With lettering, or any other type of art, I think it is important to have one notebook or portfolio specifically dedicated to practice. This way, you can see your progression and how much better you've gotten!
I practice my lettering in a Rhodia dotted Notepad. When I practice, I always make sure to write the date so I can look back at my progress. With lettering, I'll usually write some sort of random phrase or word that comes into my head. It doesn't really matter what you write as long as you are practicing! This is a picture of the first page I did in my Rhodia notepad. You can see it's random and isn't organized at all!
This page isn't my best lettering. But, it's good that I have it so that I can look back to see how much better I've gotten.
There are some specific letters that I do not like writing, such as uppercase Q, upper and lowercase z, or lowercase s. To make sure I am practicing these, I will sometimes just write down the whole alphabet, uppercase and lowercase. This forces me to write every single letter, even the ones I don't like. If I don't want to write down the alphabet, I'll write the phrase: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." This phrase contains every letter of the alphabet, and it's also good practice for connecting letters. Here's a photo from my Instagram of this phrase:
Another way to practice lettering is to just do projects, especially those in another medium. For example, I used to only use Tombow brush pens or my iPad for lettering. Only recently did I branch out into watercolor, acrylic paint, and paint pens! Even by just slightly branching out to other methods of lettering, I am improving my skills across several mediums.
I hope you enjoyed this post on how I practice my lettering. What methods of practice do you use? Which methods are your favorite? Let me know, and send pictures too! (Tags: #lettering #art #practice #handlettering)
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