Learning About Calligraphy

Proper Terminology

Calligraphy is defined as "the art of beautiful writing". A person who writes the calligraphy can be called a "calligrapher, calligraphist (more uncommon) or a scribe". When you ask someone to write for you, it wouldn't be grammatically correct to ask someone to "calligraphy" for you (it's not a verb); the correct term would be the verb: to "calligraph the text'.

Many people think that learning calligraphy is easy as taking one adult education class. Well, I hate to disappoint you, but it's not true. Many people have said to me: you must have had really nice handwriting. But that's not true either! Learning calligraphy means learning about the letter forms, and then being able to reproduce them consistently each time your write them.

To learn how to make calligraphy letters, or what many people call "fonts", you must learn to "see" what the letter looks like. Each historic alphabet has it's own unique characteristics. From studying the letter forms, you will be able to determine what type of pen was used - was it a "pointed pen" where you get thick and thin parts of the letters from applying pressure on the pen nib? Or was the letter made with a "square cut nib", or similar writing instrument that produces thick and thins, also known as hairlines, from the consistent angle by which you hold the pen?

Luckily, there are now more options to learn calligraphy than ever before. There are many books on the subject that you can buy from specialty shops such as Amazon.com.

You can get supplies and a nice selection of materials that are available at Dick Blick.

You'll find that you'll need a bit more than a good book, and a pen and ink. One of the most important tools that you'll need is a T-square. You'll have to either line your paper to make sure that the height of your letters are consistent. The T-square will make sure that your lines are parallel all the way down the paper.

Of course, you'll need a pad of paper - good practice paper is "hammermill bond", which isn't very expensive. A paper that is too smooth and doesn't have "tooth" - that provides some resistance to your pen, can make the pen slide perilously across the paper. There are now pads that are pre-printed with lines so that you don't have to line for yourself. They are very convenient. However, it limits you to the size of the nib (pen tip that is interchangeable for the size of the lettering you want to do). And, if you're going to do your own calligraphy art piece, you are going to have to learn how to line your paper.

But mostly, new students tend to press too hard on their nibs, making it difficult for the ink to flow off the nib onto the page! And the larger the size of your nib, the more difficult it is to get that ink or paint (gouache) to flow! Practicing with a larger size is important to so that you can really see the contrast between the parts of the Ietters, and study them to learn how to draw your perfect calligraphy alphabet!

Besides books, there are some websites where you can learn calligraphy as well. But be careful before you spend a lot of time with one site, or book for that matter.

It can be like this funny line in an old movie with Yakov Smirnoff called Moscow on the Hudson. He came to the US and wanted to learn the English language very quickly. So he locked himself in his apartment and watched TV all day long. The only problem was he was watching a spanish language network and became fluent in spanish! Don't learn from a person who doesn't know what they're doing. Read my page: about quality, so you don't learn poor letter forms!