CALLIGRAPHY WITHOUT A FANCY PEN

If you saw my last post, you would know that I don’t encourage people to go out and spend a ridiculous amount of money on a calligraphy pen or a brush pen. However, if you are really passionate about it then go for it! This post will be specifically looking at how to write calligraphy without any fancy pens. You can achieve this style by using any pen you like; it could be a basic ballpoint pen, an Artline pen like I use, or any coloured pen you find laying around.

The first step is to write your word/sentence/phrase in cursive lettering, using a pencil. This step can be skipped, but if you’re a beginner, I highly recommend this as it’s great practice. It works best if you ‘sketch’ out each letter individually, rather than the running-writing technique were you write the word down all in one go. You can add in a tail after you write each letter which makes it easier for each character to connect. After you have written out your word, you want to add in a line where each letter dips down. As you can see in the image, I haven’t outlined the entire letter like you would to achieve the bubble-writing font. I simply draw wherever there is a downward motion, like if you were to use a brush pen.

 

The next step is to outline everything that you wrote down, in any pen you like. I mean, this is pretty self-explanatory so I won’t go into too much detail but, after you have outlined the chosen word, you need to erase the pencil markings. Depending on the pen you used, you might need to wait a few seconds before doing this as it may smudge your work.

 

The final step is to fill in the area where there are downwards motions. Try to keep this as neat as possible because if you accidentally go out of the lines, it can look a little weird and out of place. Going back to the downward motions, try not to make a really harsh line that just goes straight down. Take your time and follow the curve of the letter. When you connect the line back down to the character, do it some-what gracefully and like I said, don’t go over the line too much because it looks messy. Again, you can colour this in any colour you like, as long as it matches the outline pen.