One of the biggest mistakes beginners make when practicing any kind of lettering is not using guidelines. Writing or painting letters on blank paper is never a good idea.
Did you know you can use the Kelly Creates Grid Practice paper to practice your lettering? This specialty paper pad is heavyweight but much less expensive than using watercolour paper to practice your lettering.
If I use watercolour paper to practice, then I draw pencil guidelines with my ruler. No one practices without lines…not even the professionals. When I film my videos for social media, I never use lines because it’s all about the visual effect of the video…however, this isn’t the reality when I write or paint words.
I often get the question “How do you write so straight?” Actually, I don’t write that straight in my videos, but the angle of the camera and the focus on the writing gives the illusion that it’s straight. At this point, I can often write fairly straight without lines on blank paper, but that is not my goal, and it shouldn’t be yours either.
In the ‘Create” watercolour lettering above, I used the Kelly Creates Poppy and Orange Watercolor Inks from my Watercolour “Warm” set with my Size 2 Kelly Creates Lettering Brush.
Here is a video where I demo how to use the Kelly Creates Grid practice paper and also how to practice with guidelines on watercolour paper. Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube Channel so you don’t miss future videos. I had taken a break from YouTube, but now I’m back and excited to share more tutorials with you every week!
Click HERE to download the free “Create” worksheet or click the image below.
You can paint right onto your printer paper or you can use tracing paper on top to practice painting with the template as your guide. I recommend my Kelly Creates Watercolor Lettering brushes and palette. The brushes are sizes 1-4 Round and are perfect for painting the letters. .
To really improve your watercolor lettering skills, I highly recommend using my workbooks to practice. There is a script workbook, a block style alphabet workbook and a third workbook for words and phrases in a variety of styles. Click HERE to see the workbooks in my online store or click the image below.
