Skip to main content

Adventures in Hand Lettering: The Cafe Set


You can't escape the appeal of hand lettering, in script form or printed letters - there is just a ton of personality and life in this style of illustration.

That's right. I used the word "illustration". Because modern hand lettering is more in line with drawing, than the usual image you think of when you imagine someone sitting down to write a letter in flowing script.

Each letter is formed individually and connected (or not) to the next in very specific ways. There is the smooth flow look, block letter forms, serifs and non serifs, and of course, "bounce" lettering which has a playful feel.

I'm still very much in the learning / trial and error, (and error!) phase with my own hand lettering and I wanted to chronicle my progress in sporadic blog posts in hopes of inspiring others to take up the challenge.

Hand lettering and modern calligraphy is trendy at the moment, but was a bit of a lost art. I've often mourned the loss of cursive in elementary education - it's just not being taught. To the point where students at my school library (I'm a library technician in a French immersion school) will show me English book covers with the title in cursive and ask, "Is this book in French?". They can't read the font.

I've recently started a writing/lettering club at the school to encourage students to discover cursive. Our end goal will be for each student to draft their own inspirational quote message, create the lettering, and incorporate an illustration. I'll do a separate post letting you know how it goes.

But for now, here's one of my print lettering efforts, I call it my Cafe Set, complete as a transparent PNG file for you to use in your own projects. Download it HERE.

For the pillow project in the above image, I created a vinyl stencil with my Cricut machine and hand-painted my Cafe Set design onto the raw canvas using black fabric paint. I then enlisted the talents of my mother-in-law to sew the actual pillow. I have zero sewing skills.

Might have to add that to my ever-growing list of things to try...when I'm feeling a bit braver.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Creating is Cheap Therapy

As an author and a library technician working in an elementary school, writing picture books has always been a goal. Illustrating a picture book has been a secret dream, but I hadn't picked up a paint brush or sketchbook in many years. Now and then I'd look through my old sketch books and think, someday I'll get back into art. Willow, our sweet yellow lab. That someday finally happened. One of our dogs, okay, Willow was my favourite of our three crazy labs...lol... passed on due to cancer. I was devastated. My husband and I don't have kids, we're childless by choice, and our dogs are true companion animals / complete members of our family. When Willow died, I needed another outlet in addition to my writing, which for the most part is dark - I write horror, thriller, mystery type stories. I do love my work, but I needed to channel my grief into something different, positive, and bright. We got a new puppy, an English Mastiff, and she became the inspiration ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Calendar Freebee Printables

Ah, January, month of resolutions and new beginnings. How we love to love you in the beginning, but love to hate you by week three. This is when the going gets tough. We want to continue on the path to our goals, but we struggle and stumble, and progress doesn't seem fast enough. Stay true, my friends! Whatever your goals, you can accomplish them. The journey may not be pretty. It may force you to dig deep. You just might have to give up sugar in your coffee...okay, you don't have to go that far...but slow, steady determination and sheer grit can yield vast results. They say it takes approximately 30 days to create a new, healthy habit - this can be anything from healthy eating, increasing your activity level, to learning a new skill, or retraining your brain away from negative self-talk, etc. In hopes of aiding you on your journey, here are a few free printable calendars to get you through those toughest three months. Just right click on each image to download the ...
Post a Comment
Read more