Calligraphy Tools & Materials

Series Summary

In basic terms, calligraphy is simply the art of writing. Today's society, however, sees calligraphy as more of an expression of symbols in a skilled, harmonious manner. The calligraphy alphabet comes in an endless variety because much of the text is determined by the skill and creativity of the calligrapher. Often, calligraphy is used for formal occasions, such as wedding and event invitations, logo designs and religious art, though many people enjoy writing calligraphy for fun in their daily lives.

No matter what your reason is for learning calligraphy, it's best to start with the basics and work your way up, as in any art form. In this free video series, a professional calligrapher will teach you how to write cursive italic calligraphy starting with the materials and ending with formats for different uses. You'll learn how to write every letter of the alphabet in lower case and upper case, how to write numbers and punctuations, and eventually how to put it all together into whole words and sentences. With these writing tips and techniques, you'll soon be able to impress friends, invited guests, and others with beautiful cursive italic calligraphy.

Video Transcript

"In this clip, I'll be showing you how to choose tools and materials for doing italic cursive calligraphy. First of all, you're going to need a pen, a nib holder and nibs. It's a little more complicated, but it's worth it in the end for the result. You also need some ink and I prefer Cali ink because it's a nice opaque, rich ink. But you can use any kind of ink. I have many different ones that I use for various projects depending on what it is I'll be doing. But for this use, we're going to be just using the black Cali ink or any other black ink and dipping in the pen. You also need some paper. I have some good calligraphy paper. Just plain paper to work with. I always have an H pencil on hand. This is a soft lead, so that it erases easily and a magic rub eraser. You can also get an eraser that is in a pen like this and these are very good to use with calligraphy because you can get around the lines. The other thing I use is a T square, so that I can rule up and measure lines on my paper with my pencil. Besides that, I often will have a tissue or a paper towel or a rag to do clean up and to blot the ink. And a piece of paper for blotting the ink. You'll need that as well or blotting paper. If you're not in a place where you can be using a dip pen, maybe you're traveling or you're not some place where you can have access to clean it up, I then recommend you use a calligraphy marker at a five-o size, which is about the same as the C-O nib. So you're going to get relatively the same sizing for your lettering. And it's convenient for practicing, but it's not something I would use in a final project."