Calligraphy Tips: Connecting Basic Strokes to Form Letters

Hi guys, Charisse here from Pieces Calligraphy. In this video, we're going to review connecting the basic strokes to form letters. Now I'm really excited to share this video with you for two reasons. First, we just finished the basic stroke series, which was an eight week long series where every week I shared a new basic stroke with you. I reviewed it, showed you how to create it, and then you went and practiced it. And if you haven't checked that series out, definitely go back and review them because it's important to be familiar and just really know how to create those basic strokes before you create your letters. And secondly, I'm excited for this video because we're in the middle right now on Instagram of the hand-lettered ABCs challenge, which is a daily challenge where participants share one letter a day. And it's really cool to see the different variations and styles. So this is my style that I want to share with you using the basic strokes. Okay. So let's start with reviewing the basic strokes just really briefly. Okay. We're going to pretend that this is my ascender line. Okay. And then this is my header baseline and then descender. Okay. So these dots here are just kind of like the midpoint of the ascender and the descender space. And let's see. Okay. So we have our entrance stroke. I did the underturn stroke next. There's the overturn, compound curve, oval, descending stem loop, and ascending stem loop. I should have made this a little bit bigger to have more space there, but that's okay. And then we have the full pressure stroke. So those are basic strokes that we can have as reference when I do a couple of letters here. For examples, let's do the letter A and just jump right into it. So, okay. So for the letter A, remember when you're connecting an entrance stroke to an oval, you don't necessarily have to go up all the way to the to the waistline. You can just stop about two-thirds up. And then the next stroke is an oval and then it's followed by an underturn stroke. Okay. So this is what the basic strokes look like that create the letter A. Here's what they look like when you add them all together. Okay. So let's do about two more letters. How about, let's just go and order the letter B. The letter B is a little funny because it ends with this comma dot, which isn't a basic stroke, but it's a pretty commonly used one. Okay. So entrance stroke, ascending stem loop, and then it turns into an underturn. And let's do the letter C. Entrance stroke, you don't have to go all the way up because we're connecting to a rounded stroke. I really want to do the whole alphabet, but I want to keep this short and to the point since we're focusing here on connections. So three things to know when you're connecting basic strokes. The first thing is to lift. Okay. You need to lift your pen. Don't think of a cursive. And when you're writing in cursive, oftentimes you rarely lift up your pen, maybe to cross a T or to dot an I. But you're essentially leaving your pen to the page. But with calligraphy, the elegance comes in lifting your pen. Okay. So I create my entrance stroke. I lift up into the side, creating an oval. Then I lift up again, and then I find the starting point for my underturn and then finish the stroke. Okay. So it's really key to lift your pen. And part of lifting, I think my next, okay. So first you need to know the basic strokes. Second, you need to lift. Third is you need to look ahead. And that kind of goes hand in hand with lifting because as I'm lifting this, so I'm looking at my stroke, right? If I can't really show you my eyeballs, but as I am creating the next stroke, I'm looking ahead to what this oval would look like. I'm not just randomly picking a spot. I'm actually envisioning it here. And what do we know about the oval? Looking up here, we know that it has this thicker stroke on the left side, and we want the entrance stroke to rest right outside of that thick stroke. We don't want it to line up within here, closer to the inside of that stroke. So I'm lift. After I make my entrance stroke, I look up, lift, look over and create my oval. And then again, looking ahead, I'm envisioning the space needed for this underturn stroke. And I'm not going to start my stroke here because look what would happen. It's super squished. Can't breathe. It's not elegant. The space here is so tight. So it's important to look ahead and lift accordingly and then place the tip of your pen in a position that would allow you to create the next stroke, but have it sit very nicely. Okay. So those are the connections that I wanted to point out. I'm going to grab two different colors here to really further demonstrate my point. I know using different colors is really helpful. So let's do the letter B. We have an entrance stroke. I might have started that a little too low. Okay. See how the entrance stroke sits right outside of that big stroke. And then when I create my comma dot, I know it's a look ahead, but it's also just envisioning your next stroke because this is not really ahead. It's within this stroke, but you see how I'm looking at where I'm placing my tip of my pen. I kind of came back inside of this bowl or this loop here. And then I made my comma dot so that the outside of that stroke, this part, I'm sorry, this part right here is sitting on the inside of that stroke. Okay. So there you have it. Those are the three tips that I just wanted to go over when it comes to connecting your stroke. Actually, let's do a letter C real quick. Okay. So entrance stroke, don't have to go up all the way. Letters C. You see how I looked ahead to envision the C where placing my pen in such a way that it sits right outside of the entrance stroke. And these things come with time. Don't stress out if you're not really picking it up so quickly. It takes time to aim and know where to put the strokes. So that way they're lined up correctly and they look elegantly. The key here is to just keep practicing. Take one letter at a time, which is the great thing about the challenge we're doing on Instagram. Take one letter at a time and just study these basic strokes here that create it. And then start practicing that letter over and over. And don't forget to take breaks. And just wanted to throw out there to those of you who've been following me on Instagram, I did share a new worksheet that has been in the works for a while. And I know that will be really helpful for you guys. Once you can see the basic strokes, how they make up each letter. I'm not ready with that worksheet yet, but in the meantime, you can go to my website under my learn page where you can find my entire alphabet. So I hope that helps for now until I'm working on that basic stroke connection sheet. Okay, so that's all I have for you in this video on connecting basic strokes. I hope it was helpful. Please let me know below what you thought. Have you tried connecting strokes? What works for you? What do you want to see in a future video? Maybe you need more clarification or you want me to go into more detail with one of the tips I shared today. And be sure to follow me on my blog where I'll go into depth with these basic strokes and connecting them at pieces calligraphy.com. And you can also follow me on Instagram for my latest work at pieces calligraphy. Thanks guys for watching and I hope you're having a great day. Bye.