Spacing Exercises

There are 2 aspects to lettercarving:

1. Technique - How you carve your letters: how you make permanent your layout in the wood. The technique of carving letters is pretty much the same for all alphabets
2. Design - What you are carving: the shapes of the letters themselves and how they are placed together, as words, as sentences.

Beginners easily get caught up in the technique of carving itself, which does need a lot of practise to do well, and forget the whole point of learning it: the design, or layout. And a big part of the layout is the actual spacing of letters, how they sit together comfortably and evenly. And here's the thing: you can't rely on a computer to do it for you, though there are certainly programs that can help.

In this tutorial I'll give you a couple of great, easy-to-do exercises that will help you develop your eye for spacing. Fun too! Also try them with different alphabets.