Let’s design and decorate letters!

Kathy has created a lively and versatile new alphabet to share with you! These updated, whimsical initials go beautifully with Modern Storybook Script, or any casual alphabet of your choosing. You can use them as stand-alone initials, on envelopes, for yourself and for gifts! Design a full word or phrase and frame it!   

In this workshop, you will learn how to draw, flourish, decorate and colorize your own stylish initial letters! Using the templates and Kathy’s easy, thoughtful instruction, it’s fun to design your own letters that come to life right before your eyes!

First, you’ll learn how to sketch and construct the letter structures using the hand-drawn templates from Kathy’s comprehensive handouts. With easy-to-follow tutorials, you’ll experiment with various looks like line design details, colors, flourishing, and background options before making final choices.

You’ll decorate each letter and experiment with outlining, inlining, dimensional shading, simple watercolor and colored pencil techniques, adding pen texture, flourishing, and other charming additions!

Then we’ll render our final initials using pen and ink, watercolor and/or colored pencils, micron markers, graphite, white ink, and of course, gold watercolor and embossing with a special tool!

Class recordings will be available to view until May 28, 2025.

Class Schedule

2 Sessions per day: March 20 & 27, 2025

Time: 10:30am-12:30pm, (break), then 2-4pm US Eastern time

Level: Beginners to Advanced

Cost: $195 USD

You can use this Time Zone Converter to check the time in your location.

What You'll Learn

• Critical thinking and visioning
• Translating your ideas onto paper
• Pencil sketching and planning your initial
• Contour drawing and linear design
• Creating "inhabited" letters
• Considering balance, flow, movement and direction
• Thinking in layers
• Choosing your paper & color palette
• How to make a color study   
• Painting on a dry surface
• Colored pencil techniques
• Adding textural details with ink
• Basic flourishes and where to add them

You will also learn:

• Outlining and In-lining techniques

• Creating your own design pattern

• Adding shadows and highlights

• Maximizing visual interest and impact

• Layout and organizing a small composition

• Reverse writing on dark paper/envelopes

• Adding and patterning gold watercolor

• Dimensional shading/highlighting

• Final finishing touches and embellishments

What You'll Receive

• Detailed handout package

• Historic alphabet examples

• Line art templates

• Online resources

• Smart, helpful hints to encourage your creative journey

• and 6 Bonuses!

  Bonus #1 Alternate Letters   

  Bonus #2 New Line Art Designs

  Bonus #3 Historic Alphabets to Draw & Enjoy

  Bonus #4 How to Choose a Watercolor Paper

  Bonus #5 Paper Resources

  Bonus #6 Spring Cookie Recipes

Kathy’s teaching style has been described as thoughtful, intelligent, detailed, entertaining, and joyful! She believes in the healing power of creating art.

Kathy creates a safe environment where participants can express themselves without judgment. She encourages, inspires, uplifts, and supports your learning experience. It’s never too late to learn!

Supply List

Once you register, you will receive a confirmation email and can login to the Student Portal to find the supply list at the bottom of the Welcome Module under Downloads.

Class Recordings

We will post links to the class recordings and teacher demo sheets in the student portal the day after class. The recordings will be available until May 28, 2025.

Refund Policy

All sales are final. Fees paid for this online workshop are non-refundable and non-transferable to future workshops.

About Your Instructor, Kathy Milici

Kathy is an internationally known calligrapher, designer, teacher, speaker, author and mentor, who happily admits to being obsessed with letters since childhood. With a studio located in northern New Jersey, her work has been featured in books, design blogs, national magazines and on television. Kathy's clients include private individuals, collectors and corporations, worldwide.

Kathy Milici has been an instructor for the Society of Scribes in New York City, a popular instructor at national and international calligraphy conferences, including IAMPETH, Letters California Style, and for the Sacred Arts Program at Enders Island in Mystic, CT. She teaches both small group classes and privately in NJ, and travels the country, promoting, lecturing and teaching calligraphy and the related arts.

The originator of the #1 best-selling font Gratitude Script, a modern typeface, Kathy also enjoys mentoring fellow artists and students on how to create a living and maintain a viable business as a working artist.

With a reputation for consistent excellence, a joyful heart, and a fun, encouraging teaching style, Kathy is honored to be a professional calligrapher and teacher for over 40 years. She feels privileged to have studied under some of the best known and well-respected Master Penmen of the world, including White House calligraphers. Her teachers have included Sheila and Julian Waters, Valerie Weilmunster, and IAMPETH Master Penmen Pat Blair, Michael Sull, John DeCollibus, Harvest Crittenden, Jake Weidmann, and Rosemary Buczek.

After all these years, Kathy is still enjoying her lifelong passion for “everything calligraphy.”

About Your Tech Host, Maureen Vickery

Maureen Vickery is a professional calligrapher and engraver with PenDance Studio in Houston, Texas. She also is the publisher and editor of Calligraphy Crush Magazine.

Her specialties include wedding calligraphy and hand engraving on glass and metal gift items. She loves working in both historic and modern calligraphy styles. Her main focus is pointed pen lettering, but she also enjoys creating compositions with broad edge pens, markers, and paint brushes.

Maureen's work has appeared in Dasherie, UPPERCASE, Expression, Letter Arts Review, Modern Luxury Weddings Houston, and Weddings in Houston magazines, as well as Kitty Burns Florey's book Script & Scribble. She is a member of the Houston Calligraphy Guild, the Society of Scribes, and IAMPETH.

You can find her wedding calligraphy on Instagram at @pendancestudio. Brand activations and calligraphy clients include Creed, Coty, Tiffany & Co., The Menil Collection, Burberry, Marc Jacobs, Givenchy, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Calligraphy and art classes are her favorite way to re-energize. Other interests include Keto recipes, gardening, Zentangle® (she’s a CZT), urban sketching, genealogy (she’s a descendant of 11 Mayflower passengers), watercolor illustrations, doubles tennis, and lemon bar cookies — not necessarily in that order.