Calligraphy is a gorgeous style of handwriting done using a special pen that has a nib to allow the lines to be thick or thin, depending on the pressure you use when you’re writing. This style of writing is actually hundreds of years old and was used long ago when people needed to use a feather to dip into ink and write.
If you have poor handwriting and you want to learn how to improve handwriting, learning calligraphy can actually help you. By taking the time to learn a new way to write, you’re slowing down and practicing your writing.
If you’d like to learn calligraphy to start improving your handwriting, you may want to start out with a calligraphy tutorial. This gives you the chance to learn more about what you’ll need to get started and how to form each of the letters. By the time you’re done with a tutorial, you’ll have a good start on how to create one style of calligraphy and will have improved your regular handwriting as well.
Why Learn to Do Calligraphy?
Handwriting practice for adults doesn’t need to be boring. Just because you’re interested in improving how your handwriting looks doesn’t mean you need to just practice writing over and over again. If you’d like a change of pace that’s still going to help you have more beautiful handwriting, calligraphy is a great option.
You’ll need to purchase the supplies to learn calligraphy, but you don’t need to spend a lot of money. Then, you’ll want to try out a tutorial to learn how to use the pen, how to hold the pen, and more. When you’re practicing calligraphy, you’re slowing creating the letters and focusing on how they’re formed. Although you won’t use calligraphy in your everyday writing, a lot of this will translate over to your regular handwriting and help it look better than it did before.
What Do You Need to Start Practicing?
You’re going to need a few supplies to start learning calligraphy, and you may not have these on hand. Many of the supplies can be found at local art supply stores or online, making them easy to access. Pick up a calligraphy pen, ink, and paper, then find a calligraphy tutorial so you can start practicing.
The calligraphy pen is a special pen with a nib that’s designed to bend slightly and let out more ink when you use pressure. You’ll learn how and when to apply pressure through your tutorial. It’s important you choose a pen designed for calligraphy as a fountain pen nib is not designed to bend and will not give you the look you need when you’re practicing the calligraphy.
Ink is also easily available, but you do have to make sure you purchase the right ink. It should be marked for use in a calligraphy pen. Fountain pen ink, like the nibs, just won’t work right. The ink used for fountain pens is thicker and can clog your calligraphy pen, causing it to have trouble writing. This could eventually ruin the nib and you’ll need to replace it.
When you’re starting out, you’ll want to find the smoothest paper possible. You may also want to look for practice calligraphy paper that has lines on it. These lines enable you to learn how to make letters at the right height so they will all be uniform. If you cannot find this paper, you can use regular paper as long as it is smooth. You may want to draw your own lines to use.
How Can Tutorials Help You Learn to Do Calligraphy?
After you have the right supplies, you’ll want to find the right tutorial. It’s important to use a tutorial that will start from the beginning and show you everything you need to know about how to hold the pen and how to use the pen to create the stokes needed to form letters. You may want to choose one that’s meant for handwriting practice for adults, as this could provide further instruction that will help you do better with your own handwriting, not just the calligraphy.
You will also want to choose a tutorial that teaches you the style you want to learn. There are many different ways to do calligraphy, so this is often a personal preference. However, you may want to start with a more beginner-friendly style so it’s easier for you to learn. You can always move onto more advanced styles later if you enjoy writing in calligraphy.
How Can Learning Calligraphy Help with Your Handwriting?
When you first learned to write, you took your time and slowly formed each of the letters. It took a long time for you to learn how to write each one, but you eventually developed your own handwriting, which is probably similar to what you use today. However, you may not have used your handwriting much outside of school and, with computers, you may rarely use your own handwriting anymore.
To learn how to improve handwriting, you need to practice. You will want to practice often so you can adjust your handwriting and make it look as nice as possible. However, just writing your letters over and over again can quickly become boring. Instead, you might want to learn a different style of handwriting, like calligraphy.
Although calligraphy is very different from your normal handwriting, you’ll learn to slow down and practice again. Though you’re not practicing your normal handwriting, you are slowing down when you write and practicing how the letters are formed. This will translate over to your standard handwriting and help it look better as you improve your calligraphy.
How Can You Find the Right Tutorial?
Choosing the right tutorial for learning calligraphy is essential. If you’re looking for handwriting practice for adults, you may want to start with a beginner course. You’ll learn how to hold the pen, how to get ink on the pen, how to avoid blobs when you put the pen on the paper, and how to use the right amount of pressure to create strokes.
From there, you’ll learn how to combine different strokes to form the letters. You won’t likely learn capital letters first like you did when you were a child because the capital letters in calligraphy have more flourish and are more difficult than lowercase letters. You also won’t likely learn your letters in order.
Beginner tutorials often teach you the easiest letters first so you can practice the different strokes, then move onto the more difficult letters. A tutorial set up like this will help you make sure you’re learning how to do all of the letters properly so you can create beautiful works of art with your calligraphy.
Going Beyond Basic Calligraphy Lessons
Your beginner calligraphy tutorial is just the first step. If you love learning new ways to write, you can look into other styles of writing as well. There are a number of different calligraphy styles, from more basic lettering to incredibly advanced. Tutorials are available for many different styles of calligraphy, so you can learn the one you want and then move onto another type if you want to continue improving your calligraphy.
If you want to learn more than just calligraphy and improve your handwriting, you might want to learn more about how to do hand lettering as well. Hand lettering encompasses many different styles of writing, including calligraphy, that you can mix and match to create amazing designs. If you’ve seen the signs posted online that have a few different styles of writing in a single phrase, but that all look great together and emphasize different words, you’ve seen how hand lettering can be used to create fantastic works of art.
The more you practice, the more your handwriting will improve. Just learning one style of calligraphy is going to help you boost your handwriting, but the more you learn, the better your handwriting will be. Taking a few online lessons in hand lettering can enable you to make your handwriting look beautiful and can enable you to try out a fun new skill you can use to write letters or create your own designs for projects you may want to do.
Your handwriting likely hasn’t changed much since you were a child. If you’d like to learn how to improve handwriting, you may want to start by learning calligraphy. This is going to help make your normal handwriting more beautiful, and you’ll learn a new skill that’s fun to practice at the same time. You can also go beyond just learning calligraphy and learn how to do hand lettering as well.
Take the time to check out some of the calligraphy and hand lettering tutorials available today. It doesn’t have to be boring to practice writing letters and to work on improving your handwriting, but you are going to want to start today. Soon, you’ll be able to write in many different styles and your own handwriting will be more beautiful and easier to read.
Looking for something to improve you calligraphy or just provide a little inspiration? Try branching out into fashion design or design sketching. These tutorials will help you feel more comfortable with a pen in your hand and potentially give you some new ideas!