When you think of hand lettering, images of calligraphy pens, watercolor brushes, or double-tipped markers might come to mind.
One of my favorite things about lettering (and art in general) is its tangible nature, including how the paper feels in my hands, and even the whisper of the ink as it comes to life.
My curiosity piqued when I first heard about Emily Cromwell’s new Lettering Lesson about converting hand lettering to a digital vector. It’s easy to be intimidated by digital art at first, but there are definite advantages to giving it a try, as Emily explains.
“Lettering by hand is fun and lends itself to many things: invitations, art journal pages, wall art, and more. What’s even better is turning your work into a digital vector so you can use words and phrases in many different ways.
“A vector is a digital image that can be resized, and it will never blur or pixelate. When you digitize your hand lettering, you can change not only the size but also the colors, and use it for pretty much any application, over and over: cards, tote bags, calendars–almost anything that has lettering.”
Another advantage is that once your art is digital, it has an endless lifespan. It’ll be much easier to part with it as you sell or give your handmade pieces to others, knowing that you can easily duplicate it again, with or without additional changes.
In this Lettering Lesson, Emily walks you through the steps of using Adobe Illustrator. Even if you’ve never used the software before, you can follow along and convert your marks to a digital file that you can edit and embellish.
What makes the technique even more user-friendly is that the materials are simple: artist pens, sketchpad, pencil, eraser, scanner (or a phone or tablet), and Adobe Illustrator. Save your work online, and you’ll be able to access it anywhere. It could open up a whole new world for you.
Happy (digital) lettering,
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