Incorporate metallic watercolours into your lettering

Watercolour challenge

Watercolour paint is a versatile medium and offers up so many opportunities for lettering and modern calligraphy. You can bring watercolours directly into your designs by using a paint brush to apply lettering to your page or do as Andra has done here, laying down your lettering first with a light coloured brush pen and then layer your watercolours over the top.

Metallic watercolours are infused with reflective pigment that catches the light, creating a wonderful added dimension to your designs. In this project, Andra uses metallic watercolours with metallic brush pens for a wonderfully lustrous result. Watch the video to see Andra's full process. 

This project was created using:

• Rhodia Touch A5 bristol book
• Kohinoor Versatil mechanical pencil 2.0mm HB
• Swordfish eraser
• ONLINE Calli.Brush Grey Edition brush markers - the lightest grey
• Art Sensation metallic watercolours
• Faber-Castell Pitt Artist brush pen, warm grey
• Arteza paint brush
• Kuretake Zig Fudebiyori metallic brush markers

Choosing metallic watercolours

There are plenty of sets of metallic and lustrous watercolour sets to choose from, and any of them should create a nice end result. For this project, Andra opted for the metallic watercolours from Art Sensation, which come in a pack of six decent-sized paint pads - gold, silver, green, light blue, pink and light pink.

Many calligraphers swear by the Finetec watercolour sets from Coliro, which are available in a wide range of metallic and pearl colours. We also like the Gansai Tambi sets from Kuretake, which are available here at Pen Pusher.