Learn how to write individual calligraphy letters from the modern calligraphy alphabet with step-by-step photos, video tutorial and free printable calligraphy alphabet! Master the calligraphy alphabet with ease in this how to learn calligraphy series.
Learning calligraphy is easy when you take it one step at a time! Today Alicia, calligrapher from On Three Designs is teaching you the modern calligraphy alphabet via video and step-by-step photos. She’s immensely talented and in addition to addressing wedding invitations, she designs them along with crests / monograms, personalized dog artwork and so much more!
Learn individual calligraphy letters and master each with a little practice. Alphabet letters look so much prettier in modern calligraphy! Soon you’ll be ready to address an envelope or create a beautiful piece of art! If you’re just getting started, I highly recommend you start here! Even better, sign up here to have the series delivered directly to your inbox.
Each lesson will be delivered in order to allow you time to practice. After all, practice makes permanent.
“Practice makes permanent.”
The calligraphy alphabet is often referred to as various fonts, however calligraphy is letters drawn by hand. While practice makes perfect, you’ll find that your natural handwriting will still influence your individual letters. That’s why it’s importantly to be thoughtful of each stroke and examine each letter to ensure accuracy.
“Fonts” are referred to as a hand in calligraphy.
Learn Individual Calligraphy Letters
- First, make sure you’re holding the pen (your writing tool) properly. You can get caught up here in this post how to write calligraphy, learning the basic strokes.
- Hold your pen at a 45 degree angle allow the sharp part of your nib to press down to the paper. The curve of the nib should be facing down.
- Turn your paper at an angle.
- Using your gridlines as your guide and basic strokes go light on the upstroke, heavy on the downstroke to achieve thick and thin lines.
- Dip pen as needed. Use a separate sheet of paper to test ink flow.
Let’s see a few more calligraphy letters going light on the upstrokes adding pressure on the downstrokes, shall we? You can see above that Alicia gently put the tip of the nib down to the paper to prepare for an upstroke. And completed the “J” with a heavy downstroke. This is true for all calligraphy letters.
“What seems so hard now, will one day be your warm up.”
Tips for Mastering the Calligraphy Alphabet
- It’s okay to lift your pen from the paper. Unlike cursive, calligraphy letters are consisted of individual strokes connected together.
- Ink glitch? Fill it in!
- Practice, practice, practice.
How to Perfect Calligraphy Letters
After you write each letter, compare to the printable exemplar and see how you can improve it. Note any differences and try again! Calligraphy alphabets are built from a series of basic shapes. Be consistent.
Ascenders and Descenders
Are the ascender strokes consistently thin? Are the descender strokes consistently thick? Keep the weight of your strokes homogenous.
Counters
A counter is the space that is entirely or partially enclosed by a letter form (the hole). Letters with closed counters include A, B, D, O, P, Q, R, a, b, d, e, g, o, p, and q. C, c, f, h, i, s and so on contain open counters.
Are your closed counters the same approximate widths? Open counters? Again, consistency is key in your calligraphy letters.
Height
Make sure your ascenders are the same height, your descenders are the same height and that all of your letters touch the baseline (the line your letters rest on) in the same place.
Get Your Complimentary Modern Calligraphy Alphabet Worksheets
Click here to download the modern calligraphy alphabet to start practicing all of your calligraphy letters!
This modern style is easy to achieve with lots of practice. Watch the YouTube video in this post to learn all your alphabet letters (and don’t forget to click subscribe)! You can save this post to Pinterest by clicking the Pin button above to reference it later.
You can get the traditional calligraphy alphabet here.
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