Hello my lefty friends! I get asked so often about lefty hand lettering. People wonder if they can even DO hand lettering as a lefty, and the answer is absolutely YES! I may not be left handed myself, but I've spent a lot of time talking with letterers who are lefties (one of my team members here at Hand Lettered Design is a lefty) and I've put together some tips for how to hand letter with your left hand and some of the most frequently asked questions that lefties have about hand lettering (scroll down for my Lefty Lettering FAQ section!) If you're looking to shop lefty friendly workbooks and notebooks, you can find all of our top-spiral books here! Ready to get started? I'll even try some lefty lettering myself! Lefty Lettering Tip #1: Angle your Paper If you are left handed and are practicing hand lettering, don't be afraid to angle your paper or workbook as MUCH as you need to. Place it however feels comfortable for you. I have had some lefty friends tell me that they angle their paper A TON while they do hand lettering. Try out some different angles and find what works best for you. Lefty Lettering Tip #2: Angle your Pen I always encourage anyone doing hand lettering, whether you are right or left handed, to hold your brush pen at a 45 degree angle. The reason this is the SAME no matter what hand you letter with is that all letters use a mix of push strokes and pull strokes: sometimes you push away from your hand and sometimes you pull towards your hand. Watch the above video to really see this in action: when you are a lefty, your strokes are at the same angle, just in a different direction. (This makes some letters easier for lefties and some easier for righties.) Lefty Lettering Tip #3: Avoiding Smudging One concern that I hear from lefties about hand lettering is that their ink gets smudged as they letter. So here are my tips for avoiding ink smudging for lefty hand lettering: Try using a guide sheet: place a sheet of paper under your hand as you letter (I love our tracing paper for this!) so it creates a barrier between the oils of your hand and the ink on your paper. Go SLOW. I recommend going slowly for ALL hand letterers but it can make a huge difference for lefties. Even milliseconds between your ink going on the paper and your hand touching that ink can allow it to dry significantly. Try different pens and paper. I've found that these Faber Castell Brush Pens seem to dry faster because of the type of ink they use. And a glossy paper will smear much more than a thicker paper where the ink can absorb more quickly. (Check out all the different papers in our shop here.) Try different pen grips. I know some lefties who hold their brush pen so that their hand doesn't touch the paper as much. This is a fun one: try lettering backwards! Write out your lettering first in pencil, and then when you trace over it using ink, do it backwards so your hand is moving over the unfinished part as you go. You can watch a cool example of one of my lefty friends on Instagram lettering this way here. Lefty Lettering Tip #4: Shop Top Spiral When I first started making hand lettering workbooks, I heard from my lefty friends that spiral notebooks with coils on the side are frustrating and that the side spiral was always getting in the way of their hand as they letter. I realized that having a TOP spiraled notebook could solve this issue, and from then on every single one of our workbooks has been available in both top and side spiral options: You can shop all of our hand lettering workbooks for lefties here. Select