment, you lot can store your brush pens inside of drawers or on shelves.

For a more than organized solution, you tin search for marker storage shelves or create your own DIY storage.

Two notable exceptions to this dominion are the Karin Brushmarker Pro pens, which must be stored upright, and Tombow Dual Brush Pens, which can be stored upright.

You tin can store either of these options standing up with the cap at the top in the stand that comes with the full prepare or in cups.

Thank yous for joining us for some other tutorial.

We hope the contents of his tutorial were useful and that they will help yous improve your brush lettering skills.

Until the next fourth dimension,

Stay AWESOME!

About the author

Loveleigh Loops is an online educational resource for aspiring letterers, co-founded by twin sisters Jillian Reece and Jordan Truster. Jillian Reece is an analyst-turned-entrepreneur. She gravitates towards a modernistic brush calligraphy style and loves figuring out stride-by-stride ways to teach. Her dearest of art and lettering has turned into a full-time passion and there'southward cypher she enjoys more than helping her students achieve their goals. Jordan Truster is an engineer-turned-creative concern owner. She specializes in pointed pen, the Copperplate style, and flourishing. Her applied science background influences her arroyo to teaching calligraphy. She loves to break down complicated concepts into logical steps and teach students how to analyze their work. Jillian and Jordan abound upwardly near Cleveland, Ohio and now live a few houses apart in Dayton, Ohio. They've built a highly engaged and supportive online community.

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