Letters by Lydia: Summer Inspiration and Resources

Happy end of semester, everyone!  Congrats to all for making it through the year, and I hope you’re all settling into the summer.  This is my last post of the school year, so I thought I’d leave you all with some ways to stay involved in handlettering and art over the summer.

First off, here are some of my favorite lettering accounts on Instagram, if you’re looking for more inspiration, resources, tips, etc.

If you’re looking for something colorful, bold, digital, and maybe politically progressive, I’d recommend @inkusdingus or @glitterandbold.  For satisfying process videos and lots of juicy pens, I’d turn to @lettersandlattesllc (who also happens to be a fellow Michigander!), or @the_letter_salon.  For bullet journaling inspiration, definitely check out @thegraytergood, and for pen and stationery recs, look no further than @amandarachlee.  As for other favorites of mine, @snooze.one is a more experimental, graffiti-inspired typographer, and @keeplivingfaster is definitely the page to visit if you want watercolor lettering and lots of glitter.  Finally, if you want a page to get some general inspo and find lots of artists, my favorite account is @goodtype.  Enjoying your scrolling!

Now, if you want some website recommendations for some stationery shopping, here my go-to’s for that.

JetPens is a classic for keeping up with new pens as well as finding the classics, plus it has lots of variety and is reasonably priced.  Stationery Pal is really fun for specialty or limited edition items, cheap stationery (like, super cheap), and colorful and fun pens, trinkets, etc.  Shipping takes a bit, but in my opinion the price makes it worth it.  Tokyo Pen Shop is a new one I’ve been perusing, so I can’t speak to how it is to order from them, but they have a lot of fun and unique items.  For more stationery rather than pen-centered products, Present and Correct is a really fun one to check out for a very vintage, specialized feel.  And, of course, Amazon is always a fast and cheap option.  If you want to do some in-person shopping, Michael’s, Blick Art Materials, and even stores like Barnes and Nobles are all good options.  For Ann Arbor stores, I’d check out Rock Paper Scissors, Papersource, and Found.  There are tons of independent stationery stores everywhere, though, so if you’re traveling somewhere, it’s never a bad idea to look up stationery stores in that area (I’ve found some really good ones that way!).  Happy shopping!

I hope that information is helpful and gives you a lot to look into over the summer if you’re interested!  Either way, I hope you all have a relaxing few months and do some art if you can or want to 🙂

Letters by Lydia: Fun Process

Hi y’all!

This week I just have a fun little post of some lettering I did today, inspired by the warm weather!

When I’m lettering for fun, I typically follow a pattern: I’ll start by filling a page with bare bones lettering, nothing fancy.  After that, I’ll go through a do a couple rounds additions to each word, until I like how they all turn out.  Today I also tried something new and added a bunch of fun little doodles around the words, which I think really brought the page together.  I hope you enjoy!


Letters by Lydia: Positive and Negative Space

Happy Wednesday everyone!  This week I wanted to talk about using positive and negative space.  If you don’t already know what that is, or need a quick refresher, here’s an example:

Positive space is the thing itself, and negative space is the lack of the thing, or what’s around it.  On the left, you can see that the “Hi” is written using negative space, because the color exists all around it, but the letters themselves are empty.  On the right, the “Hi” is an example of positive space, because it is the thing itself (by contrast, the white all around it is negative space).

This is something a lot of artists make use of, or at least are aware of, and the lettering community is a part of that too!

I was feeling inspired by spring (despite the icky weather today), so I drew some more in-depth pieces involving flowers that use positive and negative space.

Which one do you like better?  I hope you all have a great week and hopefully we’ll start to see some flowers blooming soon 🙂

Letters by Lydia: Crayola Bright Colors

Welcome back to another post!  My parents visited me last weekend, and my mom brought me a pack of Crayola markers (big shoutout to her <3), so I thought I’d do a quick little review! My mom and I share a love for Crayola markers, not only because they’re super cheap and accessible, but also because they’re incredibly vibrant and easy to use.

The set she got me is a set of 10, broadline markers in the “bright colors” selection.  As you can see from the swatches, they’re all super pigmented, some of them even being neon.  Crayola in general has an insane color range, and it’s so nice to be able to get sets like this with colors I’d actually use, as opposed to the typical, flat, basic colors you get from cheaper sets made for kids.

As for what makes these so great, Crayola markers, both the supertips and these broadline ones, are perfect for beginners in lettering, or people who just don’t wanna spend a ton of money.  The tips are flexible enough that you can use them as if they were brush pens, but you can also use them on their sides like highlighters, and with an even amount of pressure to get a consistent line.  Depending on how hard you press, the thickness varies wildly, which is another great quality because it makes them super versatile.  Another positive is that, because they’re inexpensive, you don’t have to feel bad about overusing them, experimenting with them, or not taking great care of them.

There truly aren’t very many downsides to these.  One slight negative is that the ink can be a bit thin and inconsistent–it’s washable, because it’s made for kids, so if you use two colors on top of each other, they’ll probably bleed a little bit.  The ink also might just bleed onto the paper you’re using.  Another strangedownside is that sometimes it can be hard to get the cap on and off, although that might just be this specific set.

Overall, a great set of markers! Thanks mom!

Letters by Lydia: Valentine’s Day <3

Hey y’all! Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, I thought it’d be fun to give some ideas for anyone looking to make valentines for their loved ones.  I know a lot of people don’t like Valentine’s day because it can be really tough when you’re single, but I’ve always loved it because I have so much fun making cute little valentine’s for all my friends!  It’s like a crafter’s dream holiday, getting to sit down with washi tape, fun paper, stickers, pens, and make cards for the people you love.

Anyway, here are some different styles for lettering I thought fit the Valentine’s aesthetic:

A fun ribbon font always looks good, and you can’t go wrong with doing conversation hearts! For the last one, I just thought it’d be cute to do something a little more structured but still fun and with lots of red and pink.  I’m always happy to do tutorials on different types of lettering like this too, if anyone is ever interested 🙂

As for general guidelines for making Valentine’s cards, I honestly feel like you can never overdo it.  I love to go all out with glitter, lace, bright colors, stickers, etc.  Even if you don’t want to go that route, basics like pastels, hearts, red and pink, and all that cute stuff never fails.  I also love doing puns (Love you a waffle lot, olive you, etc etc), cute little drawings, and inside jokes because that makes the cards more personal and heartfelt.  As for little drawings and extra things to add, you can always do candy, hearts, bows, flowers, roses, and literally anything you think the recipient would like 🙂 Here’s a few little doodles I came up with:

I hope this made you excited to make some cards for your loved ones if you’re so inclined! Either way, have a great week and enjoy your Valentine’s Day next week! <3

Letters by Lydia: Sometimes it Doesn’t Work

Welcome back to Letters by Lydia! Hopefully everyone was able to stay safe and warm in the snow, or maybe even go out and build a snowman 🙂

Today I want to talk about all the times–and trust me, there are many–that lettering ideas and techniques don’t work out.  A lot of times in the art community, especially on social media, we only see the work that people are super proud of: work that’s polished, high quality, creative, unique, and so on. Because of this, it can be really easy to fall into the trap of feeling like your work isn’t good enough, or that everyone else is much more talented. That said, I have noticed lately that people on social media seem to be getting a little more vocal about the importance of the process. Bad art is just as important as good art, because it helps you learn and grow as an artist. If your art was perfect all the time, there would be no room for experimentation, doodling, mistakes, and most importantly, fun!

I’m sure none of this is news to most of you, but I wanted to share an example of some lettering I did today that I couldn’t quite figure out. I wanted to try a new lettering style where it looks like letters someone wrote with their finger in the snow, which ended up being much harder than I anticipated.

After consulting an overwhelming number of google images, my first attempt landed me with this:

When I first did this, I wasn’t in love with, but with some distance I can honestly say this might’ve been my best attempt.  I chalk it up to beginner’s luck, though, because I could not for the life of me produce this kind of style again.  In hindsight, I think the key was only using two colors, because this was the only attempt where I limited my color palette that much.

My next attempt I’m actually super proud of and think looks pretty realistic. The issue? It took forever, so it didn’t feel reasonable to try and do a whole word in this style. My original idea was also to have this as a type of style, not a kind of one-time piece that would be difficult to recreate.  In any case, this is what I ended up with here:

After this, I started trying whole words, and played around with using the colors in different ways, different textures, and different thicknesses.  I don’t dislike any of these, but I don’t think any of them read quite as I wanted them to–they look like pretty snow-themed pieces, but not necessarily like someone was writing in the snow, unless you’re looking at them with that style in mind.

Of course, in this example of things not working out, I still generally liked the end results, they just weren’t what I had in mind originally.  That said, I can’t tell you the number of times I try things that end up looking absolutely terrible, and I can definitely start sharing that stuff too! But I thought it was important to show that there’s also this middle ground where the work you produce is still good, it just doesn’t align with the vision you had, because this also allows for artistic experimentation and learning new styles and techniques.

This is a style I plan to experiment with a bit more and see if it’s something I can refine, but even if it isn’t, I had fun playing around with something new!

I hope you enjoyed reading, and stay safe out there in the snow!