Calligraphy for Beginners

Supplies

The phenomenal thing about calligraphy writing is you can use most any type of pen or marker that has a fine tip! Some example of brands would be:

* Paint Pens

*Pen-tel Paint Pens

*Crayola Super Tip Markers or Crayola Calligraphy Markers

*Watercolor Pens

*Calligraphy fine tip pens

*Marvi Color Markers

*Pallette Parallel Pens

*Fineliner

*Pigma Brush

Tips

The best practice I got from calligraphy and lettering is purchasing or printing online lettering books or worksheets. They give examples in which direction your strokes should go. You can never have too much practice.

Learning your strokes- upward strokes are best for fine lining, don't push down on the brush too much, keep your strokes on the paper light as a feather but swift for all upward movements. Downward strokes are to be more firm on the paper and press down on the pen/marker more to give it a bold line, take your time with the motion, if too swift with the movement can appear fine like an upward stroke.

Knowing general cursive is best! If you know how to properly write in cursive - use your handwriting technique but critique the stroke lines to be more in depth. See example below-

So take your cursive and play around with it - space out the letters more- ad more bold strokes upward or downward- or outline the strokes to create the negative space look.

Some pens have a thick side and some have a thin side, choosing the correct direction of your pen is very important. Hold your pen at an unchanging angle. For most scripts you'll hold the pen so that the tip of the pen points diagonally away from you to the left, at around 30-60 degrees. (The exact angle varies for different scripts - don't worry about this.)

The tip should not turn as you form lines and curves. It should always point in the same direction, like a compass needle, whatever the pen and your hand are doing. This give regularity to the script. This is the foundation of how to write calligraphic letter forms.

If you press too hard on the nib you may damage it and then it won’t work well. If you push the nib 'forwards' away from your hand, it will tend to dig into the paper and sputter or blot, and this spoils the work as well as damaging the nib. Beginners often lean heavily on their arm but this pressure makes the letters look stiff and clumsy, and after a while it hurts, too.

So here's a start for pointers on writing in Calligraphy so now it's your turn, go out buy a book or print worksheets off for practice, utilize your own cursive handwriting and play around the fabulous pens. I strongly suggest finding pens on Amazon- better variety and great deals!