Lina's Ways to learn Calligraphy & Lettering MightE Made It

So you want to learn calligraphy and lettering?

Hi! I’m Lina. I’m a mama, maker, lover of lettering and children’s librarian based in Chicago. You made it to this page because you are interested in learning brush lettering. Great! I won’t be the one teaching you BUT I will point you in the direction of ALL of the resources, classes, lessons, blog posts, you tube videos and Instagram accounts that I follow and have been inspiration my learning journey. I am always learning something new and look for creative ways to incorporate my lettering into craft and DIY projects. For more information on my Calligraphy and Crafting projects can be found here. All personas listed have been linked to their instagram where you can find more information on each person. If you have any questions please let me know!

You’re On the internet, so I’m going to point you in the direction of internet spaces where I found GREAT resources for learning brush lettering & calligraphy:

Crayligraphy

Did you know you could do brush lettering with regular degular (but awesomely awesome) Crayola Broad Tip & Super Tip Markers. That’s where I started:

Amy Latta (formerly One Artsy Mama)

Her information on being a total newbie was so helpful when I began. Faux-ligraphy is a great starting point when you’re not entirely sure how the upstroke/downstroke language works.

https://www.amylattacreations.com/2015/11/basic-hand-lettering-joy.html

Basic Hand Lettering is just that! THE BASICS! I bought office depot premium laser paper and the Tombow Fudenosuke pens and got busy! There are absolutely NO photographs of the work I made at this time because I was:

Not confident enough to photograph the work I made,

Threw out most of my notebooks with my beginner lettering when it got full,
Not entirely ready to embrace the struggle art phase of learning something new

The linked posts below the basic hand lettering information were also frequently visited during my crafting time.

Dawn Nicole Designs

I love her color play and quirkiness of her designs. She was the first person I had ever seen do ipad lettering. It was her giveaway for a full set of Tombow Dual Tip Brush Pens that piqued my interested into ‘entering the big leagues’ and buying dual tip brush pens.

https://bydawnnicole.com/hand-lettering-101/

Her freebies I kept on stand-by! She was the inspiration for me to make my own lettering practice sheets that embrace my stroke size and preference. You can find my sheets here.

The Postman’s Knock

HERE IS SOME OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL LETTERING I HAVE EVER SEEN. Lindsey has a great resource on pencil calligraphy (which I do in my free time. i have some beautiful grocery lists.) it helps develop an understanding of modern calligraphy concepts without necessarily having to purchase brush tip markers (which may be expensive for some). Grab your pencil, her printables and get busy!

Pieces Calligraphy

Her work is also very beautiful! Her alphabet series really helped me step my game up with more challenging letters (I’m looking at you q, k, z and x) and the idea of lettering different people’s name was so simple yet effective. I work in a public library and I am encountering 100s of different names every week.

Veronica Letters

She’s got skills! Her work is fun, colorful and funny. It was also her blog post on how she records her lettering videos was helpful for me when I began.

Ensign Insights

If you need a positive reminder. This is your stop! Her work is always bright, colorful and positive.

Additional Tips:

Also searching for Brush Lettering Tutorial on YouTube was very helpful as well.

I also have an account on skillshare.com which I frequent for more artsy classes and reinforcement in places where I struggle. The self-paced learning is truly beneficial and for some classes there are supplemental learning materials that are great as well.