You love to doodle on the edges of your notebook and play with fun fonts, but do you want to actually get better at it? Look no further! This article is here to help all of those creative people who want to start to refine their “margin artwork”. Starting to experiment with calligraphy can be intimidating, but once you get the hang of it… it’s really fun!
You can do calligraphy with the supplies you already have in your backpack! You don’t need to go to the store and buy fancy quills and ink, just start with a simple marker. The trick is to do your normal cursive but make the strokes thicker on the down stroke and thinner on the up stroke. Practice doing this with the entire alphabet, lower and upper case. At first your calligraphy will just look like your boring old cursive. But like with anything, the more you practice the better you will get!
Once you’ve practiced the alphabet a few times you can start connecting them into whole words. Try to get used to the different pressure you have to use with the marker to get the thick vs. the thin lines. It takes a while to get used to, so don’t beat yourself up if it takes you a while. Eventually, the connection of the letters is where you can really make it look fancy. You can put one letter higher than the other and change the spacing between them. This creates dimension in your calligraphy and really brings it to life!
Start writing your favorite words, best friends names and anything else with fun loopy letters. Practice making ornate capital letters to begin your words and very intricate tails of letters like “y”. Really play around and have fun! Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes only make you better!
Now you have all of the tools that you need to become a calligraphy pro! Practice, practice, practice is all it takes.