I’ve been doing calligraphy for a long time – since I was about ten or so. It’s a big part of what I do, and it’s something that’s always fascinated me. I think it always will.
My main focus right now is on modern calligraphy – the kind that people who don’t know calligraphy think of as “handwriting”. That’s the kind I do most of here on this blog. But I also do a lot of other kinds of calligraphy, including some very different stuff from what you’ll see here. I’ve done a lot of historical calligraphy, for example: Carolingian minuscule, Gothic minuscules, Blackletter. I’ve done posters for businesses and weddings and big art installations. I also work on book design, which is usually more typographic than calligraphic but can be either depending on the project. But this blog isn’t the place to see that kind of thing; much of it is off-blog (though sometimes you can find past projects in my portfolio).
Calligraphy is one of the most underrated hobbies out there. It is beautiful, interesting and fun.
Calligraphy has a long history that can be traced back to antiquity. Originally it was used to produce religious manuscripts in the Middle East and Asia. The art form spread across the globe and it has been used for official documents, handwritten letters and as decoration.
In contemporary times calligraphy has also been used in graphic design, advertising and other forms of communication.
Calligraphy is an art form that has been practiced for thousands of years. It was originated in China, and then spread to Japan, Korea, and the rest of Asia.
The ink is traditionally made from mixing lampblack (soot) with a water-soluble glue-like substance and then applied to paper using a brush.
There are many different styles of writing calligraphy, including: Chinese (Kanji), Korean (Hangul), Japanese (Kana), Thai, Lao and Vietnamese scripts.
There are four major styles of calligraphy:
* Cursive – The most natural form of handwriting, it is often used for personal correspondence or informal documents such as shopping lists, notes or business cards. Its flowing style is suited for decorative labels or invitations.
The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters. The following table shows their forms and names in Arabic alphabetical order:
In this tutorial we will focus on the basics of calligraphy. The first thing you need is a pen that is made for calligraphy and ink, as opposed to a pen and ink. I recommend a Speedball C-2 or a Brause 361. The Speedball can be found at most art stores, and the Brause can be purchased at carnicerias (butcher shops) or ordered online.
This tutorial has three parts: practice strokes, alphabets, and words.
Practice Strokes
The first thing you should do when learning calligraphy is to get your hand used to moving the pen. Practice makes perfect! Here are some strokes you should know:
The downstroke is when you move the pen from left to right. It’s not as easy as it looks! You have to imagine there’s a string attached to your elbow that is pulling your hand down. That way, your writing will look much more elegant!
You also have to have good posture while writing calligraphy. It seems silly, but if you’re slouching then even the best handwriting won’t look good! Here’s a picture of how good posture looks: (the Xs are where your bones are)
As you
Calligraphy is a branch of the visual arts that involves the creation of beautiful writing. It’s also a branch of graphic design and typography, involving the aesthetics of letterforms in alphabetical scripts. It’s one of the most ancient arts, as well as one of the most enduring.
Thoughtful writing became very important during the Renaissance, when it was valued for being both beautiful and useful to commerce. It evolved from inscriptions in stone or metal into typography, which we now associate with commercial printing and the printed word, but over time it became more closely associated with fine art or “manuscript illumination.” Since then calligraphy has become a popular hobby for many people who like to write by hand.
The alphabets used for calligraphy are usually either formal ones (largely derived from Latin) or script-style ones (derived from handwriting). Script-style letters were first developed during antiquity as alternatives to classical ones; they were initially used mostly for decorative effect, but later they came to be used more functionally. Many modern calligraphic forms are derived from these script styles.
The history of writing is very long: it began in prehistoric times. Rows of symbols or pictures called pictograms were carved on stone age artifacts
Bold and beautiful, it commanded attention. But that wasn’t the most remarkable thing about the handwriting. It was what the handwriting said.
The document was dated January 18, 1776, and it was signed “Betsy Ross.”
It bore a striking resemblance to what we now call cursive–the flowing style of writing that children practice in school. And it looked very much like another piece of writing done around the same time by an equally famous person: George Washington’s farewell address, which is also in cursive.
A few years ago I found myself staring at these two documents for a long time. I had never seen anything like either one before. The way the letters flowed together reminded me of music; it looked more like art than writing. But that wasn’t the most interesting thing about them either. What really caught my attention was that they both looked so different from everything else I had ever seen written or printed in America before 1776–and then after.
The first printed book in America, published just four years earlier, was titled The Bay Psalm Book (no relation). This book is in a very different style called block printing or “plain” writing–each letter is separate from all the others, and there is no connecting between them
Although I’m sure they are still in stock, I can’t buy them because the only size they stocked was the “Bulky” size. This was just a bit too bulky for me to fit into my purse and it would be too bulky to fit in my pen case without me taking the cartridges out.
