Wednesday WarmUp Alphabet Series 3

Welcome!

For the past few weeks, this blog has hosted “Wednesday Warm Up,”— a day of usually quick drawing, inking, brushing as warm up to our serious art. I share a strategy to try each Wednesday using the iPad app ProCreate. I usually only use the brushes in the app— there are so many I haven’t tried that warming up with a new brush will be an added bonus and challenge.

This Week

This week’s warm up is about Brenda Bakker’s Alphabet Series on YouTube— each are usually less than ten minutes and are so relaxing to learn. A few have some great tips on strategies– like the letter “Q” which teaches how to apply — clip– abstract textures to your letter! Find her on Instagram as DekWebbel. She shares her brushes and watercolor paper in her Skillshare class, and that alone is worth a month’s fee. She offers free trial in her YouTube links.

So far I’ve created A-J and K-O; today I share P to T.

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Mostly my canvas is 10 inch by 10 inch and sometimes I use 4000px x 4000px, both at 300 dpi. Here are the native brushes I applied this time:

P
Brushes: Blackburn [drawing]; Nebula, Glimmer, Bokeh Lights, Flare [all from Luminescence]; watercolor paper;
Background: paint in low opacity, large size nebula in multicolors on multiply. Select the ‘P’ (feathered) and cut it out of the background; alpha lock background and clipping mask with Bokeh Lights low opacity, multi-size stamping in dark blue on “add” blend mode in that layer.
Watercolor paper

Q
Brushes: Blackburn for letter
Textures:
Tapered dots [Flourish]
Glimmer [Procreate]
Thylacine [Inking]
Dry Brush, Stucco, Gouache [Painting]
Decimals [textures]
Background: Flower Power [Vintage]
Watercolor Paper

R
Brushes: Syrup [Inking] for letter, but adjusted:
Duplicate brush. Under shape, increase spacing to 12 percent; Under properties, increase size to max; Rename brush; save reset point.

Other Brushes:
Nikko Rull [Painting]
Stipple [drawing]
Watercolor paper

S
Brushes
Blackburn [drawing]— letter and fill
6B [Procreate] texture and shading
Dry Ink [inking] leopard circles and fill
Watercolor paper

I redid this like “E” with Nikko Rull, glimmer, ink bleed [highlights]; shading

T
Brushes
Dry Ink [inking] letter and fill
Hartz [artistic] open brush [check that to set blend in rendering on multiply]; for color and smudge; overlay for edge darkening.

I also duplicated black, moved to right, then cut the original T out of it for a shadow effect with lower opacity
Watercolor paper

Try it!

Go ahead –check out Deb’s channel of alphabet/lettering resources so you can learn and adapt and mix to create your own original letters. Imagine what lettering pizazz you’ll add to your art! It’s not just for lettering, but also for different styles of illustration. I so appreciate her style and sharing so we can all learn.

I’m glad I joined Skillshare for the many teachers like her. Be sure to check out Skillshare and the many teachers if you’re really wanting to up your art game.

And, please remember to add any suggestions or ask questions here if it’s not clear and please share:  #warmup4art .