Thursday, August 21, 2014

lettering and other stuff

my doodling + watercolor obsession has morphed... in the way these things do tend to morph... into a doodling + watercoloring (or markering) (yes, that is too a word!) my own fonts. ok, well, technically a few of them are my own fonts, whilst the others i've seen online and tried to copy. my favorite letterers (ok, i'm not sure that one is a word, actually, but you know what i mean) so far are pam garrison, joanne sharpe, julie balzer and martha lever, not to mention daisy yellow's creator, miss tammy! but there are sooooooooo many awesome examples out in the world, i want to try them all and then make them into my own thing!!! meanwhile, here's the latest batch of daily paper prompts, some of which feature... wait for iiiiiiiiiiit... LETTERING! :)


i'm getting more confident with shapes, i've started to play with patterns and of course i've always loved color. my biggest issue is SPACING. see the two S's at the end of success? yeah. for that matter, all of the doodles and arrows were added at the end to fill/balance my spatial issues, but i think i did an ok job of it, actually. oh yeah, and everything leans just slightly to the left, but that's an easy fix, i think i just need to pencil in center lines to keep me on track.


this prompt was devised and hosted by gretchen miller, whose blog, creativity in motion is quite seriously awesome. i definitely feel like i strayed away from the dictionary page being the focus; but since this is an example of my favorite way to work whilst journaling... basically to just keep DOING STUFF and see where it ends up... i'm fine with that, in fact i'm happy about it. 


ok, i confess, after a couple of late-night tries i realized that i had NO IDEA at all how to draw a chandelier, so rather than give up, i totally cheated and found one online that i liked and copied it. the left half took me about 10 minutes to sketch out; the mirror-image right half took like 40 minutes! symmetry is HARD, people!!! (and yeah, even more than my lettering-- or even my politics-- my drawings all lean to the left!!!) 


i already had a stand-by set of supplies that i keep in a little plastic schoolbox type thing for doing travel journals, but for this i made a second version in hopes it will encourage me to go out and sketch. watercolor tablet, travel set of paints, and the brush-wrap i made myself from a remnant of oilcloth when i couldn't find one at the art supply store. (my friend lelia gave me the cool ganesh mini-tote a couple of years ago, and it's the PERFECT size for this!)


i love the lettering on this (she said modestly!) and it's even STRAIGHT! i'm not uber-keen on the rest. especially since those magazine lips are sooooooooooooo awesome and i feel like i didn't do them justice. ah well. i do love the lettering, though. :)


this prompt was devised and hosted by patricia dattoma, whose examples are astonishing, you really need to click that link; and it was sooooooooooo totally ♥FUN♥ to do!

meanwhile, the lettering craze means i'm deeply in need of some short quotes or catch phrases on which to practice, so if you have a favorite quote OR quote site, leave me a link in the comments, k?! thanks, quotable darlings! ♥

7 comments:

  1. Very fun designs Lauren.

    Hugs Diane

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  2. Awesome lettering and leaning to the left doodling!!! I honestly did not notice on the success quote...I love the arrows and flowers! And the chandelier I just thought you were having a rockin' party...you know the kind where LHJ goes to work the next day with glitter on his face? LOL. The dictionary creations are both fun and very pretty as well as the blues :)

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  3. WOW...although I shouldn't be surprised that you rock the hand lettering...awesome work.

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  4. I love seeing all your a-day projects. You are so adventurous and talented!

    One suggestion for the chandelier: could you fold the paper in half and trace your first half to get a perfect mirror for the second half, or would that be cheating?

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  5. I think the slight wonky feel to the letters totally suits the first piece! And it's one of my favourite thoughts as well :) Quote Garden is a great site for quotes - it's my go-to when I need one.

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  6. Eep your travel kit is so wonderful!!! I love it. I recently took a little tiny fake palette that had watercolors and a small brush in it and scooped out the cheapy watercolors that were in it and put in koi watercolors to dry in it. Its teeny and perfect. Hope you are doing well. I started my job this week. Sorry I've been such a stranger! :)

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  7. You are so sweet to give me such a nice shout out re: The Blues DPP!! Thank you!! (Just got back from Hawaii & only seeing this now!) love your site!! Happy arting! ~Patricia

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