- [Kristina] Hi everyone, Kristina here.
Welcome to another video at my YouTube channel and blog.
Today I'm going to be answering some of your
lettering and calligraphy questions
that I've received at Instagram or on Facebook or my blog
or even in emails that some of you have sent.
And while I answer these questions,
I thought I would just go ahead and show you some of my own
lettering or calligraphy practice
and I'll talk a little bit about practicing
here in a minute.
Before I get into my answers to your questions,
I thought I would go ahead and just tell you
what I'm going to be using in this video.
I'm using a FineTech palette,
this is the Garden Pastel, or maybe Pastel Garden.
I'm not entirely sure.
But I will have it linked down in the supply list below
in the video description or at my blog,
so if you see anything in this video
and you are wondering where I got it,
I'll have it listed down below.
I'm using a watercolor brush to pick up some of that paint
in the palette and applying it to this pointed pen
calligraphy nib.
I'm using a pen holder from Ink Me This dot com.
I've recently just received this in the mail,
I was looking for a fun pen holder to use,
it's definitely not inexpensive.
So if you're just starting out,
don't go for one of these fancy ones,
you want just a really inexpensive plastic one at first.
And I'll link to some plastic ones below too
if you wanna try those out.
But this is a beautiful pen holder
and I'm really loving it.
And I didn't know that it would come with a nib in it,
but it did, and I'll list the type of nib that's
in this pen below as well.
So I'm just picking up the paint from that palette,
from the FineTech palette, and applying it to my pen
so I can do some calligraphy.
Okay so.
Oh and also the notebook that I'm using
is from Ink Me This dot com and okay so
one of the most common questions that I receive
is what is my experience with calligraphy or lettering,
did I take a class, how did I learn to do this?
So my calligraphy experience goes back almost 20 years,
which seems crazy.
But when I was in high school,
one of my friends in my classes, her name is Coco.
She was involved with calligraphy,
she had been since she was 12 years old.
And her handwriting was beautiful.
And she would write on the board in our class
and I was just amazed.
I've always loved penmanship and handwriting,
so when I saw hers, I was just completely enthralled
and was so curious and wanted to know
how she had learned to do that.
So I asked her and she said she had been doing calligraphy
and that she was sending postcards to some friends
and she just really took every opportunity to write
as an opportunity to practice her calligraphy
and her writing.
And I really took that to heart.
So another friend that was in the same class with Coco,
we were both interested in calligraphy
after she had talked about it,
we decided to take a calligraphy class at night.
This was just a community ed class.
Very beginning introductory calligraphy class.
We learned italic calligraphy,
which is a style of calligraphy that you do
with a chiseled pen, it's the flat square tip.
And that was really fun, I was introduced
to a bunch of different supplies in that class
and our teacher was really knowledgeable,
was really fun.
So if you have the opportunity to take some sort of
community ed class or even if there's a calligrapher
in your community that has classes,
I would really highly recommend trying that out.
Anyway, so I took that one class
and then it was just all on my own after that,
and the class only lasted I think just five classes.
So it wasn't very extensive.
But the thing that I really took from that
very first class, even though I wasn't very experienced
after I finished it, is that you really have to practice.
You have to practice, you have to set aside the time
every day to do a little bit of writing,
whether you're writing the alphabet
or just one letter over and over and over,
you're never going to improve if you don't give yourself
the opportunity to improve.
So you really do have to give yourself
lots of time to practice.
So over the years, I never really had
a really steady practice or exercise time set aside,
it was mostly just whenever I had the opportunity,
I would practice things out.
And I think in the last few years,
I've really taken it upon myself
to force myself to practice.
I've been doing a lot of lettering on Instagram
over the last few years.
You guys have probably seen that if you follow me
on Instagram.
And just knowing in the back of my mind
that I need to do more lettering for Instagram
has really helped me develop my own style
when it comes to different lettering.
So that's my experience with lettering,
I've just done it off and on for nearly 20 years,
so it's been a really fun experience.
So okay, so that's my experience with it.
Another question that I get a lot is
where to start, what class can I take?
What supplies do I need?
All along those lines.
So this is what I recommend to all of you who email me
or message me about this.
I send you over to Instagram
because there are so many amazing calligraphers
and lettering artists over at Instagram.
So I would really recommend going over there
and following a bunch of people
that you really love their style.
See what they're doing,
maybe even join some of their monthly challenges.
There are quite a few lettering and calligraphy
monthly challenges out there
where they actually give you a prompt
for each day of the month.
So let's say for the seventh of April,
it has a short phrase, maybe it's something like
smile every day.
Just something really short.
And it gives you a prompt so you know what to write
for that day.
And then you can take a picture of it
and share it on your own Instagram feed.
So it's really fun way to get involved with that.
And then also if you are doing those challenges,
or you're practicing and sharing it on your Instagram,
or on your Facebook or wherever,
you have a history of all of your practice,
and you can see how you improve over time.
I look back at some of my first lettering Instagram posts
from a few years ago, and I can see that I've improved
just in the last couple years.
So it's something that you can do
that will get you practicing
and you'll also be more aware
of different styles that are out there
because you're seeing what other people are doing as well.
Along those same lines if you find someone
who has a style that you absolutely love,
sometimes they will offer a class.
So I would recommend taking a class
from someone who has the style that you really love.
I've been hoping to put together a class for ages
and I just haven't had the time to do it
and I don't know that I will,
so in the mean time, if you find someone who has
a style that you love, take a chance.
Go ahead and take the class.
If you wanna ask them questions about the class
before you sign up, you could do that on Instagram
or on their website or whatever.
But there are some amazing lettering platforms out there.
Whether it's brush lettering or pointed pen
or modern calligraphy, just anything,
there's so many great classes out there.
And then as far as what supplies you need,
if you're just starting out, at the most basic,
you could just use a pencil and a piece of paper.
Because a lot of calligraphers,
when they have classes, at the very beginning of the class,
they actually have you practice with just a pencil.
For a period of time.
And that's just to help you get to know
the different letter forms.
So you can start with whatever you have on hand.
Whether it's a pencil or a pen.
If you want to venture into brush markers
or things like that, which I find are the easiest
to get to know the lettering and calligraphy with.
I would really recommend Tombow Dual and Pens.
Those are really great,
a lot of people start out with those.
I would also recommend that Pentel Fude Touch Sign Pens.
I'll have all of these linked down below as well.
I would start there, those are two different markers or pens
that are really really fun to use.
And if you want to go straight
into the watercoloring lettering,
which I find to be a little bit more challenging,
just because there is that added step
of making sure you have enough paint on your brush.
I would recommend probably just an inexpensive
round brush, maybe a size two or below.
And then just a watercolor paint set.
Like nothing super fancy,
just whatever you can get your hands on.
I practice with a lot of just gel pens
and lined paper notebooks.
It doesn't have to be fancy.
And it doesn't have to be something
you're going to hang on your wall.
It could be something you just keep in a notebook.
Kind of like what I'm doing with these
Letter Tuesday videos,
I'm keeping everything in a notebook
because I just wanna see how I improve over time.
So those are some answers to common
lettering and calligraphy questions that I receive.
This is a little bit of a talking video,
hope you guys were okay with that.
I'll be back tomorrow with a regular card video,
so if you guys are, those who are subscribed
or are watching for card videos,
I will have more for you tomorrow.
Thanks so much for watching
and I will catch you guys in the next video.
(upbeat music)
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