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    Hand Lettering for Relaxation: An Inspirational Workbook for Creating Beautiful Lettered Art
    Hand Lettering for Relaxation: An Inspirational Workbook for Creating Beautiful Lettered Art
    Hand Lettering for Relaxation: An Inspirational Workbook for Creating Beautiful Lettered Art
    Ebook367 pages3 hours

    Hand Lettering for Relaxation: An Inspirational Workbook for Creating Beautiful Lettered Art

    By Amy Latta

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A Fun & Inspiring Introduction to the Art of Hand Lettering

    Hand Lettering for Relaxation is the perfect way to cultivate calmness and joy while creating beautiful works of art. While hand lettering can look intimidating, artist and blogger Amy Latta has a friendly and down-to-earth approach that will give you the confidence to draw impressive designs with ease. Learn how to create a lovely brush-lettered look with easy, no-fail faux calligraphy. Then add pretty embellishments such as vines, roses, banners, ribbons, swirls and feathers that take your designs to the next level. You’ll also get a beginner’s guide to real brush lettering, plus fun print fonts and ways to highlight, shadow or emboss your words. With 46 unique workshops, each with a featured motivational design, you will gain enough proficiency to proudly share your lettered art on social media, make personalized gifts and even decorate your home.

    In this interactive workbook, doodling on the high-quality art paper is highly encouraged! Use it to letter the featured design with the new technique you learned, create your own design or simply enjoy some meditative practice. No matter how you use it, this book is sure to help you relax, enjoy your creative journey and make your life more beautiful wherever you are.

    Keep the relaxation flowing with these other books in Amy Latta's bestselling hand lettering workbook series:
    - Hand Lettering for Laughter
    - Hand Lettering for Faith
    - Express Yourself: A Hand Lettering Workbook for Kids

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJul 11, 2017
    ISBN9781624144813
    Hand Lettering for Relaxation: An Inspirational Workbook for Creating Beautiful Lettered Art
    Author

    Amy Latta

    Amy Latta is a hand lettering artist and the author of eight books, including Doodle Everything! and Practice Makes Progress. Her work has been featured in advertisements for Starbucks and Gap stores, and she is the founder of AmyLattaCreations.com. She resides in Hampstead, Maryland.

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    Reviews for Hand Lettering for Relaxation

    4.5/5

    16 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I loved the creative ideas and step-by-step details in this book. I tried almost every example she provided (using my black fine tip pen and a bunch of colored markers) and came away with a bunch of new “favorite” lettering techniques to use in projects. You will not be disappointed in this book! Every chapter has something you’ll enjoy recreating and making your own.
    • 5/5
      Amy Latta is a frontrunner at hand lettering. She shows you how to create all sorts of nice looking stuff. Lots of handy hints and helpful tips to make your hand lettering stand out. Love it.

    Book preview

    Hand Lettering for Relaxation - Amy Latta

    ONE

    EASIEST–EVER FAUX CALLIGRAPHY

    Hand lettering encompasses a huge variety of styles and techniques, many of which we’re going to look at together in the coming workshops! The most common style associated with it, though, is brush calligraphy. The actual technique of brush lettering takes a good bit of time and practice to master, and I promise we’ll do just that a little later on in our time together. For now, though, to get started quickly, we’re going to learn some very simple faux calligraphy. This will give you the look of brush lettering in just a few basic steps. Honestly, anyone can do it, and you’ll be creating beautiful lettered art in no time.

    RENEW & RECHARGE

    If your life is anything like mine, you spend so much of your time and energy taking care of the people around you that at the end of the day, there’s very little left. Some of you have children at home who demand all of your time and attention. Some of you are caring for aging parents or sick relatives. All of us have responsibilities managing our homes, doing laundry, preparing meals and looking out for the interests of whomever is in our care. In the end, the many hats we wear can leave us feeling just plain worn out. The truth is, we need to make sure that in the midst of taking care of everyone else, we intentionally carve out time to care for ourselves too. If we keep on giving without ever recharging, we’ll quickly find ourselves with nothing left to give. I know lots of women who feel guilty about taking time just for themselves, but the reality is that when we do, it makes us better wives, moms, daughters, sisters and friends. There are tons of different ways to take some me time. The key is to intentionally plan it into our schedule. If we keep waiting for a free moment, it will never come. Instead, plan a certain time of day or a certain hour each week when you get uninterrupted time to do whatever energizes you. One great way to do this is by setting aside a specific time each week to reflect and allow yourself to be creative while following along with the prompts in this book. As we walk through a variety of hand-lettering techniques, don’t focus on being perfect—enjoy the journey and let it be a relaxing experience that’s just for you.

    Let’s dive into our first workshop!

    FAUX CALLIGRAPHY WORKSHOP

    Our first prompt is a simple one; we’re going to letter the phrase It’s Me Time! to remind ourselves that this hobby is our time to relax and recharge.

    Let’s begin by learning how to use faux calligraphy to write the word time, then you can use those same skills to write the other words in the phrase. Ready?

    STEP 1

    Write the word time in cursive, leaving a little bit of extra space in between your letters.

    Any type of marker will work for this, or even a pen or pencil if that’s all you have on hand.

    You can use as much or as little of a slant as you want, but I’ve noticed that most of the hand lettering I particularly like tends to be pretty much vertical. You can play around with it as you practice, but for starters, try making your letters straight up and down. Typically, I write my cursive letters continuously, without picking up my pen during a word to keep things looking smooth. While you don’t want to rush through your lettering, keep your hand relaxed and moving at your normal writing speed, because moving too slowly can cause your lines to appear shaky.

    STEP 2

    Find the downstrokes and draw a second line next to them.

    What’s a downstroke? It’s any place where your marker is moving in a downward direction when you naturally write the word. As you get more comfortable with the technique, you’ll learn where these strokes are for each letter of the alphabet. Below, I’ve illustrated for you where those spots are in the word time.

    STEP 3

    Fill in the double line areas with your marker to create the illusion of thicker lines.

    In the process, you can make any little corrections you need to if some of your lines were shaky or not quite what you wanted.

    That’s all there is to it! Now it’s your turn. Practice the word time in the space below. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. The key to learning lettering, like any other skill, is repetition, so just keep on trying over and over again. Let yourself be focused and calm as you practice; remember that this is a journey, not a race!

    Are you ready to create your lettered phrase? Use the space on the next page to try all three words, it’s me time. You can arrange them in any way you like. A good practice when creating a design is to first use a pencil and a straightedge to sketch horizontal guidelines for yourself. These will help keep your writing straight. Once you have your line, you can pencil in where you want your words to go, to make sure you like the spacing and layout. Then, trace over the words with your marker to create the finished design. The last step is to go back and erase your pencil lines once the ink has dried.

    TWO

    NEXT–LEVEL LAURELS, WREATHS & VINES

    Certainly one of the most important components of lettering involves writing letters themselves, but there’s more to it than just the alphabet. Embellishments are a key element of creating hand lettered art. Things like flourishes, frames, arrows and vines help transform a piece of text into a piece of art. In this workshop, we’ll be looking at one of the most basic embellishments and learning to combine it with our faux calligraphy to take your lettering to the next level.

    PRACTICE MAKES PROGRESS

    All of us are familiar with the saying, Practice makes perfect. Honestly? It’s not true! None of us are perfect, no matter how hard we try. We can practice forever and still not reach that goal. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile to keep practicing and learning. No matter what we’re doing, what we need to remember is that practice does make something: progress. Every time we do something another time, we get better at it, whether it’s hand lettering, cooking or playing a musical instrument. The more you try, the better you’ll become. Instead of getting frustrated that you’re not able to create the letters or embellishments perfectly, focus on the process and your progress. Is what you did today a little bit better than yesterday? Give yourself permission to celebrate that! Do the same thing each day and over time, you’ll look back and be amazed at how far you’ve come!

    Ready for the next step?

    LAURELS, WREATHS & VINES WORKSHOP

    As a reminder not to set unreachable goals, we’re going to letter this phrase, Practice makes progress, then add a simple, lovely vine embellishment to make it even more beautiful.

    First, we’re going to write the phrase using the faux calligraphy technique we worked on in the last workshop (here). Remember, just start by writing in cursive and leaving a little extra space between letters. Then add your double line on the downstrokes and fill it in to create the brush lettering look!

    Next, we’ll add the embellishment. The laurel, or leafy vine, is one of the most popular ways to add a decorative touch to your lettering, and it’s really easy to do. All you need to do is combine a few basic shapes, and you’ll be embellishing your work in no time.

    STEP 1

    Draw a curving line. It can be as long, short, straight or curved as you

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