This is a review of the Crayola Broadline Markers and how they work with hand lettering and modern calligraphy! I think that these are a great marker for beginners especially!.I know it’s crazy to think that a cheap marker we colored with as kids could be used for hand lettering, but it can be! In fact it can create really beautiful hand lettering.
I want to show you just how the tip looks when creating up and down strokes with this marker. Keep in mind in this clip, I’m holding my paper upright to point at my camera which is facing down at my desk, so the strokes are a bit shaky and crooked since I can’t really see what I’m doing.. but even so, do you see those thick & thin strokes?! Imagine what that could look like with practice and not trying to write with your arm in the air while looking through a camera viewfinder.
So the first thing I want to mention about these markers is that as you push hard for your downstrokes, the tip of your marker will begin to bend the other way. That’s ok and it just means that you need to rotate your pen and push it back the other way. When we letter with these pens, we’re going to be still using the end of the tip, so you won’t change your angle of how you hold your pen much if at all when you’re lettering. So when the tip begins to bend, just simply rotate your pen and start again.
A common question that I get with hand lettering is how to make the letters give off that ombre effect where the top is darker than the bottom. I think this is a combination of applying more pressure tot he top and also using a nice paper. I’m using marker paper for these reviews and you can even see a bit of that ombre effect with this marker. So while I do think that certain pens or markers show that more vibrantly, I don’t think it’s solely the product of a certain type of pen.
I’m going to show you a few different types of bending in this video because with these markers you can either blend with lots of contrast in your colors so you can blend very subtly. I am a fan of subtle blending, but I know that more contrast can sometimes be a bit easier to see so I just wanted experiment with a few options.
These markers are not waterproof, but you can see that I’m using some as watercolor by coloring onto this ceramic surface and picking the color up with my water brush. This is a fun way to combine colors and it turns out really nicely!
I wanted to show you this marker on some lettering worksheets. I hope that you can get a bit more of an example of what this marker looks like with hand lettering. This particular worksheet set is my Simplified Lettering Beginner bundle that comes with the alphabet but also has practice words, so you’re able to work on letter connections as well as letter formation.
If you’d like to watch more pen reviews check them out here, join the Pen a Day Lettering Challenge or find some practice worksheets here if you’re wanting to learn more about hand lettering.
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