Lise Hellström

A life-changing Christmas present: a pen

Lise used to work a stressful manager job and had three small kids at home. She was feeling a little overwhelmed by life and hadn’t had a hobby or done anything creative since she was around 12. Then her husband gave her a life-changing Christmas present: a pen. She didn’t quite know how to use it, so she searched online and found out it was a brush pen, and that it was used for illustrations and something called lettering. After watching a couple tutorials online, she was sold.

The immense power of words

“I love reading and bow to the immense power of words and how they can change the world, so lettering suited me perfectly. Six months later I quit my job and here I am. I quit my corporate job to start out in this field four years ago, with no prior lettering or design related experience or education, I’m 100% self-taught.”

Nature and illustrations as constant source of inspiration

Lise is quite versatile when it comes to lettering styles, and her background in marketing makes it easy for her to step into the buyer’s shoes. “I love letters that are full of life and personality – texture and wonkiness are my favourites. And gradients! I love the analogue process with the pen, ink and the paper fibres. Every new combination creates different effects, and I encourage everyone to try out a lot of different combinations.” She feels inspired by illustrations – “lettering artists can learn a lot about colour schemes and layouts from illustrations. I follow some great photographers online, and nature is a constant source of inspiration as well.”

Empowering creativity

Lise has some wonderful advice for every artist that uses social media and is feeling burnt out. “Social media is a great place to be as an artist – there’s an abundance of inspiration and the community is kind and supporting. Posting your work shows the world and yourself that you take your art seriously, and that’s a great and often big step to take, and I really encourage it!

But if you start feeling like everyone is better than you and finding yourself be less encouraged and inspired by scrolling your feed, that’s probably a sign that you need to get off of it for a while and get back to the joy of creating, just for you. Creativity and art are supposed to be fun and energizing, not draining.”