Hi everyone, today I am going to give you some basic tips for drawing flowers and hand
lettering to use in your journal or anywhere you want.
I will be working on a more in depth tutorial soon, but hopefully this gets your creativity
flowing!
I decided to make postcards out of these drawings and I’ll walk you through how to make these
too!
Even if no one sends these anymore, you can start today!
It’ll be the perfect surprise in the mail.
To start, I cut watercolor paper into X4 4X6 inch rectangles and deckled the edges by carefully
tearing the paper with a metal ruler.
I would suggest using any thicker paper such as poster board or even mat board for these.
You might not be able to deckle the edges but that’s fine!
My watercolor paper started curling after a few days so I don’t want yours to bend in the mail.
Before I jump into using my inking pen, I am going to work out my sketch using pencil.
Which leads me into tip number 1.
Always use a pencil to start sketching.
I’ve been drawing all my life and I still use a pencil to start.
Unless I really want some hairy lines in my final piece.
This way, when and if you mess up, you can erase it and try again.
Another reason to start with a pencil is that you can work your layout or subject without
committing to it just yet.
This the best time for you to cast your fears aside and explore!
When I started drawing flowers, I used real flowers as reference and most of my past drawings
were very realistic.
I didn’t like that very much and wanted a more loose style using my imagination.
I cannot tell you the names of any flowers that I draw today and I actually don’t think
they even exist.
So Tip number 2 is that the beauty of drawing flowers is that they are very forgiving unlike
hands, which are my weakest subject!
Anything can be turned into a flower if you add a stem and some leaves.
So don’t worry so much about referencing a flower for now and come up with one of your own.
Experiment with different shapes and petals, add a center and then draw some leaves around it.
I’ll go into detail about referencing in my drawing tutorial later but for now, play
around with this idea and see what happens.
For the postcard set, I want two of my cards to be flower focused and the other two will
have a word and flowers around it.
So this first set of two is more like a cluster of flowers, similar to a bouquet or a centerpiece.
I am not referencing anything for these right now and I am just simply letting the layout
take form, once I draw my center flower or flowers.
Which leads me to tip number 3:
Try drawing your flowers into a shape, it can be a circle, a diamond, or an oval.
This will help you to practice your layouts and kind of force you to think about your
flower size as it relates to the overall layout.
So use different size flowers, make some large, pick your focal point, and then fill in with
small leaves, stems, and more flowers.
For the other set, I had to reference the font on the computer since I do not have a
natural script handwriting, it’s pretty bad without the internet actually.
I didn’t have a specific font that I was referencing, I took letters and curves that
I liked and then morphed them into what you see here.
It took a lot of erasing to get to this!
So for Tip #4 as it relates to hand lettering is to look up fonts online and try to recreate them.
You may need to trace them at first to get used to the curves, but once you’ve practiced
writing them a few times, creating a script you like, gets a little easier.
Also play around with adding some thicker areas to the script and see if you like them.
I decided to make these more decorative and sporadic around the script words “travel”
and “dream,” as opposed to the other two that are more center focused.
This way the set is balanced.
This leads me to my fifth, final, and most important tip for this video as I start the inking process:
When it comes to drawing, art, design, journaling, anything creative,
anything that requires you to make real what is in your head or developing an idea into
something tangible, there is always a feeling involved with it.
I know it’s really deep when I tell you this, but listen to the feeling.
Not the self doubt or the fear of failure, but the feeling of whether it looks right
or a little off.
That’s the creative intuition speaking and you want to train it.
So expose yourself to as many things as possible that inspire you.
Look at illustrations of books, blogs, and magazines and pay attention to the placement
of text, the size of each element, and just study it.
It’s the same thing if you were to put on clothes that doesn’t quite work with your
body and it just feels off.
So train your creative intuition because it’ll be important as you go through your journey
of finding a style.
And as we’re talking about feelings here, there is something so special about writing
and receiving postcards that always fascinates me.
No matter if I was writing or receiving one, they both made me think of a place other than
where I was standing, no matter what image was on the other side.
It’s crazy really, I can’t explain it, except that it is so similar to being immersed
in a book or movie.
So I wanted to create imagery that hopefully does the same thing.
I wanted it to be intricate but delicate with the different lines weights, Simple but made
of many elements, and just something magical.
I am starting to think that fairytales are my thing.
Once I added some more little details with my micron, I decided to erase some of the
lines this time because I want the focus on the inked areas versus my line progress.
Now that the images are done, I added a little image on the back, divided the space in half
and completed the postcards with a place to put a message, stamp, and address.
I hope that this video was helpful and I can’t wait to work on more in depth drawing tutorials
for you.
I also hope that this video inspires you to create fearlessly and to send a postcard.
I will be working on getting a version of these into a shop, so follow me on instagram
for behind the scenes sneak peaks and future giveaways!
Subscribe and give this video a thumbs up if you liked it and want to see more DIYs,
inspirational chats, and more.
Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll see you next time! Bye!