BRUSH LETTERING BY CHRISTINE WISENIESKI

lettering christine wisnieski besotted iia

lettering christine wisnieski besotted i

I am getting really excited as I have a laundry load of upcoming lettering artist interviews lined up and I think you will love all of them!  In the interim I spotted this charming design, the lettering was done by brush by designer Christine Wisnieski.  I love how effortless brush lettering looks and I have tried on many occasions without success to try to re-create.  I am sure there is a trick that I just don’t know about (yet), but I will find out and you better believe the minute I do I will share my finds with you! I found this tutorial (please note the quality in the beginning is suspect), I haven’t tried the Pentel Brush Fountain Pen (which is what I believe she may be using) but you can find them at most art stores and John Neal Bookseller carries them as well. Illustrator Ryan Hamrick has this video using a Pentel color brush which looks a lot neater than paint + brush! This video explains how to use the Pentel brush, which can be a little tricky. I also sourced some fonts that will give a similar look, not a perfect match but something you can play with until you (like me) get better at the brush lettering (or iF you have no desire to break out the brushes). Here are some of the brush lettering type fonts to consider: Tip put the word you want in the ‘sample text’ below each font and you can you see a live preview of the word you want to try your new font in, in this case I wrote out ‘caramel corn’–Bello, Milk Cursive, Enamel Brush, Roadstar, Filmtype Keynote, HT Trattoria, and Confetti. Here’s a good free one!

If you have any experience with brush lettering and feel like divulging any tips and tricks please leave your valuable info in the comments along with links to your work and I can guarantee that we will be forever grateful!

Author / Miss Tristan B

Miss Tristan B. is the proprietress of Besotted Brand and the writer of this delightful blog. She recently re-located to sunny Seattle with her handsome husband and two pups. Her lofty goal here is to make this a creative resource repository and to inspire you to fall-truly, madly, deeply in love with your life.

22 thoughts on “BRUSH LETTERING BY CHRISTINE WISENIESKI

    1. Isn’t so good?! I am seriously envious I didn’t think of this great idea, but it can easily translate for holiday, don’t you think? And the interviews are with some really awesome artists I was even surprised they agreed, lol!

  1. How cute are those little tins! Brush lettering is definitely it’s own beast. I’ve been on-and-off practicing for years…and never really found the sweet spot. When you see an exceptionally talented brush lettering artist in person it’s like magic. Last week, I got a Faber Castell PITT artist pen from the art store. I had low expectations…but I am now in love. It is by far the easiest brush pen I’ve ever used and the only one I’ve truly had great results with! Good luck in your practice.
    xo Bailey

    1. Thank you Bailey for the suggestion! I actually have a set of PITT brushes in the light gray, I use them for shading when I do my Micron lettering, I have never even thought to try to use them to actually create a letter, but I will now!

    2. Absolutely! You are so sweet:) I would be so honored.
      xo Bailey
      PS-Grey sounds really cute! I will have to be on the lookout for one. Also, the more I got to looking at those letters on the caramel corn packaging…I started thinking that you could probably get a very similar effect by using a paint pen (since there is hardly any variation between thick and thin)!! Happy weekend!

    3. I can’t wait Bailey, I will definitely be in touch! I haven’t tried a paint pen before but I do have one I shall give it a go, always up for experimenting!

  2. I agree, to see a master brush lettering artist is a treat! The thing I love about brush lettering, though, are the imperfect letter forms, which come mostly from the inexperienced artist. Although, there are those who have perfected the imperfect! That is what I am working toward anyway, perfecting the imperfect. I spent months working out a new logo for my shop in brush lettering and finally arrived at “the” one, with hopes to have it up in the next couple of weeks. I have tried a few different pens, the PITT pen is also one of my favorites! Glad to hear you ladies like it, too!

    1. I agree Nikkol the ‘perfectly imperfect’ is the aim, but it’s harder to achieve than it looks. I love how it looks so effortless for some, but I tried the other day with about a dozen different brushes and it was an awful mess, just hideous and messy AND frustrating! Stop by and give us a link when you have the new logo up! Thanks for the rec on the Pitt, is that what you ended up using for your logo?

    2. The funny thing is that my absolute favorite brush is one that I bought when I lived in the city, and now, living in a small town, am having a horrid time finding it again! I really just need to order a case of them online. The only problem is that I used to just go to my favorite store and pluck it off the shelf…not paying much of a mind to the exact details of it, so I’m not exactly sure which one to buy! I use the PITT brush as a fill in brush with my Micron pens. I use my favorite refillable brush pen for most of my lettering – used it for my logo design – and am on the hunt to find it again!

  3. Thanks for sharing our holiday tins on your beautiful blog, Tristan! I had so much fun playing around with these last December. I haven’t worked much with brush pens but I ADORE playing with a brush in sumi ink. I also love to work BIG – big brush and big paper! ;) It keeps me relaxed. Happy lettering, friends!

    1. Christine you are welcome and I I think they are perfect, great job! Well, big is good to know, I learned that with my regular calligraphy when I wanted to go smaller I was killing myself trying to create a smaller version of the hand and then just had that ‘duh’ moment where I realized I should write normally and adjust in Illustrator. Common sense isn’t always so common;) Would love to know what types of brushes you used, I had Zero success the other day with Sumi and the dozen brushes I tried, sigh…

  4. the caramel corn signage is to-die-for with its loopy letters & gold tones, ahhhh ! brilliant find of yours, as always :-) speaking of brushes, i’ve recently been playing around with a super-awesome Pentel Aquash brush. it’s not designed for lettering — mainly for use with watercolours — but with its tapered plastic tip I think it allows for pretty handwritten script…

    1. That’s a good tip! I was at the art store today and one of the workers said that you could put calligraphy ink in those watercolor brushes and use them that way. I haven’t yet, but I am going to this weekend:) Can’t wait to see your samples on that!

    2. i’ve never thought of that, that’s a neat idea ! i can just imagine the ink staining all over the insides, though, which would be fine if you didn’t mind or planned to have a dedicated “calligraphy” brush ?

    3. Karm, you are right, if you used it it probably wouldn’t be good for it’s original purpose anymore. I never use mine for watercolor so I thought I would give it a try!

    4. psst — just posted a sample on the blog, but my struggle was actually in cleaning up the paper texture around the translucent letters (couldn’t vectorize them in the same way as lettering)… will definitely have to figure out a better process for the future !

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