How to Start Doing Modern Calligraphy with Brush Pen

Have you ever scrolled through Instagram or Pinterest and admired those beautiful, flowing, waves-like, hand-lettered quotes or header on top of study notes? That is called calligraphy, to be more specific, modern calligraphy. Modern calligraphy is a creative/decorative form of writing that is more flexible than traditional calligraphy. Modern calligraphy has more freedom to be creative and experimental with the strokes, colors, and shapes combination to create a visual appealing writing.

Source: Instagram (@notesmangka)

Source: Instagram (@amandarachlee)

Do you wonder how people make them? Or maybe you’ve tried but it doesn’t look as you’ve imagined. The same thing happened to me. Back in middle school, I got interested in modern calligraphy after seeing some posts about study notes and journaling on social media. I watched a few videos and decided to give it a try. It looked really bad at first, but as I practiced slowly and applied it in my study notes and journaling, it got much better.

The good news is you don’t need perfect handwriting or expensive tools to start. With knowing the basics and a lot of practice, anyone can learn modern calligraphy. In this article, we will explore what tools you need, the basic strokes to master, and simple tips to help you start your calligraphy journey.

Step 1: Prepare the tools

First, let’s look at the tools you need. Prepare any paper or book for you to practice on. Because you are just starting, there is no need for you to buy the expensive ones with a high quality with thick GSM (Gram per Square Metre). Just use whatever paper or notebook you have around you.

Well, you can start doing calligraphy without practicing on the guidelines, but your calligraphy will likely look messy, the strokes will look inconsistent, and it will take a lot of practice and time. You can use a lined or small grid school notebook as the guidelines. 

But if you are using plain paper, take your pencil/pen and a ruler, then draw 3-5 guidelines. You can adjust the spacing between the lines, which will affect the size of your calligraphy. 

I don’t recommend starting with small guidelines because it will be harder to practice your hand to create the thick and thin strokes. You can also download calligraphy guideline sheets from the internet. They’re available in many styles and can make your practice much easier.

For the calligraphy, we use brush pen, a hybrid between pen and traditional calligraphy brush. It has a flexible brush tip with a grip of a normal pen. There are a lot of brush pen options in the marketplace. The brands that are well known among people are Tombow, Mildliner, Pentel, Koi, etc. However, these brands are known for their high quality, which is why these options come at a higher price. 

If you don't want to spend a lot of money yet, there are a lot of other brand options that are more affordable with a good quality, such as local brands like Snowman, Joyko, Kenko, etc. I recommend you to try these affordable ones first, as it’s going to cost you less while practicing your calligraphy. As you get more comfortable and familiar with calligraphy, you can get those more high quality brush pens. But at the end it’s up to you. Actually, you can do calligraphy with basic stationeries, like pen, pencil, and highlighter. It is called faux calligraphy, but I will talk about it in another time.

Step 2: Learn & practice the basic strokes used in calligraphy 

Modern calligraphy has a similar concept to writing in cursive. But it’s important to remember that they are not the same. In calligraphy, consistency in every stroke is essential. This makes calligraphy require patience so the letters can look neat and well-formed. 

To achieve this, we can practice it like cursive writing combined with the thick and thin strokes. In calligraphy, there are two main strokes: a thin upward stroke that looks like a usual pen/pencil stroke and a thick downward stroke that is created by applying gentle pressure on the brush pen. Practice these strokes slowly on your paper a lot of times until you grasp the concept and feel familiar with it.

Step 3: Apply it to the alphabet, word, sentence

Once you understand the concept of the thick and thin strokes, apply it to the alphabet, try making them one by one and then try to connect one alphabet with another alphabet. Just do it slowly and practice a lot. While you're practicing, try to make a word, and then continue it word by word until it forms into a sentence!

Step 4: Search other styles for inspirations

Congratulations, now you can do modern calligraphy! Next, you can search for inspiration and see how others do modern calligraphy with their own style on Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. Keep practicing and try a lot of style combinations with the observe, imitate, and modify technique, until you form your own modern calligraphy style!

Source: My Pinterest Search Page

Source: Instagram (@gunjancreates & @gunjangoyal_)

Remember don't be too hard on yourself while practicing, especially when it doesn’t turn out the way you expected or like the ones on social media. Just do it with a happy heart and relax. Happy practicing! (Deka)