Whimsical Cursive

I have been playing with my little whimsical pieces a lot lately, and realized that I had a problem.  Well, a “need”.

I needed to be able to emphasize a word or have one word bigger than the others.  I needed to have a way to create contrast.

The problem is, I’m using gel pens that are monoline.  There’s only one size of the line that it makes.  So off to the drafting table I went to experiment. 

First I used my Crayon Cursive with a black crayon and sparkly gel pen highlights.  But that ended up being actually too big.  And I wasn’t wild about my results with a colored pencil.  It needed to “go” with my gel pen hand printing better or something.

Then I tried drawing a cursive-style, coloring in the thicks and thins with the gel pen, but I was sorely lacking in enough skill to pull that off.

Then I tried using two colors of gel pens for an almost double-stroke, which looked crummy, but it gave me the idea to use a colored pencil to “shadow” the gel pen line.  And that looked kinda neat.  And soft.  And I generally love soft.

And I don’t know what got into me, but somehow I got the idea of putting polka dots on top of the monoline.  Polka dots??  I truly have no idea how that occurred to me.  But I tried it, and they were fun, and sorta worked!  So, yay!

Then I graduated from a “shadow” to a “halo”.  It reminds me of the outlined words of my junior high days.  Hahaha  Did everyone else do that, too?  Outline around complete words, kinda like puffy clouds?  …  Ah, youth.

Anyway, that’s what this new combination is:  my fun cursive made with a gel pen + a halo done with a colored pencil + polka dots using a gel pen. 

Oh, and done with neon colors, too!  How much fun is that?!

And just think of all the possibilities:  you can use the same color for both for a low-contrast look, or something like neon yellow dots on top of a neon green cursive for a high-contrast, very whimsical look.  (I find myself using that combo a lot.)

So that’s the latest from the studio…  Fun, fun, fun!!

I hope it brings a smile to your face!

XOXO,

Lucky Dog 
♥