Once you have a grasp on brush lettering, you may like to start progressing and experimenting with adding colours and patterns to your letters. A really fun way to create themed lettering is to add an image into the letters themselves. Sometimes it looks as if this style of artwork must have been edited digitally, but it really is very simple to achieve by hand, as I will show you here in this step-by-step guide.

For each piece I always plan and sketch out my design first. Adding pattern to some letters can be time consuming, as was the ‘Paradise’ one, but this is where it is a good idea to pick just one or two key words from your quote or sentence and use a mix of fonts instead.

Once you have the word spacing planned out in pencil, brush-letter over the word in a very pale grey pen. This will be your guideline for colouring in.

I have used Karin markers for all of my projects. This is because they are extremely easy to use, and very blendable. Even once the ink has dried on the paper, you can still go back and reinvigorate it ready for blending with a little water.

Looking for new ideas? Discover more lettering and modern calligraphy in our inspiration gallery!

Paradise

1 With a ruler and pencil, draw horizontal lines over the grey brush lettering to section where each colour of your sunset will start and finish. You will erase these later.

2 Colour each section in with Karin markers, leaving a small gap between each colour where possible. With a small paintbrush and some clean water, begin blending each of the colours together.

3 Once all the background of the letters are blended and dry, use a pencil to sketch your palm trees. These could be simple and quite solid shapes, or more detailed, with many thin leaves. Using a black fine-liner pen will make the detail easy to achieve. Go over the trees only where the letters are, then erase any pencil lines you made when the black ink is dry.

4 Add in your extra words to complete the quote. I drew a horizontal line 1” from the top and bottom of my ‘Paradise’ word and fit my other words between these and the edge of ‘Paradise’. Do this first in pencil and then trace in pen when you are happy with the spacing.

Mermaid

1 Once your have laid down your grey pen, colour just the tops of each letter in purple and the bottom in a green. You will be surprised by how little ink you will need here.

2 With a damp paintbrush, blend together the two colours, carefully adding a little more water as needed and keeping between the lines. You should get a blue colour where they meet.

3 When this ink is completely dried, use a white gel pen to draw scales over the coloured backgrounds.

Starry Night

1 Sketch everything in pencil but this time there is no need to create the pale grey lettering first if you don’t need to. This stage is optional. You may simply just sketch your words in pencil instead.

2 With a small round brush and clean water, trace over one letter at a time. Be sure to still use a thicker line for your downstrokes, and enough water for it to still be damp for the next stage, but not a puddle that could run over the page.

3 Dip the very tip of your Karin markers into the wet letter. Use purple, blue and black for the galaxy effect. You can then use a damp paintbrush to move this ink around more if needed.

4 Allow the blended letters to dry, then use a white opaque ink or paint to flick small dots or stars all over the letters. It doesn’t matter about getting the flicked ink on your paper as it should not show.

Top Tips

• For the perfect pale grey, try either a Neutral Grey Karin marker, Tombow ABT N75 or Baby Blue Chameleon brush pen
• Too much water for colour blending can make your colours run where you don’t want them. It is better to start with less rather than too much. You can always add more
• If you do add too much water, dip the corner of a sheet of kitchen towel into the wet area and you will see it gets soaked up very quickly
• All of these projects require some drying time between layers, and this is important to prevent bleeding of details. Allow for this when planning

Using Karin markers…

I created a water-effect background for my mermaid piece very easily using my Karin markers.

1 Simply draw some curvy lines and swirls in three or four blue/green colours where you’d like your ‘water’ to be.

2 Next brush some clean water over the lines to blend them and create a watercolour look. Be careful not to get this water too close to your finished lettering.

Watch our review on Karin Markers here!