Modern Calligraphy: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide

Hey guys, this is Sheena with Cricut Calligraphy and today I am super excited to give you a simple, straightforward, no frills, goof-proof guide, I call it, to getting started with modern pointed pen calligraphy. I just wanted to break it down into the simple exact steps you need to take to get started right and with a minimum of frustration so that you don't give up. So stay tuned, I hope you enjoy this video. All right guys, here are the very basics that you need to get started with modern pointed pen calligraphy and I've chosen supplies that are affordable and pretty widely available so that there's maximum access to them. So first is a Speedball plastic oblique nib holder. It can function as a right-handed oblique or as a left-handed oblique. Number two, Nikko G nib and this is just a really good sturdy medium flex beginner nib. Number three, Sumi Ink and I recommend getting this two ounce size jar from John Neill Bookseller. That way you can dip your nib directly into this jar. If you can't get this size jar, this is actually the brand of Sumi Ink that I prefer. It's called Moon Palace but you can use pretty much any brand of Sumi Ink. They're all very good for beginners. So you can get just the regular bottle and then buy a separate little jar to put the ink into so that you can dip your nib in. And then four, paper and I prefer HP Premium Choice LaserJet paper. The important thing is not the brand but the pound. You want a heavyweight paper and LaserJet seems to work well so the calligraphy ink doesn't bleed or feather into the paper. Sometimes this type of paper is not so widely available outside the U.S. Look for just a high weight, high quality paper, whatever you can find at your local office supply or wherever your local sources are. Another option is special calligraphy practice paper which you can also get at John Neill Bookseller. But those are the four things that you need to buy just four in order to start modern pointed pen calligraphy. So the next step is assembling your calligraphy pen. So you've got your oblique holder and I'm going to put the nib in so that I can use it as a right hand, a right oblique pen which means the flange, this part here, sticks out to the left. But just you can follow the same process really for using it as a left oblique which means the flange sticks out to the right. So you've got your oblique holder you've got your nib and just basic parts of the nib that oval in the middle is called the vent hole and these are the tines and then this is the nib body. So basically you're going to insert the nib body into the oblique holder so the oblique holder has this circle all around the edge of the flange and the nib will fit into that circle and really the only trick of it is making sure your nib is sort of at the right angle just get it in the nib in like really snug and the way to test that it's at the right angle the nib is to place the holder down on the desktop and the vent hole should face straight up towards the ceiling. So it should not be like this that's wrong because the vent hole is facing this way to the side so you just want to twist it around to make sure the vent hole is facing straight up towards the ceiling and if you're going to use it as a left-handed oblique same thing just put it down and make sure the vent hole is facing straight towards the ceiling and you have your calligraphy pen assembled. So once your calligraphy pen is assembled you actually have to take an additional step and this is one that a lot of calligraphy beginners miss and that is cleaning off your nib. So nibs come with a manufacturing residue kind of an oil on them to prevent rusting during shipping and if you try to use it just straight out of the package without doing anything if you try dipping into your ink this is what happens. So you can see that the ink is sort of it's on the nib but it's not evenly on the nib it's beading up right it's not coating the nib evenly and if you try to use the nib just straight like that your ink won't flow properly sort of it'll flow maybe sometimes won't flow other times the ink might blob down it'll be just an exercise in frustration. So there are tons of methods out there for how to clean your nib and different people prefer different methods. I'm lazy so I prefer using what I have right in front of me and doing it in the laziest way possible so I actually just dip into the ink and I have just a paper towel here and a little jar of water and I just kind of wipe off with a paper towel and then dip again wipe that off with a paper towel and give it a little swish in water just to sort of get all the ink off and once you've done that a few times maybe two three four times you will eventually get the ink to coat the nib a little bit more evenly so you can see that the ink is sitting on the nib a little bit more so we're not quite there it will work at that point probably but you want to get maybe a little bit more of it off okay so we want to get to about this point where the ink is pretty much covering most of the nib and that should give you good ink flow. So before we actually get to writing with your calligraphy pen I want to make sure you guys have grabbed your free copy of the Start Modern Calligraphy Guide. Go to startmoderncalligraphy.com and it's an instant download. It has all the tools that I've gone over in this video with clickable links so you know exactly where to buy them. It has all the steps that I've gone through to prepare you to write so you know exactly what you're doing and it also has this worksheet that we're going to be using. It's just a great way to sort of guide you when you're first starting to use your nib so you can get used to the way your nib works and learn how to use it in the proper way. So we're going to use this worksheet for this part of the video. You've cleaned off your nib. It's all assembled in your calligraphy pen so I am going to dip into my ink and I'm only going to dip in just past the vent hole. You don't want to dip the entire nib into the ink because that'll leave way too much ink on there and it'll just blob down and be runny and terrible. So I dip just past the vent hole there and let's just start some of these exercises. So the very basics are heavy down strokes. I'll re-dip there so you can trace and then you can try some of your own and that's really just getting used to the way that your tines open up on your nib to create these fat down strokes. And if that happens, like if your ink runs out there, don't worry about it. Just re-dip, fill it in and keep going. All right, so those are the heavy down strokes. Next is a very, very light up stroke. So you're going to just barely put any pressure at all on the nib and just trace up and you'll see that you're creating a very, very thin hairline and when you're doing this, the tines do not open up at all and that's the basics of how you create the contrast in calligraphy. Very thick down strokes and very light up strokes. So let's try just putting those together. So you'll notice I'm holding the calligraphy pen in just a normal pen grip. Hopefully you've learned to grip your pen this way. If you haven't then you might have to do some adjustments because you want your nib to hit at a shallow angle to the page so you do not want it to be upright like this. If you're trying to write straight up and down, it's just never going to work. Your nib's going to scratch the page, your ink's going to blob down. So really it's not upright like this. You want to relax down so your nib hits the page at a shallow angle and then you'll also notice that my nib is pointing in the direction of the down stroke that I'm going to make. So I'm going to make this down stroke like this so my nib is pointing in that direction. You always want your nib to point in the direction of the down stroke that you're going to make. All right and the up strokes, that's less important. The up strokes you go really lightly. So that's not as important that the nib face that way but for down strokes, right, if you think about the tines opening up evenly you always want the nib to face the way that it's going to go. Okay so I've just gotten a little bit of paper fiber in my nib. Don't worry about that. Just wipe it off with your paper towel and keep going. So just try some of these and this is really just to get you sort of used to your nib and how you want to do those heavy down strokes and light up strokes. So let's move on to the varied pressure exercises and this is just really to see what your nib can do. So on these, try pressing really hard on that nib. As long as it's at the right angle, right, it's pointing the way that the down stroke is going to go and I'm holding the pen correctly. It's not upright like this. It's down like this. You can, so I'm going to start really light and then I'm going to go a little bit thicker, a little bit thicker. You can really press hard on these nibs and you probably won't break them. I've never seen anybody do it. They're made out of steel. They're very sturdy. So just see how thick of a stroke you can get and here we're just doing that same sort of exercise above but trying to vary the pressure. So just kind of gradually increase the pressure and this is just so you can see what your nib is capable of, right, and I'm always pointing again in the way that the down stroke is going to go. All right, the next exercise is a little bit trickier because you're actually going to be flowing from light to heavy. So you're not going to lift your nib off the page. All right, you're going to go really light and then try adding a little bit of pressure here and then adding a little bit more pressure and you're only adding pressure on the down strokes. So the down strokes are heavy. The up strokes and actually anytime you're going sideways are always super light. All right, so light, light, light, heavy and then light again. Light, light, light, light, light, heavy. Light, light, light, light, light, heavy and that again is just an exercise to sort of get you used to the way that your nib sort of moves across the page and opens up. All right, and the final strokes on this page and they just kind of get more challenging as you go down are connected strokes. So again you're not going to lift your off the page. Go really slow and just see if you can control. You're going really light and then heavy on the down strokes. Really light all the way around. Heavy on the down strokes. Really light. So you're really only putting pressure on the nib when you're going down and you're taking that pressure off before you get to the bottom. So these just kind of help you. This is just an upside down version. Just do some practice with these. Trace and then try around and it really kind of just will get you used to the way your nib works. Get you more into the flow. Get you used to how your nib likes to behave and then this one is going to be the hardest one. You want to go really slow. So I know that there will be the urge to rush through this but if you rush you won't be training your hand muscles and your arm muscles to be doing that change in pressure, right? So very, very, very light all the way around until you go heavy down and then very, very, very light all the way around until you go heavy down. So the great thing about this free pdf is you can print it over and over again. Print it on your, this page at least, on your nice laser jet paper or calligraphy paper that I recommended before and that way you can do the calligraphy straight on it and it'll sort of take the ink nicely and it won't feather and bleed but you can print this page over and over again, practice these basic strokes and that'll really give you a great solid foundation for starting in modern calligraphy and from here you can move into basic shapes, letters and all that awesome stuff. So that's it for this three-step start modern calligraphy goof proof guide video. Don't forget to grab your free downloadable pdf at startmoderncalligraphy.com and I really, really hope that this resource allows you to get started in an easy, confident way so you can get into the world of modern calligraphy which I love and which I think is wonderful. All right, see you next time guys!