Bubble letters look like a knack you either have or you do not. They are a method. Write your word in plain print capitals, wrap each letter in one long curvy line, then erase what is underneath. Everything after that is decoration.
This walkthrough follows the art teacher behind Kenwood K-8 Center Art Class, who builds the word ART on a dry erase board then redraws it on paper with a Sharpie and crayons. Nearly all of it happens with a pencil and an eraser, so you can practice on an envelope. The same curvy line works on lowercase and on cursive.
What you need
- A pencil and a white eraser
- Paper or cardstock
- A black Sharpie or fine permanent marker
- Crayons or colored pencils
How to draw bubble letters in four moves
Print the word in thin block capitals with wide gaps. Wrap each letter in one continuous curvy line held about a pencil width off the printed stroke, rounding every corner and letting the line swell between them. Erase the skeleton. Ink the outlines and color them in.
That line is the same edge used in how to draw clouds: no corners, a slow bulge, closed up. An even gap all the way around reads as inflated; a wandering gap reads as lumpy.
Bubble writing is the same thing
People search this four ways and mean one job: how to draw bubble letters, how to write bubble letters, how to make bubble letters, how to do bubble writing. Bubble handwriting is the lowercase version.
Easy bubble letters in five minutes
The steps below add a highlight side, a shadow side, a heavy border, sparkles and a two-family color scheme. None is required. Easy bubble letters are three moves: outline, erase, fill with one color. What you cannot skip is light pencil pressure at the start: a hard printed line never erases and shows through the color.
Bubble letters alphabet: the letters that fight back
Round letters carry themselves: O, C, G and Q inflate on the first pass. Straight letters go boxy, so E, F, H, I, L and T need corners rounded hard and the middle of each stroke bowed out. A, B, D, O, P, Q and R have a hole that needs its own curvy shape inside, and it shrinks as the outline swells, so print it bigger than looks right.
S, K, R and Z are where people give up. An S pinches at the waist and the outlines fuse into a blob, so print it wide with air in the middle. On the diagonals of K, R and Z the outline wants to cut across the V; push it into the corner and round it. For a full alphabet, print A to Z an inch tall, outline all 26 and erase.
What makes graffiti bubble letters different
Graffiti bubble letters run the same skeleton and break three rules. Letters overlap and lean instead of sitting on a baseline. A second heavy outline traced outside the first gives the word a keyline. Each letter gets an extrusion: short parallel lines dragged off one side of every edge, joined and filled solid, making a 3D block.
Where bubble letters go wrong
The letters merge into a blob. The printed word was too tight. Every letter gains a fat outline on both sides, so leave two finger widths between capitals.
A grey ghost sits inside each bubble. Too much pressure on the printed word. Graphite pushed into the paper fibers does not lift.
The last letter runs off the page. Mark where the word starts and ends, print the middle letter first, work outward.
The outline smears into the color. Sharpie needs a minute. Ink first, dry, then color.
More lettering here: faux calligraphy uses the same outline-and-thicken idea with an ordinary pen, italic covers pen angle and slant, learning calligraphy starts the full alphabet, and how to draw covers general pencil work.
