Calligraphy for Beginners: Creating Strong Lines
What you'll learn
- develop your pen skills, using a Pilot Parallel calligraphy pen
- create strong calligraphic strokes
- design a tattoo (or ornamental graphic) using the calligraphy strokes learned in class
Requirements
- 6.0 mm Pilot Parallel Pen
- 3.8 mm Pilot Parallel Pen
- Pilot Parallel Pen ink cartridges (blue-black is recommended)
- Premium-quality inkjet paper or Clairefontaine paper
Description
This class is a project-based introduction to my favorite calligraphy tool – the Pilot Parallel Pen, a popular broad-edge pen, often featured in YouTube videos.
This class will guide students through exercises which teach pen angle and developing rhythm, while creating a series of marks you can work with in creating your unique project. Using close-up video, I'll demonstrate working with the pen, using only the ink that comes with the pen and recommended papers and addressing the main challenges faced by beginning calligraphers. Carefully designed worksheets allow you to watch and practice at your convenience.
The project is to design a tattoo (or ornamental design). Learners will be encouraged to create an original design, and given four design approaches to use in designing their tattoo. Body inking is totally optional!
Although designed for beginning calligraphers, this class teaches skills which can enhance the work of illustrators, designers, typographers, tattoo artists, watercolour artists and anyone else who isn’t afraid of a little water-based ink on their fingers! My focus is on the Pilot Parallel pen, but much of the class is applicable to any broad-edged calligraphy pen.
NOTE: This class is the first in a trilogy!
I have created two classes to isolate and teach (1) pen skills and (2) more advanced pen skills plus working with coloured inks in two fun calligraphy classes, as a prelude to learning (3) gothic lettering.
My approach is to get you super comfortable with your tool and acquiring skills with both pen and ink – before turning attention to the more serious work of letterforms. The goal is to lead you step-by-step to calligraphy success!
Who this course is for:
- beginners in calligraphy
- experienced calligraphers who have not worked with the Pilot Parallel pen
- calligraphers who want to refresh their pen skills before starting a project
- calligraphers who use any broad-edge pen
- NOT SUITED for calligraphers who are using pointed pen nibs (i.e. for "Modern Calligraphy" or wedding calligraphy)
Course content
- Preview02:00
Instructor
![Alice Young](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 4.5 Instructor Rating
- 259 Reviews
- 1,773 Students
- 1 Course
Alice is a GDC Certified Graphic Designer, with 20 years of experience in design and communications. She spent a decade working in the studios of multi-national ad agencies (Leo Burnett, Publicis, BBDO) in Toronto, Canada before moving to Canada's west coast in 2000. She continues to work on local, national and international accounts. The focus of her design work is typography and hand lettering.
Her love of letterforms carries through to her practice as a calligrapher and her work spans a broad range of applications – from commercial (logos and workmarks) to just-for-fun (greeting cards) – to exploratory fine art (asemic calligraphy on canvas).
Her calligraphic paintings on canvas have been exhibited and sold internationally. Along with fifty other international calligraphers, she recently participated in the International Exhibition of Calligraphy for 2015, held in Moscow, Russia at the Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy