CALLIGRAPHY GUIDE
Whether self-made greeting card or professionally printed invitation card, which you can design and order yourself online, each card gains in personality and expressiveness if it is additionally described by handwriting. If you don’t like your normal font enough, try calligraphy. The technique is simpler than you would think and can be wonderfully practiced and perfected at home.
How to start
If you want to learn calligraphy, you don’t have to have any prior knowledge. The “art of beautiful writing” (meaning of calligraphy) is basically easy to learn. However, to achieve an even typeface, you should practice with calligraphy exercise sheets for a while. But before you can get started, you need the necessary tools first.
Accessories for Beginners
You don’t need a lot of accessories for calligraphy. However, it is all the more important that you resort to high-quality tools, otherwise the results will disappoint and the spring will quickly land back in the corner. As a calligraphy beginner, you need this accessory:
- Spring holder: The spring holder is used to hold and extend the spring chosen for writing so that you can hold it comfortably. Whether you use a variant made of wood or plastic is a pure question of comfort and taste.
- Feather: Surely you know the pen from the elementary school – it is also used in the filler for second-graders, but is not interchangeable there. If you want to try modern calligraphy fonts, use a pointed calligraphy pen, the stroke thickness of which you can widen thanks to its flexibility through printing. In addition, there are numerous other types of springs, such as left-beveled calligraphy springs, rectangular plate springs or strip springs. You can deal with them if you master the basics of calligraphy.
- Ink: For your start as a calligraphy beginner, it’s best to use ready-made mixed drawing ink.
- Paper: Normal copy paper is hardly suitable for calligraphy, as due to the coarse surface, the drawing ink would “bleed out” and run. Instead, use layout paper that has a smooth surface and is slightly transparent, allowing you to place a translucent sheet of guides underneath. Even if you want to write later on thicker paper, make sure that the surface is completely smooth, otherwise your spring will get stuck.
- Cleaning utensils: In order to clean the spring before use, you also need a small container with water, a lint-free rag as well as soap or cleaning alcohol.
Instructions for getting started
Before you can start, clean the spring. Dip them in cleansing alcohol or soapy water and gently clean them with the rag. Then you can dip it into the ink, which should reach about the middle of the small hole in the spring (ink reservoir). Always hold the spring holder at a 45 degree angle to the sheet when writing. Start by practicing strokes. Spreads, i.e. strokes that lead you from bottom to top, are thin and are guided without pressure on the spring. When smearing, the downward movement, you may apply pressure and thus make the stroke wider.
Consider these tips
To ensure that your first attempts at calligraphy produce great results, consider these tips:
- Do not press too hard into the paper with the spring, otherwise it may get stuck. This results in patters or splashes.
- Never press the spring when you write a spread – it should slide over the paper.
- If the ink is lumped, you should clean your spring moist in between. Alternatively, it may be necessary to dilute the ink with a pipette filled with water (preferably use a separate vessel).
- For a uniform typeface, ensure that both the spreads and the smears are parallel to each other.
- The center length (x-height) and the header line should be maintained.
- Upper and lower lengths should always be the same length.
- Maintain an even baseline.
- Make sure that the letters are evenly separated from each other.