One of the questions I get a lot is about how I learned to hand letter. I want to share how I learned to hand letter and share my resources. I mainly learned how to hand letter using my iPad Pro but I will also showcase how I learned on paper as well.

Many of you have seen my hand lettering through my Write the Word journals, Powersheets, and devotionals. I want to share how I do learned and even share with you (for free) the 2020 font I created for myself. I have learned and practiced many fonts so I was inspired by those to make my own font so if you are just here for that, scroll down to the bottom!

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Learning to Digitally Hand Letter

The first thing that I did was download the free app on my iPad Pro called Notes Plus

Then I went to google and Pinterest and searched hand lettering alphabets. There are SO many free alphabets available! It is easy to want to learn every alphabet but I encourage you to start with a basic font.

Some good free starting faux/brush calligraphy pages are:

• Basic Brush Strokes Practice Sheets from Dawn Design
• Upper and Lowercase alphabet Practice Sheets
• Basic lowercase alphabet Practice Sheets

You can also use these pages as print outs to learn on paper!

Then I screen shot them (rather than printing to save paper,) paste the photo to the document, and then I use my Apple Pencil to trace over them. I would do this over and over again while watching tv. Once I mastered one lowercase font I started working on upper case. I spent about two weeks doing this in the evening on my iPad while watching tv.

Then I moved to practicing on paper.

Learning to Hand Letter on Paper

I just used regular ball point pens and sharpies and filled up notebooks. I would advise practicing in a larger text size and then working down to a smaller text size. I saved a lot of paper by practicing on my iPad first, but using a is very different on paper. I started incorporating hand lettering print and faux calligraphy in my powersheets, write the word journals, and even my to do lists!

Learning to Brush Hand Letter

Brush hand lettering is a completely different ball game and I have not mastered it yet and am not sure I plan too. It’s all about the pressure on the pen and for me that tends to hurt my hands personally. For some great brush lettering examples head to Maura’s instagram! She is amazing!

My Favorite Tools & Resources

Digital:

• iPad Pro
• Apple Pencil
• Notes Plus App (free)
• Sketchbook App (free)

Books/ Guides:

• Bible Journaling Workbook (only $3.00!!!!!) from Michelle from Displaying Grace. She gives you 2 fonts to learn!
• Hand Lettering 101 from Sarah from Chalkfulloflove. This is a brush lettering workbook and gives you multiple fonts to learn! (My favorite uppercase font is from this book!)
• Happy hand Lettering from Maghon from All She Wrote Notes. This is a perfect mix of brush lettering, regular hand lettering/print fonts, and faux calligraphy. Multiple fonts available to learn!

Pens:

• Frixion Erasable Markers: I use these all the time for my write the word journals (that way if I make a mistake I can just erase it!)
• Crayola Markers: Maura used these before starting with brush pens to learn pressure
• Tombow Dual Brush Pen: I don’t use the brush side often but LOVE the other end!
• Kelly Creates Black Starter Set: I did not like the quality of the large brush pen, but really like the medium and fine ones
• Papermate Flair Pens: These are fantastic and I use these for my powersheets

My 2020 Font

Here is the font that I created for myself and use almost daily. It looks like this:

Feel Free to screenshot or save this for your own use!

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Cassie Nolin is a married spoonie who lives the chronic illness life with EDS + Co. (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and it’s comorbid conditions.) She challenges others to choose grace over guilt in goal setting, and is in ministry part time serving the online community through The Spoonie Study. She loves planting, hand lettering, and sharing the hope she has found in Jesus. Her blog, Living the Chronic Illness Life, is in the top 100 chronic illness blogs and her podcast, Chronically Cultivating, is produced by Speaking to the Heart Network. Cassie encourages women to live authentic and intentional lives through their diagnosis’ not in spite of them. You can learn more about her at www.livingthechronicillnesslife.com

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