Hi, Jessica from BrownPaperBunny here to show you how to create blended watercolor lettering with Dual Brush Pens. It’s super easy, and you just need a few supplies to get started.
Supplies:
- Tombow Dual Brush Pens
- Water Brush (medium)
- Watercolor paper
- Tombow MONO Drawing Pen (optional)
- Tombow MONO Drawing Pencil 4H (Optional)
The paper you choose can have a big impact on your ability to blend. My favorite for this sort of project is Strathmore 300 Series Watercolor Paper. You can blend right on the paper, and it holds up to quite a lot of water without buckling and warping.
You can choose any Dual Brush Pens you like. For this project, I’m using the Tropical 10-pk Set because I love all of these colors together. I encourage you to swatch out the colors you want to use on some scrap watercolor paper and then run your Water Brush over one-half of each color to see how it will look when blended with water.
Step 1: Sketch Your Words
Use your MONO Drawing Pencil to sketch out your words lightly. This will help you get the layout how you want it and also helps to make sure you don’t accidentally leave out any letters. I’ve done that too many times when I haven’t sketched it out beforehand. Alternatively, you could write the letters using a very pale gray Dual Brush Pen so you can see where you want to add color in the next step.
Step 2: Add Color
Choose two or more Dual Brush Pen colors you want to blend and add color directly to your watercolor paper.
Step 3: Blend with Water
Using your Water Brush, wet and blend the ink. If you have one very dark and one very light color, it helps to start with the lightest color and blend towards the darkest so that the dark ink doesn’t completely overwhelm the lighter color. If your colors are fairly even in tone, you can start with whichever one you like. Voila, you’ve got yourself some blended watercolor lettering!
Step 4: Outline Your Watercolor Lettering
This step is optional, but sometimes I like to outline my letters with MONO Drawing Pens once the ink is completely dry. You want to add a pattern or doodles to your letters too.
Here’s my finished lettering piece. I can’t wait to see what you create, so tag @TombowUSA and @BrownPaperBunny if you share to social media.
If you’re looking for more ways to use your Dual Brush Pens to get a watercolor effect, check out this tutorial on painting a two-toned portrait.
