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Dawn Nicole

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May Birth Flowers Drop Cap Tutorial
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Have Fun Color Palette
April Birth Flowers Drop Cap Tutorial
Cheery Daisies Color Palette
Patchwork Quilt Lettering Style Tutorial
Hand-Drawn Doodled Hearts Tech Pretties
Double Rainbow Color Palette

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I’m a full-time lettering artist based in Charleston, SC. You can usually find me with a coffee in one hand and Apple Pencil in the other.

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Dawn Nicole Designs | Hand-Lettering & Modern Calligraphy

bydawnnicole

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Apr 13

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In the Notes App on my phone, I keep a note titled “Life-Changing Ways of Thinking”. 🤯⁣
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While both of these were being applied to working out at the time I heard them, I think they’re both super applicable to being a lettering artist as well, so I wanted to share them with you.⁣
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1️⃣ You vs. You. ⁣
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I first heard this during a @onepeloton ride with @allymisslove. She was talking about ignoring the riders around you and focusing solely on competing with yourself. ⁣
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Comparing yourself to others is futile because we’re all in different places in our journey. When we learn to shut out the competition and put all our energy into bettering our own skill set, we’re so much better for it.⁣
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Whether it’s your fitness or your art you’re working to improve, “You vs. You” is a less stressful and more freeing way of growing your strengths!⁣
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2️⃣ Stop saying “I didn’t have time” and start saying “I didn’t make it a priority”. ⁣
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I first heard this one on a 2019 episode of the How Men Think Podcast. ⁣
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It was a major lightbulb moment for me. 💡 When you shift your mindset this way, suddenly you find that you do have time for the things you make a priority. ⁣
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It’s also more personal because while we all have the same number of hours in a day, we all have very different commitments, goals, and priorities in life.⁣
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Do you have any life-changing ways of thinking you can share? I’d love to hear them!⁣
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✏️ Artwork Details: I used my “Patchwork Quilt” style for the lettering (free video tutorial on my blog). The added details are a combo of hand-drawn illustrations and stamps/brushes from my Procreate sets.⁣
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LEARN LETTERING WITH ME⁣
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🛍 Shop: shop.bydawnnicole.com⁣
💻 Blog: bydawnnicole.com

bydawnnicole

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Apr 1

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Out of Office. Not physically, just mentally. 😜⁣
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Spring Break is next week though, so I’ll be out of office soon! We’re road tripping down to Florida for a few days.⁣
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I don’t think of a trip as a “real” vacation unless there’s a white sand beach, turquoise ocean, and Piña Coladas. 🏝🧉⁣
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✏️ Artwork Details: This is an update of a lettering piece I did a few years back. The tropical illustrations were done using stamps from my Tropical Vibes Procreate Brush Kit.⁣
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LEARN LETTERING WITH ME⁣
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🛍 Shop: shop.bydawnnicole.com⁣
💻 Blog: bydawnnicole.com⁣
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#procreatelettering #DNDlettering #procreateartist #handlettering #handlettered #ipadlettering #outofoffice #springbreak

bydawnnicole

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Mar 17

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Top O’ the Mornin’ to You! ☘️🌈☀️⁣
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While I’ve always known that part of my family’s ancestry includes Ireland, I didn’t know how much until I did genetic testing via Ancestry.com and 23 and Me a few years ago.⁣
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My ethnicity report shows I’m roughly 50% British/Scottish/Irish, 18% German, 25% Ashkenazi Jewish, and 2% Polish. The rest is “broadly European”.⁣
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Shortly before we moved from Germany back to the U.S., we took my dream trip to Kerry, Ireland. Swipe to see a few pics and videos. I’d love to go back again someday! 🙌🏻⁣
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Happy St. Patrick’s Day! 💚

bydawnnicole

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Mar 16

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Fun. As an adult, we often get so caught up in the “adulting” side of life that we forget what it feels like to have fun. Add a pandemic in the mix, and you start to feel like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day”.⁣
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I’ve been trying to seek out intentional ways to do things I enjoy into my daily life, even when I’m not really feeling it. (In the military life, we jokingly refer to this as “forced fun”. 😜)⁣
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For me, this has meant reading a ton of books and lettering, of course.⁣
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But when I’m not feeling creative/motivated enough to create something from scratch (which is often lately), I’ve been working on re-creating older lettering pieces. ⁣
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This “Don’t Forget to Have Fun” lettering, I originally did 4 years ago. It was literally just the lettering. Yesterday, I sat down and decided to redo it, giving the lettering a refresh and adding modern folk art style florals and illustrations. ⁣
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⬅️ Swipe for process video and to see the very first version of the lettering from 2017. ⁣
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Practice makes progress, ya’ll! It can take YEARS to see major changes in your style and skills. Keep at it!⁣
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✏️ LEARN LETTERING WITH ME⁣
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🛍 Shop: shop.bydawnnicole.com⁣
💻 Blog: bydawnnicole.com⁣

bydawnnicole

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Mar 15

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Happy Monday! 💕⁣
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I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with combining my lettering and illustration style with the basic elements of folk art designs. ⁣
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I love the whimsical, imperfect style that you often see in folk art pieces. It creates a charming storybook feel that I gravitate toward in a big way and I’m working on some bigger lettering pieces in this style.⁣
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While the flat illustrations are fairly simple to create, it can be quite time-consuming to add in all the little details. Playing around with style elements and colors are a big part of my refinement process.⁣
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Note: This is the design I ultimately came up with for the May for the monthly Birth Flower Drop Cap Series I’ve been on the blog this year. The calendar Freebies and the Procreate Tutorial for this design will be coming your way mid-April. ⁣
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The April Birth Flower Drop Cap tutorial will be up this Thursday and the calendars are already on the blog.⁣
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⬅️Swipe for the original sketch and process video. The letter “M” is one from my Chloe Style Lettering Workbook. I mainly used brushes and stamps from two Procreate Sets in my shop: The Creativity Kit and The Floral Lettering Kit.⁣
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✏️ LEARN LETTERING WITH ME⁣
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🛍 Shop: shop.bydawnnicole.com⁣
💻 Blog: bydawnnicole.com⁣

bydawnnicole

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Mar 9

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✏️ NEW in the Lettering Shop!⁣
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Level-up your lettering with my latest set of Texture Brushes for Procreate. ⁣
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I created them from real textures like burlap, concrete, aged wood, velvet and more! They’re designed to easily give your lettering and illustrations a ton of added character.⁣
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⬅️Swipe for a preview and then pop over to the shop to see more example photos. ⁣
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Happy lettering!⁣
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🛍 Shop: shop.bydawnnicole.com⁣
💻 Blog: bydawnnicole.com⁣
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#procreatelettering #DNDlettering #procreateartist #handlettering #handlettered #ipadlettering

bydawnnicole

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Mar 3

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bydawnnicole

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Feb 22

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You can’t teach heart, but you can teach the joy of the art of lettering! 💖⁣
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I first shared lettering in this cute Patchwork Quilt Style here on IG over the holidays. I had so much fun with it, that I've since created several pieces using the same techniques and aesthetic.⁣
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Today on the blog, you can follow along with the Procreate tutorial for how I achieve this style.⁣
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In an 11-minute video lesson, I walk you through the main steps you’ll need to follow to try this style and also share some tips and tricks that help me create this lettering faster and more consistently.⁣
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P.S. If you haven’t popped by my blog lately, I’ve had 9️⃣ new blog posts go up this month so far: Procreate Tutorials, Color Palettes, and more!⁣
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✏️ Created with Brushes + Stamps from “The Texture Kit” and “The Creativity Kit” Procreate sets available in my shop.⁣
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🛍 Shop: shop.bydawnnicole.com⁣
💻 Blog: bydawnnicole.com⁣

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The content of this website is ©Dawn Nicole Designs, LLC unless otherwise noted. If you’d like to share something from my blog, please feel free to share ONE image and then link back to my post where people can read the full tutorial/content. Please DO NOT alter or copy photos nor copy my work in its entirety to share on your site without my permission. Some posts may contain affiliate links. Dawn Nicole Designs LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. View my Full Disclosure, TOS, and Policies here.