Pinners Conference Recap: Faux Calligraphy & a Watercolor Background

Friends, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our experience at Pinners Conference! In case you missed the previous posts, I shared about our travel and preparation, the Mod Podge Beaded Bracelets class, and the Basic Brush Technique hand lettering class. Today, I want to share a few highlights from the final class I taught, which also happened to be my favorite: Faux Calligraphy on a Watercolor Background.

The project was one I created last year for a guest post on Dawn Nicole Designs, and I thought it was a great beginner level introduction to lettering as well as using Tombow pens to create a watercolor effect. Four of my partner companies pitched in to sponsor the class so that each student had a bag full of all the materials they’d need.

Tombow USA provided:
3 Tombow Dual Brush Pens
Tombow Fudenosuke Soft Tip
Blending Palette/Color Chart

Plaid Crafts provided:
Geometric 6×6″ stencil

Blitsy provided:
Hot press watercolor paper
Paintbrushes

Pentel provided:
Pentel Aquash Water Brush

Each student also got an instruction packet that Erin and I put together with practice sheets for mastering faux calligraphy.

One of the reasons this class was my favorite was that I got to meet some of you all in real life! In fact, one member of the One Artsy Mama reader community, Darlene, sent me a message asking for my Starbucks order so she could bring me coffee!

She also brought Erin a coffee too, and surprised us with a box of what were hands-down the most amazingly delicious donuts we’ve ever eaten in our lives. They were from a local place called Revolution Doughnuts and I am absolutely putting it on my must-visit list for anytime I’m in the area. How cute is this little message Darlene wrote for us on the box?!

Once again, we were in one of the largest classrooms with 190 attendees registered for the one-hour workshop. Almost every seat in the room was full!

This time, I had a document camera for my visuals, which was absolutely awesome. It allowed me to work at a table on the stage and project exactly what I was doing. Every classroom everywhere needs one of these! It was perfect for demonstrating, especially when we got to the watercolor part.

I showed the class how to scribble on the palette with their markers, then pick up the color with their water brushes. They placed the stencil on the watercolor paper, then painted with the water brush inside the open spaces to create an effect like this.

Attendees could use just the three markers in their own materials kits, or trade and share with their neighbors. Once the watercolor backgrounds were finished and drying, it was time to come up with a word or phrase to write on top using the faux calligraphy technique.

It is always so much fun to see how different people adapt the same project and get completely unique results! One student turned her stencil to create a diamond shape before lettering, “grace” on top.

Here are a few more finished projects. The variety of color combinations and the phrases people choose to letter are always fun for me to see!

One of my favorite parts of all three classes was getting an opportunity to walk around and meet the attendees. I loved hearing how far they had come, what inspired them, and what they were enjoying about the conference.

I made several new friends who seemed to keep coming back for more, attending each of my sessions and creating beautiful things.

…including this 10 year old cutie who attended all three workshops. Keep an eye out for this girl…she’s the future of craft blogging!

As I’m sure you can tell by now, Pinners Conference was an absolute blast, and I was so honored and grateful to have the opportunity to present. Huge thanks to the event staff for coordinating everything and to everyone who attended my classes and made me feel so welcome. And of course, thanks again to Erin and Kirsten who worked their tails off behind the scenes as my kit-assemblers, money collectors, assistants, and do-it-all girls. I couldn’t have done it without them.

As with all good things, the conference did have to come to an end, which pretty much looked like this…

Be sure to check out Pinners Conference if it comes to a location somewhat near you!

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