Choose Fries Before Guys With This Hand-Lettered Galentine’s Day Tutorial

Looking to create a one-of-a-kind piece of art for your bestie this Galentine’s Day? You’ve come to the right place.

I’m going to show you how to draw and hand letter your own “Fries Before Guys” piece of art that’s so easy to make — all you have to be able to do is draw basic shapes! Need a little lettering brush up? I have an ONLINE CLASS for that! My bounce lettering class will teach you how to get that quirky lettering look like you see here.

Materials and Tools:

Instructions:

Start by sketching your fries using the Tombow MONO Drawing Pencil. These are all really basic shapes — mostly just straight or slightly curved lines.

Trace over your pencil lines with the broad tip of the MONO Twin Permanent Marker, then trace the fries with the fine tip of the marker. This marker won’t bleed when you add color on top, so it’s perfect for outlining.

Erase all of your pencil lines with the Tombow MONO Light Eraser. This eraser only requires a very light touch to erase.

Using the brush tip of your Chinese Red Dual Brush Pen, apply a thick layer of color all along the edges of the fry box, then grab your Colorless Blender pen and blend out the color toward the middle of the box. This will create an ombre effect with the middle of your box being lighter than the outer edges. You will need to apply a few layers of the red marker to get the blend to look seamless.

Using the brush tip of your Chrome Yellow Dual Brush Pen, apply color on all parts of your fries.

Pull out your Blending Palette and scribble color from Dual Brush Pen 993-Chrome Orange on the palette. If you don’t have a Blending Palette, a plastic baggie will also work. Run your Colorless Blender pen through the ink to pick it up, then apply to the shadow side of each fry. This will slightly darken that side to create dimension.

Use the broad tip of the MONO Twin Permanent Marker to create faux calligraphy lettering in a block style within your fry box. The MONO Twin is perfect here because there will still be a lot of moisture on the paper from using the Colorless Blender pen to blend the red, and the MONO Twin won’t bleed into the color.

Using the Fudenosuke Calligraphy Pen, hand letter the rest of your phrase and add a heart to finish it off! Remember to use heavy pressure on your downstrokes and light pressure on your upstrokes to achieve this look.

Voila! Easy enough, right? And remember, if you need some help with your lettering, check out my Bounce Lettering Basics class. Plus, by enrolling in this class, you’ll get access to 11 lessons, a 24-page workbook AND a promo code for 10 percent off your first Tombow pens order!