Laura Lavender’s Lettering Lesson, Heraldry-Inspired Lettering (Volume 21), will send you back in time for inspiration. Learn about supporters, banners, and decorative elements with regal roots, and build a custom design. Add new styles to your hand-lettering repertoire that will give a historic feel to your art. Then, create an inspiring piece that incorporates your hand lettering with these heraldry-inspired designs for a hand-lettered piece that’s both elegant and fun.
Provided with a few different fonts to try out, I played around with the letters for a while, and really loved the style of these fonts. They have an elegance and formal feel that was easy to work with.
This lesson has plenty of heraldry-inspired designs to choose from. I selected a few and added some of my own. Working with a mechanical pencil, I traced Laura’s unicorn image, as I decided to create this piece for my granddaughter. Laura’s suggestion to flip the supporter image was a good one, so both sides matched, and easily done with the aid of a sunny window for tracing.
I built the sketch from there, adding a large shield with a C and a banner below. Given my choice of unicorns, I added stars and small dots for a whimsical feel. I chose Lombard-inspired letters for the C and the name on the banner. I had had the most fun with that style when practicing, and thought it fit this piece.
Watercolors and a detail brush made adding color to this piece a breeze. The unicorns had to be flashy, so, after mixing a silvery gray for their bodies, primary colors were called for for their manes and tails. I mixed some pink for the lettering and the shield and banner, added yellow to the stars, and finished with small blue dots surrounding the stars.
Add a royal feeling to your hand lettering with this Lettering Lesson and the heraldry-inspired designs and fonts.