It seems that commercial birthday cards tend to fall into one of three categories: too feminine, too goofy, or too somber. Sure, buying pre-made birthday cards saves time. However, if you make one yourself, you can control the “feel” of the card and work on your art and lettering skills! In today’s tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a festive hot air balloon-themed birthday card and a corresponding envelope.
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On Friday, I wrote a tutorial about how to make “Circus Lettering”, a fun lettering style inspired by vintage circus and carnival posters. In that tutorial, I focused on the letter “M”, and I tried to provide some general rules for writing all letters using the style. As I was writing, though, it occurred to me that you may have questions about how to make certain other letters of the alphabet — an “O”, for example, doesn’t follow the same rules as an “M”! With that in mind, I decided to make a printable exemplar.
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I love experimenting with lettering for two reasons: first, lettering is functional and practical. You combine letters in order to make words, which you can then use to catch someone’s eye on a sign, mail art, or whatever else you want to make. Second, lettering comes with rules. No matter what, an “A” has to look like an “A”, a “B” has to look like a “B”, and so on and so forth. It’s much easier to be innovative when you’ve got some parameters!
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The Nikko G nib is a fantastic calligraphy nib — but did you know that it was originally developed to be a drawing nib? I’ve used it to illustrate several fun projects like a lace butterfly and a henna bluebird! The objective of today’s mail art tutorial is twofold: first, I want you to end up with an artistic envelope that you love. Second, I want you to get a basic introduction to drawing with the Nikko G because next month I plan to explore pen and ink drawing techniques a bit more with you!
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Every Monday, I’ve been sending out a brief newsletter to TPK subscribers. It’s something I have really enjoyed because a newsletter isn’t nearly as formal as a blog post; instead, it feels more like a conversation. In the last newsletter, I asked for blog post topic feedback — in short, what do readers want more of (or less of)? A theme appeared throughout several of the feedback emails: more watercolor tutorials! So, today, I want to show you how to make this simple twig watercolor thank you card. It features a blending/salting technique that I promise you can do, and I’ll teach you how in a video toward the end of the post!
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There’s hardly a better canvas to practice your art, calligraphy, and lettering skills on than an envelope! Envelopes’ practical, temporary nature makes them great for trying out new techniques and exercising old favorites. In this post, you’ll find 12 artistic envelope ideas to fire you up for making your own mail art!
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