I love Joanne Sharpe’s work. She is an artful lettering expert, in my humble opinion. Her book, “The Art of Whimsical Lettering” has all the tips and tricks you might need to learn to hand-letter your own artwork’s quotes and mantras using your own embellished handwriting. In week 3 of Life Book, Joanne provides a set of videos demonstrating exactly how to turn our own slopping writing into something artful and how to use watercolors to create a painting from our letters and a simple drawing.
Okay, I’m still not comfortable with watercolors and I have horrible, shaky, slanted handwriting . . . but I’m game. I watched the videos and, while sitting in a chair, I created a small practice painting using her techniques. All I had with me was my 5″x8″ watercolor Moleskine notebook, a black Sakura 03 Micron pen, a black Sakura Identi-pen, a few water soluble Tombow markers and a water brush. This is what I produced:
Not too bad! I was surprised how the Tombow markers actually emulated regular watercolors. Plus they are nice and bright, to boot! I was rather proud of my little practice piece. Much more confident than when I started out, I decided to follow up with a larger piece on better quality 9″x12″ watercolor paper using a new set of gouache (opaque watercolors) that I had not yet tried. And I used quality watercolor brushes too. This is the result:
I am not so pleased with my efforts here. I used too much water in spots and too much paint in others. My lettering AND the borders are uneven and oddly crooked. The right side of the composition is too crowded and the lettering on the left side is too small and bland. Sigh. It’s not ugly but it is not what I had hoped for. I will have to try and try again to master both lettering and watercolors but I’m willing to keep trying, even if it’s an uphill battle. That’s how I learn.
I hope you did something creative this weekend and that your inner critic is not screaming at you the way mine is at me!
Ain't No Ninny 
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