Beginner Dual Brush Pen Lettering Workshop

hi I'm Brittany Louise with tombow and I'm excited to be teaching you how to use dual brush pens for hand lettering I'm an artist author and hand lettering instructor who's taught hundreds of students how to use these dual brush pens for lettering and I'm really excited that I get to teach you too in this class you're going to learn how to use the dual brush pens to create a beautiful brush lettered script you'll learn the entire alphabet by the end of the class and we're going to put together a really fun hand lettered piece of art that you can display your workspace we'd love to see your progress as you work through the class so if you share your work online please be sure to tag us using at tombow USA and the hashtag learn Mutombo all right guys let's get started in this class we'll be using the tropical dual brush pen ten pack for the final project but if you already own dual brush pens you can use any of the colors you have in your stash dual brush pens are ideal for brush lettering because they have a flexible brush tip that allows you to create thicker thin strokes by changing the amount of pressure you apply to the pen they also come in 108 colors so they're perfect for adding lots of color to your hand lettered projects before we get started with the lessons you'll want to download the worksheets so you can follow along you can find them on the home page of this course paper is super important when you're using dual brush pens so I want to show you my favorites for preserving your brush tips I've printed the worksheets on HP premium 32 LaserJet paper which is the only printer paper I'd recommend using with these brush pens if you'd rather use regular copy paper you can put tracing paper on top of your worksheets and practice that way which is a great way to be able to reuse the worksheets over and over for the final project we'll be using Strathmore 300 series mixed media paper this paper is a little thicker but it's still smooth enough that it won't fray your brush tips the first page of your downloadable worksheets covers lettering terminology I've included all the major terms and explanations of them here so you can refer back to them if you ever forget I'm going to go over them briefly now since I'll be talking about them throughout the rest of the class first we'll start with the ACE underline the ACE under line is the moat the topmost part of where your ace endures rest a senders are letters with strokes that extend past this middle x-height line to the ACE underline so then the x-height that's roughly where the middle of your letters are going to live and it's also where most of your lowercase letters will hit so most of your lowercase level letters will be at that height your base line is where your letters rest with the exception of descenders this is the line where the bottom most portion of your letter will sit so your descenders are letters like your lowercase G they're letters that will extend down below your base line a crossbar is just a thin horizontal stroke that intersects a letter your bowl is a closed-off curved part of a letter a flourish is an exaggerated swash that's added to a letters tail crossbar or entry stroke or exit stroke the upstroke is the part of the letter made by your hand moving up the page this stroke should always be fin in brush lettering and lastly your down stroke is the part of the letter that's made by your hand moving down the page this stroke should always be thick in brush lettering if you've never used a brush pin before it's important to know how to properly hold the pen so you can achieve the thick and thin strokes needed for the modern calligraphy style we're going for you'll want to hold the pen at a roughly 45 degree angle when your lettering this enables you to use the thickest part of the brush tip for your down strokes and the thinnest part for your up strokes so let's get started practicing our basic strokes the first stroke we're going to practice is the down stroke for your down stroke you're going to start at the a center line and apply heavy consistent pressure all the way down to your baseline I always like to tell people to apply way more pressure to these brush pens than you think you really should they're made to withstand a lot of pressure so make sure that you're really putting a lot of pressure on your down stroke so that you can get that really really thick line and you'll notice that I'm going pretty slowly throughout this lettering is definitely not a race and I know that we're all used to seeing those super sped up videos on Instagram but this is actually about the speed that you should be going especially when you're first getting started so you can continue to practice along this page and now we're going to move on to the up stroke so for the up stroke instead of using all of the body of the brush tip we're really only focusing on the very very tip of the brush pin so again with that 45 degree angle you're going to start at the baseline and you're just barely going to touch the tip of your pen to the page as you move slowly up to the a center line this is actually one of the hardest strokes so don't be concerned if your strokes look a little bit wonky at first the more that you practice the more you're going to develop what's called muscle memory your hand is going to get a lot smoother your lines won't look so Wiggly but it definitely comes with practice so that's why stroke practice is really important it can be great to use to just kind of get warmed up before you start doing your letters so I'll do one more and then we'll move on to combine the two so you're going to combine a Finn upstroke where we're starting at the baseline kind of diagonally toward the x-height and then we're going to move diagonally back to the baseline with a heavy down stroke and putting lots of pressure so you'll notice that I've got some different numbers on your worksheet one is always going to be where you start and then if there's a two or three then you can pick up your pen in these places you definitely don't have to but I want to show you a few different ways that you can do make these strokes so if you're not going to pick up your pen you'd start again at the baseline with a really light up stroke just barely touching the page and then once you hit the x-height you'll press down lots of pressure diagonally to the baseline so you can see here you can do it with lots of picking up your pen and repositioning or you can do it where you're not picking up your pen much at all it's really a personal preference next we'll move on to our curves so curves again we're combining our up strokes with our down strokes but instead of having that hard angle at the x-height or the baseline we're going to curve around so we'll start here at the baseline and we're going to curve up to the X height and as you come around that curve you'll press really hard on the brush pen to get that thick down stroke to the baseline and then come back up to the X height press for that heavy down stroke as you come around the curve at the baseline ease up on your pressure and then come back to your X so practice that a few times it's a little challenging at first I know and then the last stroke that we're going to practice are our circle strokes so the circular strokes I like to start them here where I've got this one it's this place just below the x-height and what that does is it gives you a little bit of a light upstroke before you transition into the heavy curving down stroke toward the baseline and then you curve around and ease up on your pressure as you meet now that can be kind of challenging for beginners because you're basically meeting in a really thin spot of your upstroke so if that freaks you out then you can start right at the x-height and you can go immediately into your heavy curving down stroke and then that way you're meeting up at the x-height it's really a personal preference I encourage you to try both ways and see which one you prefer and which one comes more naturally to you let's use the strokes we just covered to get started learning the alphabet we're not writing here but rather drawing the letters by combining different strokes I've ordered the letters so that they build off each other and we start with the easiest first and then work our way up to the harder letters so let's get started with T remember that you have these numbers and arrows to guide you throughout so we're going to start with number one with the ace underlined we're gonna start at the a center line and do a heavy down stroke toward the base line and just do a like a little light up stroke curve and then we'll add our crossbar nice and light across I'm going to do each letter twice you've got a couple of opportunities to see them so we'll start again at the a center line to the base line come up and curve and then light cross stroke for your eye you'll start at the x-height heavy down stroke to the base line come up with a light curve and then you'll dot your eye again x-height heavy down to the baseline curve up and dot your eye for your V you'll start at the x height with a heavy down stroke that comes diagonally to the base line I like to lift my pen here and reposition so that I get that really hard angle for the V so you can really tell the difference between your vineyards and your you so you'll start again at the base line and you'll come up to the x height and then kick out just a little bit for an exit stroke so x height heavy diagonal down to the base line lift and then from the base line up to your X height and a little bit of a light exit stroke for your you you'll start at the x height and heavy down stroke down to the base line and come around that curve ease up on your pressure all the way back to the x-height and then you'll start again where you left off at the exite and you'll cover a little bit of that stroke with your down stroke down to the baseline and then curve back around so x-height heavy down to the baseline curve around up with light pressure and lift your pen and start again at the x-height come back down to the baseline with heavy pressure and then finish it off with a light upstroke for your w we'll start at the x height heavy down stroke to the baseline curve around and come back to the x height and I lift my pen here and then reposition at the x height heavy down stroke curving to the baseline come around with light pressure and then finish it off with a light exit stroke then heavy down to the baseline light up back to the x height lift heavy down to the baseline curve very little pressure as you come back up and finish off your stroke for your Y you'll start at the x height heavy down stroke curve around at the baseline and ease up on your pressure back to the x height and then start again with a heavy down stroke that extends past the baseline curve to the left and then finish off that stroke with a light up stroke have you pressure down curve around back to your x height and then reposition heavy down past the baseline and then curve around for Jay we'll start here at the x height and we're gonna calm down past the baseline curve to your left and then finish off your stroke with a light up stroke and then you will dock your Jay from the x-height lots of pressure down past the baseline and then we're going to ease up curve around and dot for your n you'll start at the x height heavy down stroke straight to the base line and you can lift here and then reposition back of the base line with a curving upstroke to the x height and then a little bit of a curving down stroke to your base line and then finish it off with a little bit of a light stroke up so have you down to the base line lift and then light up curve around x height lots of pressure and then ease up as we come around that curve for your M we'll start at the x height heavy down to the base line lift light up curve around at the x height heavy down and then you can lift again at the base line and then light up to the x height curve lots of pressure on your down stroke and then we'll ease out with just a little bit of pressure on that upstroke heavy down to your base line lift light up to your X height and curve around heavy again and lift and then reposition another light curving up stroke and then come back down to your base line and then finish it out with a light upstroke for your P you're going to start the same way as you do your J and you're basically just extending out that stroke so you're going to come from the x height down past the base line and ease up on your pressure as you curve to the left and then when you pass over that down stroke you're going to keep coming up to the x height and then curve back around toward your baseline and then finish out your stroke with a little upstroke inside of your bowl so heavy down from the x-height past your baseline curve around and continue up to your x height push lots of pressure down curving to the baseline and then finish out inside the bowl all right now we have some a senders on this page so for your first a sender we're going to do a lowercase L for that L you can start you know right around your X height maybe just a little bit below and you're going to have a light curving up stroke toward your ace underline when you come around that line you'll push lots and lots of pressure as you come down to your baseline and then finish out your stroke with a light up stroke here we'll do that one more time like curving up toward the a center line so you come around that curve lots and lots of pressure down to your baseline and then ease up on the pressure as you come back up your H will be formed pretty similarly to your L so you'll start here around the x height with that light curving up stroke toward the a centerline heavy down to the baseline and then here we're going to lift our pen to reposition and start at the baseline come up with a light stroke toward the x-height and as you come around that curve lots of pressure down to the baseline and then finish it out with a light up stroke one more time light curving up stroke toward the ACE underline lots of pressure down to your baseline and you can lift your pen around my hand starts to cramp if I do this too much so I like to a lot you'll start at the baseline and come up toward your X height with little pressure and then lots of pressure as you come back down to the baseline and finish it off with a light upstroke your B you'll see you start the same way as the L right here around the x height and we'll do that light curving up stroke to the ACE underline come around with lots of pressure down to your baseline and you can lift here and then reset at the baseline with a light curving up stroke that then transitions into a heavy curving down stroke at the baseline you'll ease up on your pressure and you'll finish out the stroke inside the bowl with a light upstroke start again light up to that a centerline heavy down to your baseline reposition light curving up toward your x height and then heavy curving down to the baseline and finish with a light up stroke inside your bowl for your K you'll start in the same place that we've been starting on this whole page right here around the x height light up stroke toward the ACE underline heavy down stroke toward your baseline and then you can stop and reposition and then here what I like to do is start again at the baseline and come around with a light up stroke and for my down stroke right here for this bowl of the K I only apply about half pressure so that it doesn't take on too much weight on this side of the K you'll notice that this stroke isn't quite as thick as this stroke I think it balances out the K a little bit better so we'll do this again with a light curving up stroke toward your a centerline heavy down to the baseline gonna reposition and we're going to come up with a light stroke and then about half pressure until we connect and then a light stroke to finish it out for your f you'll start just a little bit above the baseline and you're going to do that big light curving stroke toward your a centerline and then a heavy down stroke past the baseline and curve around and back up and finish that off really light so let's do that one more time light up and heavy down come around past your baseline and light to finish things off your C is really similar to our circle stroke except we're not going to connect the two strokes together so you'll start in this area below your X height with a light curving up stroke and then when you come around that curve at the x height you'll play lots of pressure carving down to the baseline and then ease up for a light stroke up to finish it off so light up into the left to your x height heavy down to the baseline and then light up to finish things off your a is going to start the same way that your C does so we'll start here just below the x height and we're gonna have a little bit of a light upstroke and then when we come around this curve lots of pressure down to the baseline and then come around the curve ease up on your pressure and I pull this all the way back up to the x height and then I lift my pen reposition back at the x height and then a heavy down stroke that curves to the baseline and then curve back up with light sure so you'll start with this light upstroke transition lots of pressure to the baseline and then ease up on your pressure and come back up to the x height and then start where you left off x height heavy down to the baseline and curve up around you'll start your d in the same spot so that's a little bit of a light curving up stroke to the x height heavy curving down stroke to the baseline and then you're going to come back and meet the two so it's almost like you're doing a circle and then where you meet I always pull my pen over just a little bit to the right and that's where I'm going to start the second part of my strokes to make this D so if you look at it you're really combining a circle stroke with that L so we're going to start here just below the x height with a light up stroke that curse to the a center line and then a heavy down stroke all the way to the baseline and then lighten up as you come around that curve and so that is going to hide those strokes where you met before we'll do that one more time so like curving up to the x height heavy kerning down to the baseline and then light back up to where they meet and then right where they meet just pull your pen over just a little bit and we'll do that light curving up stroke to the ACE underline heavy down to the baseline and then light up for your Q it's pretty much an A but instead of stopping at the baseline we're gonna go down past it to make it a descender so we will start here below the x height with a light curving up stroke heavy curving down stroke to the baseline you'll come come back up all the way to your ex height and then reposition start at your ex height with a heavy down stroke that goes past your baseline and you're gonna curve to the right and ease up on your pressure with a light upstroke to finish it off right one more time light curving up to the x height heavy curving down to the baseline and then come back nice and light up to your x height reposition lots of pressure as you come down past your baseline and then curve out to the right with little pressure for your G you'll start here below the x height with a light upstroke and heavy curving down stroke to the baseline and then you'll come up and all the way to your X height and then reposition and start again at the x height with a heavy curving down stroke or a heavy down stroke that goes past the baseline and then you'll curve around the left and finish off with a light stroke so one more time light up lots of pressure curve heavy down to the baseline and very little pressure as you come back to the x height and then lots of pressure down pass the baseline and curve to your left and ease up with very little pressure here all right on our last page of your script alphabet we're going to start with E so for each you're going to start in this area that's about the midpoint between your X height and your baseline and you're going to have a light curving up stroke toward the x height as you come around that curve lots of pressure down to the baseline and then ease up on your pressure for a light up stroke to finish it off so again in this little area between the x height and the baseline light curving up toward the x-height heavy curving down toward the baseline and then ease up on your pressure to finish it out for your o you can use the circle stroke that we practiced at the beginning of the class but I also wanted to give you a little more fun flourish e o that you can add to your repertoire so we'll start at the x-height with a heavy curving down stroke to the baseline and then you're gonna come around that curve up past your X height and you're going to keep the rest of the stroke nice and light as you finish out inside the bowl this is one of those letters that is a little bit of the exception to the rule so even though you're technically coming down with your hand right here I like to keep this part of the O really light because I treat it more like a flourish so you'll start again at your X height with heavy curving down stroke to the baseline and then light up very little pressure as you come around and then pull through into your bowl for your R you'll start at the baseline with a light slightly curving up stroke that extends a little bit past the x height and you'll curve around and then come to the right and press down for a heavy down stroke to your baseline and finish it out with a light stroke upward so again light up a little bit past the x-height curve keep it light to the right lots of pressure down to the baseline and lift up for your s you'll start at the base line and you'll curve up with a light stroke to the x height and you can lift your pen here and read the back at the x-height and do that heavy s-curve down to your baseline and curve around and finish it out so again light up to the x-height lift reposition heavy curve down to the baseline and a light stroke upward for your ex you'll start in this area kind of the same place that you start with your e below the x height and you'll have a light stroke up to the x height a heavy diagonal stroke down to the baseline and then finish it off by curving up with a light upstroke and then you'll start at your baseline with a light stroke upward that is a diagonal that crosses over that first down stroke so light curving up to the x height heavy diagonally down to the baseline curve up just a little bit and then a light diagonal stroke toward your x height and last but not least we have got Z so for Z you'll start again around the same spot that you started for your X and you're going to have a light curving stroke toward your X height and then a heavy down stroke to your baseline and I do like to pick up my pen here again and then reposition back at the baseline and you're gonna curve up just a little bit and then a heavy down past the baseline and then curve to your left well you ease up on your pressure and finish things off with a light stroke so light up and around head down to the baseline lift reposition light up and around heavy down past the baseline and then curve to your left while you ease up on the pressure and finish things up so now you know how to create each letter of the alphabet in a lowercase script style your worksheets include a full example of alphabet in both lowercase and uppercase with directional arrows so you can refer back to these anytime you need to use them for additional tracing practice I remember when I first started lettering and immediately wanted to put letters together to form words but I struggled with figuring out how to connect them my biggest advice to you when it comes to connecting letters is to take the easiest simplest route which most often is simply connecting the extending last stroke of your letter and meeting it where you'd begin your next letter I'm going to show you what I mean with a few different word examples so first I'll start with hello so I'm going to use 685 to show you the beginnings of each letter so we've got our H and then I would normally just kind of end my H right about there so now I'm going to show you where you would want to extend it so that you could start your e so we're going to extend all the way up to here and that's where you're going to start your next letter so we'll start your e and then I would normally stop it right about there but you'll want to extend it all the way here so that you can start your L so we've got our L and then I would normally stop it right about there but you'll want to extend it up to about that spot just below your X height and that's where you'll start your next spell and again I would normally stop right about there but we're going to extend and sure all our Oh so I'll letter this whole word all at once so you can really get a feel for the flow so we've got your H [Music] and here we're extending up and we've got the e extend up and then your L extend up and then your L extend up again your Oh so I also want to show you with an uppercase letter because those can sometimes be tough to figure out how are you supposed to connect so I'll use the word welcome for welcome we're going to start with our Big W and there's really no good way to connect a Big W to a small e so you just don't I know it sounds really simple but if there's not a good way to connect your uppercase letter to your first lowercase then just don't worry about connecting it if you keep your letters close enough then visually you're going to be able to see that they belong together and it won't look so awkward as you trying to figure out some way to just connect them so again as I'm going through these letters I'm just extending out every last stroke to meet where I'm going to start for my next stroke and then I want to practice the words good vibes only because those are the words we're going to use for our final project so in all lowercase we're just going to go through each of these letters to form them into words so we've got our G and we're gonna come down past our baseline and curve up and meet it here at the x-height that's where I'll start the O and then I'm going to continue that o on and lift to start my second Oh continue it around and then this is where you're going to need a little bit of practice you're not going to be perfect at first having a D in your word can get a little bit tricky because you're going to leave some space between your last letter and where you're starting for your D this definitely is going to come with practice so if you kind of smush your letters together at first that's okay just keep practicing so we've got our D so we've got good and then we'll practice lettering the word vibes so our V we're going to come down to the baseline and then back up and come out we've got our eye up started P I always wait until the end to dot any of my letters just pull that out gutter e and then up to form the s ml dot and last word is only so we'll start with our oh we're going to pull this light stroke all the way to the X side over here and then we've got our in and we'll come up with the elf and then back up so we can have our Y okay once you're finished practicing and you're ready to move on to our final project then we'll grab our tropical dual brush pen set and get started let's put everything we've learned together and create a fun hand letter piece of art that you can display your desk or share on social media I'll be using the tropical dual brush pen ten pack for this project along with a piece of Strathmore 300 series mixed media paper your work sheets include a traceable version at the lettering we're going to create but I encourage you to give it a try on your own one of the things I love so much about lettering is being able to put my own personal spin on things so this is a great time for you and fuse your own style into your lettering we're lettering the phrase good vibes only so let's get started I've got my 300 series Strathmore mix media paper and I'm actually I'm going to go ahead and uncap each of the bill brush pens that I'm using I find when I'm using multiple colors in one piece I like to just go ahead and have the caps off makes it a little bit easier for me so I'm actually gonna get started with the word vibes first that's the middle of our composition and that way I can kind of have the letters sort of hug each other so the way that I have this laid out vibes is kind of on a little bit of a curve I'm just going to eyeball it but you can always grab a pencil and an eraser and you can draw yourself a little curve and then you can erase it later but we'll see if I can get this to look right the first time so for advice we're gonna come down and I'm just drawing it has a little bit of a curve just pretending that I've got a curvy base line right here and I will dot my eye I'm actually done with the pink I'm using 803 from the tropical ten pack and next I'm going to use four zero three to kind of have the word good hug these pervs of vibes so I will start with my G right about here come up and I've got the Oh you can always go back and connect letters that you kind of miss a little bit and then I want only to be straight along the bottom but I really like that this has a curve because we've got that big a cinder l so this leaves lots of space for that so we've got it our o L and we have our Y and then to add just a little bit of extra color what I'm going to do is grab this one three three color and I'm going to use some heavy pressure and flick the brush pin out from vibes so just flick oops that's okay like like and there you go one of the things I love about creating lettered art with the dual brush pen ten packs is that you can get all the colors to work so well together so I have a few other color combinations that I just wanted to show you just to show what kind of variety you can get with this 10 pack so we've got some loose some pretty pink and purple and another purple blue and pink right here thank you so much for taking this class I hope you feel more confident in your lettering and you're ready to start practicing brush lettering is one of those skills where you can get really good just by devoting a little bit of time each day to practicing we'd love to see your progress so make sure that you're tagging your photos with at tombow USA and hashtag learn Mutombo until next time have fun practicing

Channel: TombowUSA

Views: 18,307

Keywords: tombow, tombow usa

Id: CeBFZNY14SA

Length: 43min 31sec (2611 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021