How to do Modern Calligraphy – Beginners Guide
Calligraphy ‘the art of writing letters’.
Calligraphy means beautiful writing. A single pass with the help of a pen to write letters.
The best thing about calligraphy is, for creating calligraphy you don’t need to have pretty handwriting.
What is Modern Calligraphy?
Modern Calligraphy – The art of writing letters in a contemporary way. It is fresh, a new style that brings flexibility and uniqueness to the letters.
The calligraphic style which does not follow the traditional calligraphy scripts rules like Copperplate, Blackletter, Spencerian, Italic, etc is the modern calligraphy.
It gives you more creativity than traditional calligraphy.
Modern calligraphy’s basically relied on the principles of traditional calligraphy.
In modern calligraphy, you don’t have to follow specific guides to create a specific style of calligraphy.
Here, you create your own idea and style……
How Does Modern calligraphy Differ from traditional Calligraphy?
Traditional scripts are done with precise measures of heights and angles, with the help of specific tools.
Specific, Structured, and Individual strokes form different letters.
A traditional calligraphic script such as Copperplate, Italic Blackletter, Spencerian, etc. is governed with the help of specific structured and individual strokes.
In modern calligraphy, you have freedom in its performance.
Now, don’t think you can scribble anything on a paper and say it’s calligraphy.
No, it’s not like that;
There are some basic ground rules in modern calligraphy as well which you must apply for maintaining visual harmony.
May these rules seem overwhelming and complicated to beginners but when you are comfortable with them then it’s the easiest thing that a person can do.
So before knowing the rules I’ll give you a brief knowledge about the tools which you will be required for creating calligraphy.
Watch Video about traditional Calligraphy for better understanding Click Here Video By Calligraphy Master.
List of some of the most popular tools for modern calligraphy.
- Brush Pens
- Traditional Dip Pens
- Pencil
- Waterproof Markers
Now some information regarding these tools-
1. Brush pens –
The easiest and simplest tool to start with is brush pens.
Brush pens allow you to create nice thick and thin lines with his as brush pens have flexible nibs.
And it is one of the basic requirements for calligraphy.
Some recommendations for brush pens are as follow:-
- Tombow Dual Tip Brush Pen
- Crayola Markers
- Artline Stix
- Ecoline Brush Pens
- Sharpie Brush Pens
- Pentel Fude Touch Sign Pen
2. Traditional Dip Pens –
Traditional dip pens have two parts –
(i.) The nib
(ii.) The holder
Holder – It can be of two types straight holder for an oblique holder.
Dip pens consist of a metal nib with capillary channels just like fountain pen nibs, which are mounted in a handle or holder, made of wood.
Dip pens have no ink reservoir, so for the continuation of drawing or writing, you need to recharge the ink from an ink bowl or ink bottle. The dip pens have some advantages over a fountain pen.
Dip pens can use waterproof, pigmented iron-gall ink particle and binder-based inks for eg., drawing ink, India ink, and acrylic ink.
While fountain pens use water-based inks only (except in special cases) and should be cleaned regularly to prevent clogging when used with pigmented or waterproof inks.
3. Pencil –
For doing any type of lettering or calligraphy we need a pencil which is one of the most necessary tools. For doing the practice of calligraphy, the pencil is very cheap and comes under budget, so that people can use it.
In Calligraphy we use pencils to do rough concepts by sketching as well as we can create guidelines also.
Now whenever you are using a pencil, then I’ll always suggest you use HB pencils or a mechanical pencil.
Pencil is not just a word so always keep in your mind to never underestimate the importance of pencil! Okay, when you are creating your guidelines than other than a pencil you will be needing a ruler also.
A rolling ruler is best for calligraphy as it allows us to draw shapes and many designer lines within a second.
4. Waterproof Markers –
When it comes to giving a great effect to the lettering you should use a marker from marker many designs and styles can be created. In modern calligraphy in Faux calligraphy marker is mostly used.
Modern calligraphy becomes more and more beautiful when we add some ‘patterns’, ‘colors’, ‘designs’, ‘effects’, and many more things of our choice by using marker.
How to start Modern Calligraphy?
Many people struggle with this problem especially beginners a lot. And, the problem is people hold pens in very different ways but for calligraphy, you need to hold the pen from a particular angle.
If you hold your pen too upright then you won’t get the desired effect of the thick and thin contrast which you need and then the tip for a pen I will also get damaged.
You should know where to apply thin strokes and where thick strokes.
With the combination of seven basic strokes, you can create any letter of the lowercase alphabet.
Fundamental Rules
Two basic fundamental rules which you will be implementing in your practice is:
1. Consistency
2. Spacing
1. Consistency –
For increasing the overall visual harmony, keep your letters consistent.
For consistency in your letter, you should use guidelines.
The most asked question in this is about sizes.
So, as we are discussing modern calligraphy here you can determine the height, size, and angles of letters on your own.
2. Spacing –
If you keep space between letters then it would help you to keep legibility.
For good spacing, you need to go slowly, and between each stroke lift your pen.
Popular Modern Calligraphy Technique
Creation of three different and popular modern calligraphy styles:
1. Bounce Lettering
It seems as the letters bounce up and down that’s why it is said to be bounce lettering.
It is very popular and can be seen on the internet.
2. Distant Lettering
Characteristics of distant lettering are that here the letters have larger space between each.
3. Faux Calligraphy
It is one of the most popular calligraphic forms.
Faux calligraphy can be done with any writing tool and is also very easy to learn.
4. Own unique style style
The best thing about modern calligraphy is that you can create anything unique in your own way.
Just remember to take care of consistency, balance, and space.
Final thoughts
After reading this, you might be thinking about Modern Calligraphy it may be boring or it may seem overwhelming to you but –
Just Start……
.
And, when you start doing it I assure you that you will definitely like this.
