Kind Words Are Like Honey Hand Lettering Tutorial

By: Amy Latta, excerpted from Hand Lettering for Faith

By: Amy Latta, excerpted from Hand Lettering for Faith

There are countless ways to embellish a piece of hand- lettered art. Flourishes, borders and illustrations are great ways to enhance a design, but there’s another method that lettering artists often forget: the pattern. A simple geometric pattern in the background can take your design to the next level. You can use it behind the words themselves, behind a selected part of your lettering or elsewhere on the page. Some folks like to create their art in the margin while creating a pattern over part of the Bible text itself. Here, we’ll take a look at a basic hexagon pattern that you can do over your Bible text. Then we’ll learn to make a cute little bee, the perfect complement to our verse from Proverbs 16. Take a look!

Proverbs 16:24: Kind words are like honey—sweet to the soul and healthy for the body. (NLT)

Ever since I first met my husband’s grandmother, I’ve jokingly told anyone who will listen that I want to be just like her when I “grow up.” Not only is she in her upper nineties and living on a diet of coffee and sweets, she is literally the kindest person I have ever met. In the eighteen years I’ve known her, I have never once heard her make an unkind comment. That’s pretty remarkable, don’t you think? I doubt I’ve accomplished that feat for even a week. As a result, everyone who knows Gramma Latta wants to spend time with her. It’s no wonder that we all want to be in the presence of someone whose kindness lifts us up, encourages us and makes us feel good. The Bible tells us that kind words bring health to the body and the soul. We can help others just by the way we choose to speak to and about them! Our words matter, friends. It doesn’t cost us a penny to say something kind, but those words are of infinite value to those who hear them. Who can you speak kindness to today?

Instructions

HEXAGON PATTERNS

Drawing a geometric shape like the hexagon, which resembles honeycomb, can seem like a daunting task, but armed with a pencil, something circular and a straightedge, you’ll be sketching them by the dozen in no time.

Believe it or not, the first step to drawing a hexagon is to draw a circle!

You can start by tracing around something large like the rim of a glass, or you can find something smaller like a coin. You can also use a compass if you happen to have one on hand.
Using your straightedge, draw a horizontal line through the circle’s center.
Draw an X through the circle.

The lines of the X should meet right at the horizontal line. You should now have six sections that resemble pieces of a pie.
Use your straightedge to draw a line in each section that forms the base of a triangle.
Trace the outside edges of the hexagon shape with a marker and erase the rest of your pencil marks.
That’s all there is to it! Now, to create a geometric background, you can repeat these steps, making sure that each hexagon is touching the ones next to it. To make things as easy as possible, I suggest drawing one hexagon on a piece of scrap paper, cutting it out and tracing it to create a repeating pattern.

BEES

Now that we have a honeycomb, it’s time to learn how to draw our little bee. You’ll start with an oval, then add a short horizontal line on one end. This will be the body and stinger. Next, draw two vertical lines to represent antennae and two teardrop shapes for wings.
Divide the body with vertical lines to represent stripes. You can have as many or as few as you like, using whatever width looks best to you. Finally, add eyes and a little smile. You can give your bee the appearance of flight by creating a dashed line behind him to indicate where he’s been.
Practice these doodles. Then it’s time to letter and illustrate our Scripture verse. As always, we’ll start by sketching a design grid. Make sure to leave space for your cute little bees!
Pencil in the positions of your words in a combination of Faux Calligraphy, Serif-Style Type and Caps-Lock Print. Then go back and letter them in marker, adding highlights with a gel pen. Outline your bees in black, then fill in the bodies with yellow marker. Finally, erase all pencil lines to produce a finished piece of art. As for the hexagon pattern, you can add additional color and texture to your Bible page by drawing it lightly over a portion of the Scripture text itself!