get started | watercolor lettering

I absolutely love the watercolor lettering trend that's all over the place and I wanted to give it a try, but I'm neither an artist nor a professional calligrapher. Oh well! I had no idea what I was doing, but I just jumped in and got started.

I hit the paint aisle at Michael's for some new supplies, which totaled less than $10.00:

And I used some supplies I had at home:

  • white card stock (I didn't buy special watercolor paper)
  • washi tape to secure the paper to the table
  • a glass of water

Then I just started playing around with the water, the paint and the paper. A little water, a little paint, a little more water, a little paint, a few loops on the paper and repeat. I have absolutely no training in watercolors and the last art class I took was ceramics my senior year of high school. And yet, I found this to be so much fun and so therapeutic. 

Since I'm not an artist, I just played around with lettering. I practiced writing "L"s over and over to get the hang of painting thinner and thicker lines, and then I just dove in. Rather than doing calligraphy like I would with a pen, I found it much more effective to move my whole arm. The washi tape helped keep the paper from moving all over the place, and it peeled off the paper easily.

This would take a ton of practice to be really amazing, but I'm just happy to get started learning something new! Have you tried watercolor lettering? What trends are you interested in trying these days?

TUTORIALS, CREATIVE PROJECTSCATHERINEHAND LETTERING, GET STARTED